Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

Alcohol

There is anecdotal evidence and some hearsay that Heidi Diaz struggles with alcoholism. Her recent blog post about alcohol speaks volumes by saying almost nothing at all. There are carbs in alcoholic drinks. That is true, but there is also alcohol. Alcohol is a mind altering and addictive substance. If there is one aspect of this woman that gets my unadulterated sympathy it is the drinking.

For people without issues related to alcohol (extending to family members as well), consider drinking 1 glass of red wine several days per week. It has been shown to benefit blood cholesterol ratios.

Anti-Kimkins Blogs of Note: Jimmy

I’m guessing that about 0.2% of the people that end up reading my title will react by thinking to themselves Jimmy who?

Jimmy is a low carb weight loss success story who went on to become a pro blogger and the host of a vibrant free low carb community. He has a lot of personality.

Jimmy spent months as a Kimkins affiliate and drew harsh criticism for a part of that time. His audio interview with Kimmer (who at that time was not admitting to her identity as Heidi Diaz) was a defining moment of this saga. I think you can pinpoint the moment when he stopped giving Kimmer the benefit of the doubt. He asked her if the picture of the woman in the red dress was, in fact, her. She said it was, in a tone of voice very much like the one that Heidi Diaz would later use to say No Comment to Chip Yost. The popularity of the audio interview with Jimmy Moore meant that thousands of people had absolutely no doubt that Heidi Diaz was Kimmer as soon as she spoke on camera. Surprisingly, Kimmer continued to deny being Heidi Diaz for some time after that.

Anti-Kimkins Blogs of Note: Slamboard

Slamboard definitely deserves a mention in this series of posts on anti-Kimkins. The photographs of an obese Heidi Diaz were published there first. These photos were taken by PI Robert Charlton of Alliance Investigative Services.

The focus of Slamboard has shifted away from the Kimkins Controversy lately, but the older posts are a great resource for everyone with an interest in the story. There are now lots of vocal detractors with inside information because most of the former insiders fled when they realized or suspected the truth… or they got kicked out for asking questions. Slamboard posts all comments that are not spam. There are several comments from Kimmer’s defenders and they make for an interesting read.

Anti-Kimkins Blogs of Note: Borat???

Where do I start with this blog review? I recently saw some hand wringing with regard to the offbeat humor that is the spawn of the Kimkins fraud. This blog is the penultimate example of this humor, if only for the reason that I have a new spell check and I wanted to see if I could spell penultimate right the first time. Unlike the real Borat, I don’t think this blogger ever fessed up to their true identity. It could be an open secret, I am way out of the loop on a lot of things.

This blog is ridiculous enough to be forgiven. The blogger also has good timing in that they quit when the joke had run its course.

People Continue to Defend Heidi and Kimkins

YouTube commentary is truly the lowest form of discourse. The anonymity encourages people to throw all semblance of civility out the window. Lying and outright outrageousness are pastimes for many users. But I digress… what I really wanted to post about was the fact that someone chose to post a comment on the YouTube version of the Heidi Diaz surveillance video this week. It is not a smart ass kid or a petty jokester, someone wanted to express their outrage about the exposure and defend the diet against its detractors. I will quote it in its entirety:

People should be ashamed of themselves. Invading someone’s privacy because the diet failed for you or caused a side effect. NEWSFLASH, all diets cause side effects, some minimal and others more extreme. No one held a gun to your head and forced you to join the kimkins site or to even do the diet. This diet works wonders for people who are SEVERLY obese, not people who need to lose 10 pounds to fit into their party dress for the weekend.

I think that this 25 year old American Girl with the really pretty name and no videos or favorites might even be Kimmer.

Will Kimkins Endure?

I really do expect Kimkins.com to go away at some point, but I am not certain that it will. I know enough about the internet to know that the site metrics have a value in and of themselves. The lifetime subscription business model could come to an end and the site could remain in some form to generate advertising revenue.

