So what do the Kimkins survivors have to say about the diet and the founder, Heidi Diaz?

A few snippets from Kimkins Survivors:

I began to feel more tired, more worn out then ever. . . I was told this was normal. I wondered when my legs began cramping until I couldn’t even walk or move hardly at all. . . but again this was normal. When I began getting heart palpitations and a serious choking feeling, I began to get worried that something was seriously wrong.

I stayed on the plan for 2 months. After a few weeks, my emotions went flat. I didn’t feel happy, sad, anything. It was really bad. I stopped the plan as I felt I was choosing between being fat or being clinically depressed. After about 2 weeks, my hair began falling out by the hands full.

I was dizzy and my life became sedentary due to the lack of food. My hair also started to fall out.

People go from “strict” to “even stricter” when they are highly encouraged to go as low in calories as possible…many of the “big” losers hang out around 300-500 calories daily. Also, because the plans don’t have much in the way of fiber to “push things through”…it’s encouraged to take laxatives daily. The owner of the site, Kimmer, even goes as far as to say that people shouldn’t be afraid to do this since recent studies show that they’re perfectly safe and not addictive after all. (omg)

The weight loss made it easy to ignore the dizziness, nausea, and exhaustion. I brushed off the concerns of friends and family about the amount of food I was eating and for my health. I had read many accounts of other members experiencing the same side effects that I was having and the responses explaining them away as normal, signs they were doing the diet correctly.

In no time at all, I became weak, fainting, angry, shakey, dizzy. My hair fell out. I was still overweight but was sick as hell. I stopped low carb all together. I have been seeing Drs ever since with complications with blood sugar and kidneys ect…

Within 15 minutes of my ER admission, I was rapidly being set up to check for a stroke or a brain tumor. I was so sick and I simply couldnt believe this was happening. At NO time did I suspect the KK diet. I still feel so stupid. MRI’s, Neurologists, CAT scans, IV medication to try to stop the spinning. 5 days of laying on my side with a wet towel over my eyes, they finally got the vertigo under control enough that I could walk slowly. They did find my electrolytes were all out of whack and my liver enzymes a little elevated….

While I did lose weight, I also began to experience significant hair loss, nausea, bouts of dizziness and was freezing all the time.

…some days my calorie intake was lower then 500 calories. My hair thinned out too…but I am older and thought that was due to age, dizzyness or light headed sometimes too. I lost fast, lost alot, and gained it back just as fast too.

I can only hope that some day I’ll find my metabolism again.

I joined in July hoping to put my low carb lifestyle back on the right track. All I accomplished was further derailment. I got off the train when the dizzy spells crept up on me. One call to the Dr. and he said STOP! Healthy lower carb is ok, but this isn’t healthy. This is disordered eating.

I am losing hair in clumps, awful joint pains and dizzy/nauseous frequently.

I was one of those who kimmer told to take a full dose (laxatives) the first day and then take 1/2 dose everyday after.

I have lost tons of weight. But guess what…at a price. I went to the DR not feeling well. My blood levels are all off . My thyroid is shot . Know what the DR asked me…..She said..you are not starving yourself are you? I have such bad blood work that I need to have some injections to fix it..such as Vit . I also have to have scans to see if my thryiod can even be saved. This all got started because I was having dizzy spells and bad pain in my bones.

My hair was falling out, I couldn’t potty, I couldn’t stay awake, I had no energy, I felt waves of nausea and dizziness every time I changed positions…and worst of all, I was becoming completely obsessed b/c I was trying to keep up with everything on there–you know–low, low calories, very small portions, etc.

…..losing handfuls of hair, having heart palpitations, a strange tingling down my left arm, a total loss of energy, I went and got blood test because I had lost my short term memory, I could not remember my sons birthday even and it was scary, I was suffering from insomnia and all kinds of different things. When I got my blood test back, everything was screwed up, all my female hormones, it put me into early menopause, I am 37 years old, my human growth hormone was at the age of a 97 yr old woman…

These testimonials for the Kimkins Diet are just from the first few pages on the Survivor blog. There are a lot more. Over 100 “survivors” have shared their experiences.

Who in their right mind would try the Kimkins Diet after reading these?

