LaurieB

I had been at what I called my goal weight for about 3 years–a healthy 153-156 lbs. for a 5′7″, 41 year old woman. (I had been overweight from 8 or 9 til my early 30’s, my highest weight was 237 pregnant, and that is one month before I delivered… I had stopped looking.) With a combination of Weight Watchers and Atkins, I got down to my goal weight of 153.I was happy and healthy but always in the back of my mind thought that I would like to be at 140 and wanted to buckle down, get there and see if I could maintain it. After all, I knew how to maintain for me, how hard could it be. I had been a member of a low-carb site called Low Carb Friends (LCF) for years and low-carb (LC )was how I lived my life. I was familiar with Kimmer and her ideas from LCF… At that time I thought I could never do that…

Kimmer started her own site and I joined a couple weeks after it started to see what it was all about. I remember stepping on the scale after the first day and losing 3 pounds–I was thrilled and said yes I can do this…. I was losing almost at a rate of 1 pound per day. I was putting all my foods in Fitday religiously - it started at about 1000 calories a day and quickly dropped. I was living on diet soda and eating about 500 calories a day, some days less. I had no appetite so it was easy!

There was nothing like that thrill of the loss I saw on the scale each and every day and in about 5 weeks I went from 156 to 134! I was HIGH - it was an unreal feeling, euphoric. I got to the point that I was eating Kimmers Experiment Monday to Thursday and fasting on Friday (with diet soda…. hmm someone said that was ok LOL). I would break the fast sometime Saturday usually noon and do Kimkins saturday and sunday - I so looked forward to that salad (and I’m a veggie lover). I was SO in control!

I was shopping one day and realized that nothing fit me right. I am a classic hour glass figure and I couldn’t even shop and buy a normal size 4 or size 2… nothing fit right. I started shopping in the girls department after I realized that my boys had outgrown a couple pairs of cargo shorts (boys 12) and they fit me. I thought in my head that this opened a whole new world. DUH… I’m 41 I shouldn’t be shopping in the girls dept - it finally hit me!

I continued to work out and focus on improving my body - I transitioned to maintenance pretty easily - I knew what had worked for me in the past. I gained back up to about 140 and the curves started to come back and I started to look good. Now I maintain between 140 and 145 pretty easily - and feel good. I started focusing on my exercise more and less on the calories and threw away fitday - it was my ball and chain. But there was one thing left….

I have all my life had problems with bowel elimination but now it was non-existant. I tried the Epsom Salt drink that Kimmer recomended to get things going and that didn’t work for me. Realistically in my head I said - nothing in = nothing out.. but I didn’t get it. I bought into the “laxatives aren’t addicting” advice that was freely given on kimkins.com. When I went on vacation early August of last year - I got so constipated I resorted to taking EX-LAX - there it started. I was using EX-LAX almost daily and realized that it couldn’t be good, so I went to Smooth Move tea, a natural alternative LOL… Daily… sometimes twice - from August 2006 until last Monday July 23 - I drank the tea almost every day and a few times would take an EX-LAX or two in addition if things weren’t moving. I was ADDICTED… a member of LCF started a post about her addiction to laxatives and I knew I had to do something about it.

I have been trying to improve my health and this was the last demon to go… I am currently trying to fix this last piece of the puzzle and am improving daily. Right now at 42 I am in the best shape of my life and trying to make my health better, I exercise and eat right. I just had my body fat tested and have 128 lbs of lean body mass… no wonder I didn’t look good at 134 and clothes didn’t fit right - BIG DUH!

Looking back I say how could I have been sucked in, how could I not see what I was doing and what was going on around me? I just shut my mouth and eyes to it all. I posted in the maintenance threads and tried to help where I could. I could see folks getting to maintenance, with no guidance from Kimmer. I didn’t want anyone to fail and gain back their weight. I stopped going to any other threads.

I always read at LCF and stumbled on a post there about Kimmer and started posting… soon I was banned from Kimkins - after that, I shared my story and how I was influenced and impacted by Kimkins.

If I can help just one person from making the same mistake I will be glad!