Calling ALL Former Kimkins Members in San Diego County:

If you are a former Kimkins member and you reside in San Diego County, John Tiedt would appreciate hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Please call or email John or use the Contact Us form on his website.

If you know of any former Kimkins members in San Diego County, please be sure to let them know that John Tiedt is looking for their assistance.

Everyone can help by spreading the word about this search.

Thank you very much for ALL your help.

~*~*~*~

For those who may not already know, John Tiedt is the lawyer handling the Kimkins Class Action Lawsuit.

I do hope that all former Kimkins members will consider joining the Kimkins Class Action Lawsuit, if you have not already done so. There is strength in numbers.

If you have already joined the Lawsuit via email, please be sure that you get your affidavit to John as soon as possible.

Remember, if you need any help with completing this, be sure to watch the helpful video.

Thank you!

Kimkins Diet: Big Fat Fraud? | Diet Reviews by Answer Fitness®

The Kimkins Diet Promises Dramatic Weight Loss, But A Little Investigation Shows Kimkins Is A Diet Disaster

I first saw the Kimkins Diet pop up in the Yahoo Answers Diet and Fitness category about 12 months ago.  Someone calling herself “Kimmer” was trolling the diet-related questions and posting cookie-cutter answers touting an amazing new diet that was “better than Atkins.” The claims seemed incredible: weight loss of up to 124 lbs and zero need to exercise.

Being curious about this “miracle diet” I clicked through.

What I found was typical of a fad diet site: Unbelievable claims of dramatic weight-loss, the usual testimonials (predominately from women) with before and after pictures, and “Kimmer’s” story of how she went from fat to model-thin using her own “amazing” diet plan.

There were even before and after pictures of Kimmer demonstrating her own transformation from morbidly obese to svelte beauty. With her low-cut leopard top and smoky eyes, I had to admit Kimmer looked pretty hot. It was hard to believe she was the same woman in the grainy “before” picture who looked like she was steadying herself with the handrail to keep from falling over under all that extra weight.

I clicked back to Yahoo Answers, marked her post as “spam” and moved on. 

Over the coming months, I saw a few questions about the “Kimkins Diet” here and there, posted some responses dismissing it as a unhealthy crash diet and recommended spending your $79.95 “membership fee” on some healthy, whole food.

I more or less forgot about it.

And then it hit. In June 2007, Woman’s World Magazine featured a cover story on the Kimkins Diet, complete with the pictures of glowing Kimkins success stories and the sensational headline “Better Than Gastric Bypass!”

Suddenly, Kimkins had gone mainstream.

What Is The Kimkins Diet?

The Kimkins Diet website describes the Kimkins diet as a “low-fat, low-carb” weight-loss program that “doesn’t require pills, special foods, expensive supplements” or “exercise.” It also presents itself as an alternative to costly gastric bypass surgery, which immediately throws up a red flag that the diet is targeting the most desperately overweight people — people who really need the help of a nutritionist and medical weight loss professional, not an Internet guru.

The Kimkins Diet also recommends limiting dietary fiber. In coaching emails to members, “Kimmer” advises against supplementing with fiber because it causes “weight gain” (what she actually is saying is that it causes the scale to show weight gain – fiber itself is not digested, so it has no meaningful calories and can’t contribute to fat-gain.) Instead, she recommends the use of laxatives to push through all of that meat and eggs her diet prescribes. Not a good sign.

At it’s core, Kimkins is a variation on the Atkins Diet. But where Atkins has you consume more fat as you reduce carbohydrates (the fat is then metabolized for energy), Kimkins tries to reduce dietary fat to extremely low levels, and has you consume the bulk of your calories in protein. While limiting dietary fat and carbs may seem like a dieting grand slam, it’s actually extremely dangerous at the levels recommended by Kimkins. 

First, you need a certain amount of dietary fat to support your basic daily functions. And second, protein is not easily broken down for energy. In fact, high protein, low-fat and low-carb diets have a documented history of producing serious nutritional deficiencies, and in some cases have been actually been associated with serious (and sometimes fatal) conditions like sudden cardiac arrest. 

