Gloria

I thought I would share my story with Kimkins with others who may be thinking of doing the program. First off let me say that I met some great people on the boards and some whom I consider friends now. Also I would like to say that if I would have researched the program more in depth I probably wouldn’t have joined. The program is based on Stillman’s and the Atkins diet and there are plenty of free boards out there that have all of the information you need to get healthy. The key is getting healthy.I had just completely the 12 week Body Cleanse Diet. It is a low carb diet but allows for healthy and low glycemic carbs in your diet. I was feeling good and had dropped about 10 pounds. I was now weighing 217. I thought I want to keep going and searched a bit and found the Livin’ La Vida Low Carb blog. I kept reading and heard about the Kimkins diet. So I read some more and then finally bit the bullet and joined Kimkins on November 22, 2007.

I started off with the Kimkins Experiment and was losing. I was alsoexercising 6 days a week for about 90 minutes each time. I started to “stall” and wasn’t having bowel movements. I felt like a failure because I wasn’t losing the weight like some of the others. I read on the “Ask Kimmer” thread about milk thistle and started taking that. It helped but not significantly. I was still having issues. I then read about how “Kimmer” did an epsom salt flush. Here is my question and her answer from the thread:

My question:I have a plumbing problem and was considering taking epsom salts. I havebeen taking milk thistle twice a day for a week but its not helping. I wentto the website about the liver cleanse but it seems instense. Does anyonejust do a shot of epsom salt and water and it helps? I noticed the livercleanse says to eat a fat free breakfast and suggests non k/e foods. Whatare we supposed to eat if doing the whole day cleanse?Thanks for your help..

Her answer:Those instructions are for a liver cleanse, not a low carb diet.If I need “help”, I pick epsom. It’s cheap, fast and guaranteed. Milkthistle is my favorite, but I take 4 capsules daily (2 am, 2 pm).I make the epsom salt mixture strong, just like for liver cleanse, but Itake less. Just remember that once you start using bowel “help”, you need to continue until you’re closer to goal and begin adding higher fiber higher carb foods.This is why I recommend a 25-50% daily dose of whichever laxative youchoose. One full dose to start, then a reduced daily dose.I thought well, maybe I will try it. Well blow me away (quite literally) I was hooked. I was feeling light, the scale would drop and that is when I became obsessive. I started doing epsom salt shooters at least once a week sometimes two when I thought my calories were over 1000 or my carbs were over 10 grams. So I continue taking epsom salt shooters, and then starting popping ex-laxs. When the epsom salts stopped working, I just would had more to the glass. I was taking up to 5 tbsp of epsom salts in one dose. That is an extreme amount.

In approximately February I was having extreme abdominal pain and couldn’t figure it out. I broke out in a sweat and thought I was going to die. This continued to happen on and off. I thought I must be blocked, so I took some epsom salt. I felt better and figured I had just relieved some pressure. Well at the end of July it happened again. This time much much worse and I ended up in the hospital having ultrasounds and blood work done. I knew what was wrong. I was addicted to laxatives. I am an adult and accept responsibility for what I did. But I never ever used laxatives or Epsom salts until I read about it on the Kimkins boards.

I was desperate to reach 160. I was frustrated at myself for not reaching goal in four months and felt like a failure. I stopped doing Kimkins in May but still did Epsom salts and laxatives. That is how I ended up in the hospital. I am now taking probiotic vitamins to replace the good bacteria that I stripped out of my body from abusing laxatives. I feel so much better, I am not so tired and as grumpy as I was when I was eating barely anything and taking laxatives.

So I hope my story helps someone out there to think about what they are doing to themselves.