Even though some advice that was dispensed by Kimkins.com runs counter to current medical standards for a safe and healthy diet, low carb eating is still a popular and viable option. I think one advantage that Heidi has is her keen understanding of her core demographic. It is actually almost scary how well she can speak to the conventions and insecurities of middle class house wives. Maybe she should become a political strategist. She would have to have a minder of some sort to look after the loose ends

The Fear of Doctors

When the validity of the original Kimkins diet was still being aggressively defended, the assertion that members were advised to consult with their doctor was hailed as a panacea that should sanitize the internet of all doubts about the plan. After everything that has come out at this point I am legitimately worried that some individuals may have incurred real harm from this way of eating and that they have not yet and may not ever consult with a doctor about their problems. For one thing, health care systems are in various states of disrepair in many countries and for another thing, some people have a crippling irrational fear of doctors. When the idea came to me that Kimkins survivors might be avoiding professional health care, I did a quick bit of research. I found out that the fear of doctors is a serious and prevalent problem. I also found some websites that claim to be able to cure the phobia. I don’t know if they are legitimate.

A Review of Diets in Review’s Review of Kimkins

The most dramatic part of that effort to bring the truth out about Kimkins is of course the seemingly unlikely finding of all those Russian Bride pictures. A less obvious but arguably more important effort involved getting the truth all over the first page of a Google search for Kimkins. When everyone was actively blogging as events unfolded and more facts came to light, the Kimkins website itself was just about the only site that was promoting Kimkins on that page. I knew better than to ever think Kimkins.com would lose its spot.

Right now, Diets In Review has the number two spot. It’s not often that you will see a blogger that is happy to have a site ranking higher than their own for a term, but I really am in this case. This is the review site that included a rebuttal from Tippy Toes as an addition to their review. This is a great read for people who are keeping up with current drama related to the woman. The succinct review was very accurate when it came out. The face/ass saving efforts in the interim have generally involved repeatedly tweaking the plan on a point by point basis in response to criticism. There is no plan at this point, and yet there is still a site at which you can pay $60 for the plan, although not with PayPal. I hope lots of people who are searching for an answer to a weight problem find the review first even though it is only number two on the search for Kimkins.

The Good Fight

The effort to bring the Kimkins fraud to light involved a lot of blogs. Some blogs, like this one for instance, were created expressly for that purpose. Other blogs were established blogs that were devoted to the cause until results were achieved and then went back to their regularly scheduled programming. There were also some blogs that may have only mentioned the controversy once or twice.

I would like to say thank you to all the other bloggers.

I would also encourage the people who started blogging because of the Kimkins Controversy to continue blogging about something else. I notice that some bloggers chose to use Blogspot while others went with WordPress. As an experienced blogger, I would recommend using WordPress as a template but registering a domain on your own.

Generating interest in the Kimkins controversy was easy. Generating interest in your own ideas about weight loss or any other topic may prove more difficult. Here is a list of sites that can be useful for generating readers:

Blogexplosion
MyBloglog
Blogcatalog
Technorati
Bloghub
Blogflux
Eatonweb
lsblogs
Globeofblogs
Blogit

I am unfamiliar with a few of those tools. I am not a big fan of Digg, but it is sometimes worth a try if you have a story that you think is of great general interest. Blogrush is a very new thing that some people like and others are not that excited by.

I became aware of a really interesting person by way of her interest in the Kimkins scam. Joy Nash is moderately famous for her Fat Rant and she has a blog that goes by the same name. Go check her out.

Affiliate Programs Run on Money

Many of the affiliates that had names and faces have either walked away from Kimkins, or run away as the fraud was being brought to light. Some affiliates are hardcore anything for money types and they will stay until the money runs dry. I think it has run dry.

The pages that these people built to draw people to Kimkins will probably remain on the internet for some time. The people who couldn’t be bothered with ethics aren’t going to bother going to the trouble of pulling up their traps. If the sites have good search engine placement, you might see new ads from other diet sites showing up on these Kimkins affiliate sites.