Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

Success and Frustration

I came stumbled upon an interesting weight loss story today. First off, let me direct you to a page that converts ’stone’, a ridiculous and archaic measure of weight, into pounds, a somewhat less ridiculous and archaic measure of weight.

Stone to Pounds

That will help when you read the dramatic weight loss story. The sad part is that the man who lost so much weight cannot afford plastic surgery and he has an arguably debilitating amount of loose flapping skin. His mother sold her house to pay for his gastric bypass surgery. He would probably be dead now had he stayed at his astoundingly large size.

Vegan Athletes

People who are undergoing rigorous physical training have a much higher protein requirement than moderately active people. I just finished reading an article that profiles an NFL player who made a decision to go Vegan. Conventional training involves eating a lot of meat, fish and dairy as part of a balanced diet. Critics of vegan diets question whether an athlete can be competitive when these foods are off the table. Research shows that a vegan diet that is designed carefully and followed correctly can meet the needs of athletes and not impair their performance. There is no solid evidence that they can improve their performance by going vegan.

Tony Gonzalez was concerned about his longterm health. He heard about The China Study from a stranger on a plane and tried going vegan prior to the beginning of his training season. He was discouraged when he found that he had perceptibly lost some strength and also 10lbs. Rather than give up on his new diet he got advice from a few experts and ended up breaking records during the NFL season. His wife didn’t think he could do a whole season without any cheeseburgers.

Anti-Kimkins Blogs of Note: Kimkins Dangers

This particular blog is worth mentioning because it’s most recent post contains a call to action with regard to getting Kimkins shut down. The material was originally on the LCF board.

My favorite post on Kimkins Dangers has got to be Heidi Diaz Comes Clean (Well, Sorta). The author quotes the coming clean item from Kimkins.com but adds personal commentary (in parenthesis and in red). Some of these are pretty much exactly what many of us were thinking as we read Heidi’s words back when she first wrote them.

Queen Latifa Talks About Weight Loss and Health

My favorite part of this video is at 1:45. For some reason People used a headline that read 200lbs & Loving It! when the Queen was on the cover. She was quick to announce that she weighed more than that. I think it is bizarre and shameful the way the media and celebrities lie about the numbers. I’m sure a lot of people who read this blog felt some pretty strong emotions when Oprah was going along with Kirstie Ally’s claim that her highest weight was 200lbs. It’s nice to see a celebrity that’ll admit to being heavy, even if she wasn’t coming right out with a real number.

Can Dr. Marty Tashman of YourMarriageCounselor.com Help You?

While checking out YourMarriageCounselor.com, I found a list of what a researcher and author describes as the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse with regard to marriage. They are criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. I doubt that anyone who has been married for any length of time has ever managed to avoid either riding or being trampled by some or all of these horses. If you are searching for counseling, there is hope.

Dr. Marty Tashman is the face of YourMarriageCounselor.com and he thinks that positive change should occur during the very first session of counseling. He is not suggesting that every marriage can be saved. He specializes in short term counseling and also in counseling couples where on member of the couple is dealing with an addiction.

Relationship difficulties are often an unfortunate side effect of dramatic weight loss. I did a very quick bit of research to see if experts agreed with my observations. There are lots of experts saying that people who lose a lot of weight often have marital difficulties and that there are several very different reasons for this. I could start a whole new blog on the subject. Or I could write a book.

Kimkins Exposure

The tangled web that is the Kimkins Controversy was given the cookie-cutter treatment of television journalism a few days ago. It is great that countless people who may have never heard of Kimkins got the basic messages that it is a fraud and that it is not a well researched and safe way of eating.

Actually, I am curious as to how many people would have seen this item on Good Morning America. I was surprised to learn that the TV show is aired in Europe, the Middle East, the Philippines and Australia. The show spent a lot of years as the #1 morning show in America. In November 2006, GMA averaged 5.1 million viewers. It has been a close second to The Today Show for many years.

So it’s quite likely that millions of people saw this news item. The only website that was mentioned and shown on television was Heidi’s site. It may be a bit early to look for the effect of the television exposure on her traffic, but so far it seems to have been minimal.

Support For Those With Eating Disorders

A Kimkins staff member has stated on national television that they try to prevent people from developing eating disorders by providing support. Just prior to this statement she admits that the incidence of eating disorders in a group of people with food issues is inevitable.

I am curious about what happens when this support does not prevent an eating disorder. What happens when someone who is active on the forum makes statements that are clear indications that they have an eating disorder? What happens when someone on the Kimkins forum is vocally concerned that something is wrong with their personal way of eating?

Another ABC News Infomercial

I am surprised at these items on network news that are basically infomercials. If I was a hard nosed reporter covering this, I think I would talk to someone about whether a blue laser reflectance value for our hand has any relationship at all to the levels of antioxidants in our blood. I am not a hard nosed reporter, but I can still do a quick search…

These people are good. The BioPhotonic Scanner technology is owned by a nutriceutical company and seems to have been the cornerstone for a turn of the century MLM scheme. I have no idea how they were able to get such favorable coverage on ABC news. Maybe they pay for it. Maybe the News teams are happy to be spoon fed a story by a self-interested source. They do fire off one or two quick sentences that let them off the hook in the event that it is out and out fraud.

Anti-Kimkins Blogs of Note: About About.com

About.com is not a blog. Its content is written by over 600 people who are called guides. They are considered experts on a particular topic and they are compensated by About.com, which is owned by the New York Times. The coverage of Kimkins is informative and well written. As an added bonus, the staff at Kimkins responded to the initial article claiming that it was biased and misinformed. What they got for their effort was a closer look. Anybody who has looked closely at Kimkins is going to be more critical, not less critical. Low Carb Diet Guide Laura Dolson included the rebuttal from Kimkins with her update and made further additions as people such as Christin left Kimkins. Christin was in charge of PR when the About.com coverage began

Diet Scams From Yesteryear

The researchers at Snopes are unsure as to whether anyone ever sold pills containing tape worms as a fad diet. There are some old advertisements with this claim. Prior to the FDA, medicines did not always contain what they claimed to contain. Either way, it was certainly an inadvisable way to try to lose weight.

Another interesting story from Snopes, this one absolutely true…

Graham crackers are named after a nutty minister who advocated vegetarianism as a way to combat lust. He was of the opinion that being oversexed lead to all kinds of physical and mental deficiencies and increased infant mortality. Ironically, he was dead set against refined flour as well. Years after his death, commercially produced graham crackers containing refined wheat flour became very popular.