In the 1960s and 1970s there were a rash of serious side-effects (and in at least one case, a fatality) associated with low-carb, low-fat, liquid protein diets. Autopsies suggested that two things may have been at work: serious electrolyte disturbances caused by the protein-only diet threw off heart rhythms in some dieters, causing cardiac arrest. In another case, it appeared that there was atrophy of heart tissue, probably the result of the extremely low calories, which caused the body to “feed” on it’s own tissue (including heart tissue) to meet it’s basic energy requirements.

Kimkins is not a typical ketogenic diet (like Atkins) because it dramatically restricts fat consumption along with carbs. Whether or not you agree with Atkin’s high-fat, high-protein approach, Atkins is very clear that reducing dietary fat on a low-carb diet is dangerous and their diet is at least structured to avoid this double-whammy. Kimkins makes no such allowances in their diet, and the complete lack of fruit, whole grains and dietary fiber is a recipe for disaster.

Would you lose weight on Kimkins?

Absolutely. The structure of the diet naturally limits calorie intake to radically-low levels, in many cases you’ll be eating under a 1000 calories a day, and maybe as few as 500. Anyone would lose weight at these extremely restrictive calorie levels. The problem is that like any fad or crash diet (for example, the Cabbage Soup Diet, Grapefruit Diet or Master Clense) you’d also be losing a lot of key nutrients, including essential vitamins and minerals.

Bottom line is Kimkins is a nutritional disaster with the potential for serious side-effects.  And on top of that, you’ll be out $80 bucks to boot.

To continue reading this article, please visit the AnswerFitness.com site.

~~~~

Thank you for this excellent and informative article, Matt!

Dakota521 on Kimkins Reformation

Dakota will apparently be on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet on Tuesday, April 29 to discuss weight loss with HCG.

Ironically, in a search for other Mike and Juliet videos, she came across the information about the Kimkins Diet Scam, and it turns out that she is a former Kimkins member who was banned for asking questions that Kimmer did not want to have asked.

Dakota, we do hope that you will join the Kimkins Class Action Lawsuit.

UPDATED 4/29 ~ More from Dakota:

YouTube - Kimkins update

Enjoy your “free” membership, Dakota.  Please do your homework though.  I really hope you don’t let Heidi pull the wool over your eyes a second time.  Receiving a refund doesn’t make the diet safe, or erase the fraud involved.

Dakota says, “It’s not like she’s killed anyone”.  

Do we REALLY know that for sure?  With all the health issues involved with following the Kimkins Diet, one certainly can’t rule out that possibility. 

~

UPDATED 4/30

AvenueGirl responds to Dakota:

Affiliate Marketing Nightmares » A Message to Dakota

~

The Walls Are Closing IN on KIMKINS!

Calling ALL Former Kimkins Members in San Diego County:

If you are a former Kimkins member and you reside in San Diego County, John Tiedt would appreciate hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Please email John or use the Contact Us form on his website.

If you know of any former Kimkins members in San Diego County, please be sure to let them know that John Tiedt is looking for their assistance.

Everyone can help by spreading the word.

Thank you very much for your help.

~*~*~*~

For those who may not already know, John Tiedt is the lawyer handling the Kimkins Class Action Lawsuit.

I do hope that all former Kimkins members will consider joining the Kimkins Class Action Lawsuit, if you have not already done so. There is strength in numbers.

If you have already joined the Lawsuit via email, please be sure that you get your affidavit to John as soon as possible.

Remember, if you need any help with completing this, be sure to watch the helpful video.

Thank you!

Here’s a great post from the Eating Disorders and Nutrition News Blog:

When I first received this email, I thought it was an April Fool’s Day joke, as this website has long been an active Kimkins supporter.

Kimkins Scam

Posted: 01 Apr 2008 04:53 PM CDT

What does this picture have to do with Kimkins, you say?

Be sure to check out this great analogy:

An Analogy Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

I think they really hit the nail on the head with this one! Don’t you agree?

Be sure to listen to what AmyB has to say about her Kimkins experience:

The Livin La Vida Low-Carb Show » Interview: AmyB Speaks Out On The Kimkins Debacle (Episode 123)

Special thanks to Elle from “Grilled Cheese with Pickles,” for the full transcript of this podcast.

 Check out AmyB’s blog.