My Blog has Moved

I decided to get my own domain: Mariasols

This blog will no longer be updated and I just leave it for the time being in case I happen to be logged into WP when I make comments on somebody’s blog.

Kimkins Diet

Looking for a new diet? There are many, many offerings online and most of them ask you for money. Some have inventive names such as Kimkins, The Magic Chicken Diet, The Genie Diet, and the WeightLoss4Idiots diet to name a few. How do you know if they offer value for your money, or if they are just out to scam you?

There are a few clues:

1) Asking for a one time payment. After you have paid, you are useless to them. They have already gotten your money and have really no interest if what they sold is working for you or not. It’s not like they care about you. They just want to make money, and they did.

2) Paying for a Lifetime membership. A “Lifetime” membership will only be valid as long as the website exists, OR until the webmaster decides to lock you out by banning you for any or no reason at all.

3) No information up front. That probably means that what they sell is not worth paying for, but you will not know until you have paid.

4) No money back guarantee. Even if they claim to have one, how are you going to get your money back? This is an online business and who knows who the owner is and how to contact them. At least for kimkins, there is now a class action lawsuit. Please join if you have been scammed by Heidi Diaz aka Kimmer.

5) Exaggerated claims such as “no faster weight loss, none,” “no exercise,” “better than WLS,”, “100 pounds in 3 months.” If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.

6) A large number of success stories and testimonials. Pretty girls and professional photos. How do you know they are true? Do these people exist? Did they do this particular diet? There is no way to find out. It is so easy to do what Kimkins did; scour the internet and copy pictures at random.

7) The owner/founder hides under a fictional name and refuses to show herself in public. Did she even do the diet herself? What are her credentials? Are the photos really of her? The pictures Kimmer tried to pass off as herself were all proven to be fake. They don’t even look like the same person! And even less like the person they were supposed to resemble, Heidi Diaz.

Free Diet Support

New Year’s Resolution to lose weight? Looking for the magic pill?

There are many online resources for weight loss. They all promise FAST, EASY, TURBO weight loss, provided that you either buy their product, pay to download a program, or pay a fee to join a support forum. They typically use pretty pictures with slim women that allegedly lost weight on their program, and there is very little information available until you have parted with your money.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

Before shelling out money for any of the online programs, it is a good idea to do a little research. Just using Google to look into what other people say about the program can save you money and prevent physical and mental ill effects from a dangerous diet, promoted by unscrupulous people.

Also be aware of the many, many FREE resources available on the internet. There is something for all preferences, and they are FREE.

Kimorexia has really good advice on what to look for when choosing a diet forum.

FREE support forums are available in all shapes and forms.

Diet specific forums like Atkins offers FREE information and support.

“General” lowcarb forums offer a great variety, FREE. Details of all the popular plans are provided FREE. There are also members on these sites that willingly share their extensive knowledge in nutrition and of dieting FREE. Challenge groups and journaling are provided FREE. And if nothing else, go there for all the wonderful recipes provided FREE by members.
The larger forums are typically FREE to read for anybody. Registration is required to post and ask questions but registration is FREE.

Smaller forums offer a more intimate setting, and may be focused on a more limited selection of plans. They may require FREE registration to access the forum.

Yahoo groups exist for any type of diet imaginable. It is easy to make a search for a group that follow the diet of your choice. Some are private while others are public but they are all FREE to join.

I follow a lowcarb plan and these are my two favorite FREE sites:

Active Low-Carber Forums

FREE to read. FREE registration required to post and ask questions.

Low Carb Friends
FREE to read. FREE registration required to post and ask questions.

Oh, and the pretty girl in the red dress used to promote Kimkins was fake. Well, the girl isn’t fake. It’s just that it wasn’t Kimmer and she had nothing to do with Kimkins. It is a Russian girl on a bride web site. This is how Kimmer of Kimkins actually looks:

Merry Christmas

Ruffled Feathers

I literally stumbled over the Magic Chicken Diet a couple of weeks back. A web search for Kimkins led me to Getafreelancer where someone was soliciting a web designer to make a website that should look like a clone of the Kimkins website. Having heard rumors that Kimmer had a backup site prepared, I was naturally intrigued.