She went from this

to this

And that was when she according to herself was an “expert” dieter:

I’ve studied weight loss plans for a lifetime, noting what worked. What didn’t. And, most importantly, why. Not only from personal experience, but from the feedback of hundreds of unhappy, overweight folks. By combining basic thermogenic body principles the turbo fast Kimkins Diet was created!

We now know that not a word of it was true. The “feedback” was from faked success stories, illustrated with stolen pictures from a Russian bride website. Her “personal experience” included WLS, but not even that produced any lasting weight loss.

While Kimmer might not be typical, I still think very few people manage to maintain a weight loss following a starvation diet like Kimkins. Assuming that they manage to stick to it without any major health problems, the long term deprivation of nutrition often backfire in the form of binges and major weight regain.

Beware of quick fixes! A huge misconception is that something you do short term will have a long term effect. Only a life style change will work for lasting weight loss.

Isn’t that what we all want?

The fad diet industry is banking on it. Lose 10 pounds in a week! Lose 100 pounds in 5 months! No faster diet, none! Better than gastric bypass!

Sounds good? Apparently, as we keep on paying for new diet fads all the time. Looking for the magic diet/pill/supplement that will take the weight off once and for all.

Why is “quick” weight loss so important? Because we know that we can not stay on the diet forever!

If I can lose my 100 pounds in 5 months, I might have a chance to stick to it. It’s such a short time; surely I can make it that long. Just be determined and suffer through it. Then I can go back to eating, huh, normally? Whatever. I’ll deal with it when I get there.

So I start a starvation diet like Kimkins. Enthusiastically. The first couple of days are hard and I’m hungry, but the scale number drops so fast that it’s easy to fight through it. Sure, it’s water weight but who cares? It’s quick and I weigh less!

The diet is easier that I thought. I lose my appetite and it is not that difficult to just eat 500-600 calories per day. I gain self confidence. I can do this. Yes, I’m fat but I’m doing something about it. I’m in control.

Soon, “excessive” hunger and cravings appear. What do I do? Most people quit the diet at this time. Often with a binge. Berating themselves for being weak, a failure.

Too many return to the diet after the binge. It did work after all. I did lose weight on it. I just wasn’t strong enough last time. I’ll do better this time. Try to remember that it’s only for a short period of time. When I have reached goal, I can eat normally again.

Did it ever occur to you that there is a reason for the binge? The irresistible cravings? That is not psychological? That it’s not your “fault”? That you are not “weak”? Could your body be trying to tell you something?

The lack of food and especially the lack of fat cause a “starvation” response. The body does not get the required nutrition and this results in cravings. Normally cravings for sweets, but high fat sweets. It’s a natural reaction and has nothing to do with being “weak”. It has to do with survival.

A very obvious example of how the body objects to Kimkins diet abuse is when dieters that follow K/E start craving salads and vegetables. K/E (Kimmer’s Experiment) consists of lean meat and eggs only. Who would have thought that they ever would crave a salad? But many K/E dieters report just that. Isn’t it obvious that the diet lacks some essential nutrition? That the body is trying to tell you so?

And no, a daily multi-vitamin will not help.

If you can not stick to a diet, there is nothing wrong with YOU. Don’t blame yourself, blame the diet. And find a diet/woe (way of eating) that you can live with for life. Healthy food. I recommend Atkins. According to the book, not at induction levels as a quick fix.

The “quick weight loss to reach goal and then I can go back to eating whatever” is an unrealistic dream. Think about it. Does it even make sense?

The Kimkins Diet website was launched in June 2006 but had a rather obscure existence until an article in Women’s World magazine caused a large influx of customers one year later.

Many people tried the diet but rightly decided that the diet was not sustainable and disappeared. The $59.95 membership fee was written off as yet another waste of money on a fad diet gimmick. There are plenty of those around, and most of us have tried more than one.

These were the lucky ones. They left before they were harmed; physically or psychologically. The not so lucky ones stayed around a little longer, but eventually most of these abandoned the diet as well. The Kimkins starvation diet can not be followed for a longer period of time and the most natural reaction is binges.

Not surprisingly, the weight comes back on. Often as fast as it came off with starvation level of calories. The months of sacrifice and counting every morsel ended up with no results, or very little lasting weight loss to show for it.

So what do these dieters do? They return to Kimkins for another starvation cycle. Expecting a different result this time. Why? What has changed? The diet is still nutritionally bankrupt and the deprivation will lead to the same binges as last time. Why wouldn’t it?

