RobinM

Ok, this is my first attempt at blogging altho not my first attempt at rambling on (hence the name of my blog!)

I need to write about my thoughts on Kimkins. What pulled me in was that it was low carb AND Kimmer’s weight loss of 180+ lbs and the fact that she claimed 5 years maintenance. A real person with real weight loss maintaining her weight and showing others how to accomplish what she did for the low, low price of $39.95 for a lifetime membership. It seemed too good to be true!

As it turns out - it WAS too good to be true! Am I a “victim” of Kimkins? No, I am a victim of my choices. I do however feel extremely betrayed - with more on that later.

I joined Kimkins in January 07 after I saw it mentioned in People magazine. I’ve done low carb before and it seemed to the “perfect” low carb WOE - low carbs & low fat. What I didn’t do before when I did low carb was get all of the info necessary. I didn’t read all of the books - I just read the sections about what you could and couldn’t eat.

Soon after logging into Kimkims I experienced great disappointment. This magical plan that was going to melt my weight off in a few months was laxatives and 500 calories a day. Or less because as I clicked on member’s fitday journals I saw many who were 300-400 calories a day. I swallowed my disappointment and went about my life. Still knowing I needed to lose weight and knowing that low carb was very good for me but still thinking that Atkins was bad because of all of the fat.

From time to time over the next few months I logged back into Kimkins and read posts, etc. I read the success stories . . . . . wondered about some of the before and after pics, read the testimonials, looked at the fitday journals, and then went on about my life.

The article in WW came out. Of course we all know that every diet that WW advertises works, right. And they research it all so it must be valid, right? I mean, after all, hadn’t I bought hundreds of WW magazines because of the diet inside - every time sure that it was going to be “THE ONE” for me?

Since I already had some knowledge of Kimkins I bought the issue about Kimkins. Read the article and was very impressed with Christin’s weight loss. 100 lbs in 5 months - that is a miracle. I’d be ecstatic with 10 lbs a month . . . . 20 would put me over the top.

So with Kimkins in the back of my mind . . . I went on with daily life.

We had booked our 2nd cruise for December and while we were on our first cruise last December I vowed that I would lose weight before our 2nd one. Well, here it was getting into July and I weighed only 8 lbs less than I had at the beginning of the year. “Maybe I should give Kimkins a try.” I thought to myself. SO back to the website I went. I spent a couple of weeks reading message after message. Finally I found a couple of posts that I could rationalize in my mind. One was that WLS patients were restricted to 500 calories a day. And I thought - if they can do 500 calories a day . . so can I, without the surgery.

At the same time, I read a post from a member who said she was doing Kimkins but she kept her calories from 1000-1200 and she was losing weight. So I sent her a PM and asked her some questions.

After thinking some more I decided I could do Kimkins. Especially as a way to get the carbs out of my system. So on 7/30 I started my Kimkins journey to weight loss (short journey that it was!) More to come.

Altho I still have misgivings I joined Kimkins on 7/30. But I really didn’t do Kimkins or if I did I did Kimkins my way . . . . I was doing what I thought was Kimkins but it was more Atkins but counting calories.

In the past, the most I had ever lost was 34 lbs 3 years ago when I did Atkins and it came off over 5 months. I regained all but 3 lbs over the last 3 years.

The weight started “melting” off with Kimkins/Atkins. I started a couple of small group challenges. I set up a Fitday account to track my calories, fat, carbs, and protein. I changed to The Daily Plate because it was more user friendly (for me at least.) I started reading posts where laxatives were recommended and lower calories were suggested as a way to get past a stall or to continue losing more weight. I read posts about hair loss, constipation, and cheat free days. I set up a cheat free ticker from the beginning to track my cheat free days. I did not cheat once during my short stay at Kimkins. Until I found out the cheating meant eating anything that was not on the Kimkins WOE . . . . it wasn’t to track the days you were cheat free from processed carbs, sugar, etc.

I quickly lost my appetite and thought to myself, “This has never happened before that I go for hours and don’t think about eating.” But as time went by I really started feeling tired alot, no energy, not hungry, couldn’t sleep, etc.

And then I found out that Becky had left, then Christin and Deni. The 3 most recognized people on the site . . . . . almost more so than Kimmer. They definitely posted more and supported more than Kimmer. Then I found a link to their blogs and started reading. And questioning and reading more. I am not the kind of person who can bury their head in the sand and go on as if nothing has happened. Nor am I a person who rushes to judgement. But the more I read the more I started feeling betrayed by Kimkins and Kimmer. What I thought was a real person who had lost a lot of weight and maintained that weight loss for several years was all smoke and mirrors.

For more on this:

Deni’s blog: http://www.openbench.blogspot.com/
Christin’s blog: http://the-journey-on.blogspot.com/
Becky’s blog: http://winningweight.blogspot.com/

One of her most ardent supporters, Jimmy Moore, of http://www.lowcarbdiscussion.com/ and http://livinlavidalocarb.blogspot.com/ broke ties with Kimmer/Kimkins.

Low Carb Friends has hundreds of posts attacking Kimkins and Kimmer. So many that I had to quit going there because it was so negative, not only against Kimmer and Kimkins but against everyone who was still on the Kimkins site; even tho many of them were former Kimkinites. Other websites came to light such as:

http://kimkinssurvivors.wordpress.com/ andhttp://kimkinsexposed.wordpress.com/

It became clear from the few posts that Kimkins did post that there was something not quite right. She made some odd statements, she wouldn’t refute any of the rumors, claims, etc. A legitimate business person, an honest person would have stepped forward to put her members at ease. She continued to refuse and continued to ban members. It quickly because apparent that her sole interest in Kimkins was financial. The WW cover and article probably brought her over $2 million (minimum) in revenue with very little expenses to diminish the amount.

I felt saddened and betrayed . . . . but I am a big girl, I made the decision to do Kimkins by overriding the many doubts that I had. Freedom of choice . . . . one of the great things about being American. As is Freedom of Speech . . . . . . (anywhere except Kimkins.com that is.)

I came to the conclusion that Kimkins did work . . . . . but a what expense? If the person who founded Kimkins couldn’t keep from regaining the weight she had lost . . . . . and there didn’t seem to be a maintenance plan in place . . . . then how could I or anyone else maintain the loss. It became apparent pretty quickly that maintenance wasn’t a real priority to Kimkins. Selling new lifetime memberships was . . . . . . as long as you didn’t have an opinion of your own that you freely expressed on the Kimkins forums. Selling new “Lifetime” memberships was more profitable . . . . after all current members had already paid for lifetime memberships . . . . in order to keep reaping the cash rewards from Kimkins she had to continually recruit new people.

My experience was much less than so many others. I was only there for 5 weeks. I felt betrayed on one hand and extremely lucky on the other. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Becky, Deni, and Christin felt as well as many others who had been with Kimkins a long time.

from Random Thoughts and Twisted Threads