The website and the diet had many similarities to Kimkins but also differences. Probably the most important difference is that to the best of my knowledge, the Magic Chicken Diet is promoted by a real person (Bonnie Luper) with a real weight loss story. Therefore, the fraud component of Kimkins should not come into play and as far as I know, nobody has suggested that it would.

I and other bloggers have been criticized for discussing the Magic Chicken Diet and have been accused of crucifying the Chicken Lady and driving the site out of business. (Of course, it was later revealed that the temporary shutdown of the site was most likely due to a non-paid bill and not due to any magic powers on Kimmer’s behalf; Kimmer supposedly having found out about the clone from our blogs.)

While the site is again up and running, we are still not supposed to discuss or criticize the diet, as “it’s free enterprise and anybody has the right to promote any diet they want”. While I agree with free enterprise, I can not understand why we are not allowed to discuss it, especially in a community that argues pros and cons for all types of diets. With so little information up front, would you not want to hear what people knowledgeable in nutrition and diet have to say about it, if nothing else so that you can ask Bonnie questions before you shell out $69.95?

It is also alluded to that we will somehow interfere with the Chicken Lady’s business by talking about the Magic Chicken Diet on blogs and lowcarb diet boards. This puzzles me.

First, if this is a good diet like Bonnie says, surely, discussing it will not cause any harm. Actually, it would only help promoting it.

Secondly, what facts are there that this is a successful business? That Bonnie claims that they have reached 200 members at the old introductory price of $19.95 while the website still states “introductory price (but now $69.95) for the first 200 members?” Do they have 200 members or not?

And how are new members recruited? Similar to Kimkins, Bonnie has a Lifetime membership so only new people coming in would generate revenue. There is absolutely no marketing of this company that I have been able to find, even when trying to search for it. Nothing on Craig’s List, nothing on “Yahoo answers,” no spam on celebrity sites, no articles, no ads, no affiliate program, no presence of Bonnie on lowcarb boards where she could attract new customers. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Apart from the Getafreelancer ad, there is no confirmed connection between Bonnie and Kimkins at this time. However, does that mean that I am not allowed to have questions about the Magic Chicken Diet?

$19.95 Camp Fee

Camp Carbaway announced:

“Our plan is to go “Public” on Jan 1 2008. Starting on that day new members will be asked to pay a registration fee of $19.95.”

“There will not be any more approval process in the new system. Anyone can pay the $19.95 and join. This may cause issues, but we are ready to deal with those.”

That’s cool. Really. It’s a free country. You want to charge money for providing a member board and you can find people that are willing to pay, that’s perfectly fine.

But what does “public” mean? To me, FREE boards like LCF and ALC are public boards as they are open to read without membership. You have to register to post, but registration is FREE for anybody.

If you have to pay a membership fee to join, and the board is unaccessible to the public, it is a “private” board. Just removing the 3rd degree entrance interrogation doesn’t make it “public”.

But WHO is going to join and pay the membership fee? There has been no marketing of this website and the poorly designed front page has no information whatsoever what I would receive for my $19.95.

Clearly the Headmistress aka Pocahontas aka Tippy Toes believes that her reputation on the FREE boards will make people come running to join, just so that they can chit chat with Tippy on the board.

Think again.

And Tippy, your blog is not really helping with promoting you as a caring and loving person.

While Tippy needs this board as she is not welcome anywhere else, I can’t see that is serves any purpose for other people, except perhaps for the few people that have already joined. The indirect “marketing” has seemingly targeted Tippy’s “kimkinettes” and kimkins followers on LCF that want to escape the “haters”.