But, the diet works, they say.

No it doesn’t. A diet you can not stick to does not work. What’s the point in keeping losing the same pounds over and over again?

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

I do hope that all the exposure the Kimkins Diet is getting on the blogs is brought to the re-starters attention. This information was not available a year ago, and hopefully it will make a difference. Their life might depend on it, or at the minimum, their health.

One consolation is that Kimmer, a.k.a. Heidi Diaz, does not get any more money from the returning dieters. They already paid their “lifetime” membership fee. I’m sure Heidi is kicking herself for not making it a monthly fee instead.

Kimmer, the founder of the Kimkins Diet, has always insisted that starvation mode does not exist as long as there is body fat to burn for energy. Her diet suggested a daily calorie limit of 500 or less, later adjusted upwards to 710. The rest of the body’s needs would be taken from body fat.

For example:

“I don’t believe in starvation mode. I cannot and will not say anything about minimum calories. A grilled chicken breast and a 1 cup USDA serving of mixed greens is 200 calories. It just is. Adding fats or starches isn’t “healthier” to up the calories.”

“Don’t panic about low calories. . . . Bottom line, as long as you have sufficient body fat you don’t need to eat calories — you’re carrying them with you.”

“I don’t think we can fight the “1200 calorie a day mentality”. Some people cannot understand that your body takes the calories it needs from body fat if the calories you eat are too low to sustain current weight. If you need 2500 calories (250 lb person) and eat 500 (number picked for easy math), the other 2000 are taken from body fat.”

Why is it then that so many of the Kimkins Dieters experience starvation symptoms, such as:

• Feeling cold and having a lower-than-normal body temperature.
• Hair loss, brittle nails, and dry skin.
• Muscle weakness and muscle wasting.
• Constipation, slow emptying of the stomach, and belly pain.
• Sleep problems, hyperactivity, or extreme fatigue.
• Difficulty concentrating and solving problems or poor judgment.
• Dizziness, fainting spells, low blood pressure, slow heartbeat, heart palpitations.
• Frequent colds and other infections.
• Bruising.

You can find the individual accounts on Kimkins Survivors.

All these people were told to take a daily multivitamin, as if that would solve the problem. Obviously, it didn’t. Neither did the excess body fat they had. All of them were still overweight.

There are other obvious problems with a starvation diet. While ketosis initially may curb appetite, eventually hunger will reappear. Kimmer always claimed that hunger is not present as long as carbs are low enough. How she knew this, I have no idea. Certainly not from her own experience, considering that she is still obese.

I know for a fact that you can be in deep ketosis and still be hungry, and I am not alone to have experienced this. I read many accounts on Kimkins where people complained about hunger and cravings appearing around week 4 - 5 of the diet. Some of them followed K/E at the time; just eggs and meat.

Of course, the advice was to curb hunger by ignoring it, drinking water, soda or fat free broth. I am sure many people fell off the diet at this point (luckily for them) and never returned.

A diet you can not stick to is not a good diet. Your body is trying to tell you something. Listen to it.

Another issue is how to maintain the weight loss. If the above problems do not make the dieter stop the diet, eventually calories need to be increased. Nobody can live on 500 calories for life. The previous successful dieter now finds that she can not add anything without gaining weight. Even an extra cup of salad will cause the scale to go up.

The typical result is the start of a yo-yo diet. Eat more a few days and then back to starvation for a week or two. The lucky ones put in a lot of hard work to slowly increase their calories, ignoring the scale for a while, to raise their metabolism and have thus managed, with difficulty, to transition to a healthy weight loss regimen.

Why would anyone even consider starting a diet where there is a blog dedicated to SURVIVORS of the diet? With some 100 accounts of severe problems from it.

I do hope that anyone that happens to find the now year old article in the Woman’s World magazine takes a minute to google Kimkins before they go to the Kimkins.con website where Kimmer a.k.a. Heidi Diaz promises “Join today for only $79.95. That’s it. Not another penny.” That one time membership fee doesn’t include ER costs, medical bills or any compensation for long term health problems.

Edited to add: After I wrote this article, I came across this comment by a survivor that was made just two days ago:

KK has left me bald, wounded, sick and recovering from surgery and fear of food……no please don’t try Heidi’s Diet of Death!

Please take her advice. She knows what she is talking about. Unfortunately.