Tippy is reinforcing the “US” versus “THEM” by suggesting that former kimkins members are not welcomed on other boards. In her own words:

“don’t make them feel they have leprosy because of their dieting preference”

“I am so sorry we all have to feel the pressure of letting the public in. But here is the deal. If they are really ugly we will remove them from Camp. If they want to pay $20 to come back and be ugly again, we will repeat this process. We don’t have to put up with the badgering nor will we. Eventually they will give up and leave us in peace. Or they can go broke trying to get the last jabs in.

I know it feels like a battleground. Here we are, armed and ready and KNOWING the opposing forces are closer… We will win. Please, please don’t worry. It won’t take long at all. And I appreciate that so many of you are concerned for me. I’ll be OK. The way I see it is this: The best present LCF ever gave me was the ban button. Just look at where that has led us all! Right here to Camp where people are actually NICE, CARING and have COMPASSION for one another.”

LCF and ALC are big boards, and there are many, many threads supporting all different types of “dieting preferences.” That doesn’t mean that concerned members would not speak up if they see a newbie eating dangerously low calories. But isn’t that what Tippy is trying to do on her board as well? So what’s the difference? $19.95 will not buy me anything that the FREE boards do not give me.

Kimorexia has some really good advice on what to look for when choosing a diet forum.

Grilled Cheese…. discusses the Camp.

Kimorexia, Anorexia and Bulimia

One of the earliest blogs to take up the fight against Kimkins was Kimorexia but as other blogs started to appear, Kimorexia became idle. As of today, it is back in business.

WELCOME BACK!

And, staying with the subject of anorexia and bulimia, Medusa has a very important post today:

ANOREXIA NERVOSA & BULIMIA NERVOSA…AND THEIR LINK TO THE DEADLY KIMKINS DIET

Please go and read it and be reminded why people like Heidi Diaz and websites like Kimkins have to be removed from the internet.

You might also want to go back and read one of the earlier posts by the original Kimorexia blogger:

Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to be anorexic

Just Saying………..

Nothing. Some blogs are best to ignore, especially when they will not “allow” comments.

The Chicken Diet is Magically Revived

Perhaps it was just a simple matter of paying GoDaddy’s bill after all.

So what about Kimmer having the site shut down for being a Kimkins clone? We know not to trust anything that Heidi, the Lying Liar that Lies, says but what about the son in law?

Perhaps it wasn’t the son in law. Anybody can make a blog comment using whatever name he/she chooses.

Chicken, chicken and more chicken

Kimkins Exhausted has posted the menu plan for the Magic Chicken Diet. It doesn’t look good to me, even if you like chicken.

Let’s take a look at the first day’s menu:

Breakfast: 4 chicken strips
Snack: 1 cheese stick
Lunch: Grilled chicken salad from Sonic (onion ring removed)
Snack: 5 strawberries and Diet Jello
Dinner: Grilled chicken filet and steamed broccoli
Snack: Diet Jello

In the text under the menu, it is recommended to keep calories between 800 and 1200. I can not get the above menu to even reach 800.

My total is 712 calories with 24 grams fat, 22 grams carbs and 106 grams protein. I initially had a pat of butter in there but had to take it out as I otherwise would have exceeded the 25 gram fat maximum.

Other words of wisdom from the chicken lady:

• If you want to lose a little faster just cut out a serving of veggies or the fruit for a couple of days.

• Try to drink between 80 to 100 ounces of water a day. I have not myself but it is better for you if you can. I always drink Crystal Light, Tea with Splenda and Diet Drinks.

• You can get Crystal Light Slurpees at most 7-11 or RaceTrac but also you can make your own.

• Sugar Free Jello is a great snack and only 10 calories. Try all the different flavors and get creative and come up with your own blends.

• I don’t eat any of the dressing but if you need it get the spray dressing at the store that is only like 10 calories a spray.

• Once a month I treat myself to a nonfat yogurt twist from Costco they are great but just do it once a month because it does have carbs.

• I never did through any of my weight loss exercise except for my normal route selling of candles. I do realize that I need to start now so that I can tone up, but it is not necessary.

And this is from someone who claims to never have heard about Kimkins.