Please note, the following is a repost from Livin’ La Vida Low Carb. We have edited to remove graphics and embedded video.
Kimkins cover girl: “I was wrong…Kimkins is not the way to lose weight”
It takes a very special person to publicly admit when they were wrong about something even after multiple warnings and concerns shared by those around them. And yet that is exactly what has happened this week when Kimkins Woman’s World cover girl Christin delivered an impassioned video apology at her blog along with a detailed explanation of the health complications she and others have suffered since beginning the risky low-carb imposter diet scheme devised by a morbidly obese woman named Heidi Diaz.
I blogged about my concerns over the Kimkins fiasco that culminated earlier this week when this beautiful young woman had to be rushed to the emergency room because of some pain in her chest and heart complications. When you hear something like this happening that was brought on by such an extreme low-fat/low-calorie diet like Kimkins, it should make you angry. AND I AM ANGRY ABOUT IT!
To anyone who is still on the Kimkins diet, CHRISTIN has a message just for YOU (link to video)
Show your support for and encouragement to Christin by leaving a comment about this video at her “The Journey On” blog. What a brave woman she is and I am honored to know her as a friend. She has demonstrated nothing but grace, elegance, and dignity in the midst of what has become a complete and utter nightmare for so many of us in the low-carb community concerning this Kimkins debacle.
For the sake of those who cannot view the video, the following is a summary of the video, including direct quotes made by Christin regarding her experience following the Kimkins diet. Be prepared to be shocked and stunned as she shares quite openly about the negative impact this weight loss fraud has had and may continue to have on her health. Pray for her even now as she seeks to reverse the damage that has been done.
Christin said she did this video so that others would “know exactly where I stand on this.” She explained why most people choose to lose weight: to improve their health. Period! When you are 100+ pounds overweight, then you are not living healthy, she noted.
She chose the Kimkins program because she “wanted to lose weight quickly and I thought healthfully” because she “wanted more for my life.” She wanted to “be there” for her family in the years to come. I think all of us who have ever gone on a weight loss plan can relate to that.
When she first began, the program was working great for her because “I was following the program exactly as written. I thought I was doing perfectly.” But after losing 100 pounds in five months, Christin then conspicuously noticed there was not one single doctor who approved the Kimkins diet. That’s when she started looking into who Heidi Diaz, aka Kimmer, really was and what she claimed to be.
Diaz had alleged in the marketing of Kimkins that she lost 198 pounds in 11 months on this Kimkins diet and was promoting it that way to anyone who would listen with supposed pictures to prove it. But it was this recent series of articles that included recent photographs of Diaz along with several other sites that made Christin become concerned and realize that those claims by Diaz were simply “not true.”
“Heidi did not lose the weight, she did not follow this program that she claims is safe for anybody, even for diabetics,” Christin said.
Then Christin turned in her video to the “risks” of being on the Kimkins diet that she discovered first-hand while following the program. She said she has real “concerns for everyone else that has attempted this program or will attempt this program.”
That includes first and foremost hair loss. Christin admitted that her hair “started fall out in handfuls” and it “scared” her. She estimates she has lost as much as 60 percent of what used to be “thick, full hair” prior to her Kimkins experience.
“Now it’s very thin,” she exclaimed.
Another side effect was the loss of her menstrual cycle that she believes happened from “eating so few calories and my body was becoming malnourished.” She said the hair loss and lack of periods are both tell-tale signs of anorexia, an eating disorder where victims literally starve themselves to be thin.
“I believe now the Kimkins diet program promotes a form of anorexia that I don’t know if science has even attempted touch on this yet,” Christin stated. “300 calories a day is not safe weight loss.”
Any dietary change this drastic need to be closely monitored by a doctor just like those who undergo gastric bypass surgery do, she added.
When these symptoms began to show up, Christin went on the Kimkins forums to see if anyone else was losing their hair and female cycle like she was. “What’s going on?” she pleaded to anyone who would listen to her concerns. And Christin said she “saw it come up multiple times” regarding these symptoms she was having in other people, too.
The excuse provided in response to this happening was that it was “perfectly normal and you’re going through a shed. Your body is just losing estrogen.” It was just too coincidental that “almost every other person who kept their calories under 1000 calories, probably more under 700 calories, has lost hair.”
“I don’t want to scare you,” Christin said speaking directly to people who are still following Kimkins, “but I want to bring you into the reality that there is a better way to lose weight.”
Christin asks “are you really doing this?” and urges people to take their diet plan to their doctor for him to examine it. “Take him your Fitday, take him exactly what you are eating, let him see your calorie counts,” she said.
“I’m concerned about you,” Christin pleaded.
Christin says she is sorry for supporting the “dangerous” Kimkins diet
When the time came for Christin to step into the spotlight back in June when the Woman’s World magazine cover story opportunity came up, she said she was “put on a pedestal as the ‘cover girl.’ I was the model, I was the way to do it.” But now she realizes how she was used as a pawn and seeks the mercy of those who trusted and looked up to her.
“I need to ask your forgiveness,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Kimkins is not the way to lose weight. Kimkins is dangerous…for your health, it’s dangerous for your psyche.”
But as much as Kimkins hurt Christin up until this point, none of it was as grave as what was happening to her without even realizing it. She had the symptoms of an eating disorder that she admits made her realize she “had a problem” when she was fearful of even consuming some salad out of fear that she’d stall in her weight loss.
“I did not get fat on salad and on healthy vegetables,” Christin explained. “I got fat on sugar and white carbs.”
Getting over the fear of eating was a very difficult mental test for Christin as she now obsessed over every little bite of food she was eating and how it would impact her on the scale. She revealed that she hasn’t met anyone who has been on the Kimkins program who wasn’t “literally scared” to add food back into their diet.
“What kind of a program is it that makes you scared? Weight loss is not about fear, weight loss is about excitement, it’s about joy, it’s about recapturing your life,” Christin shared with a glimmer in her eyes. “It should be a fun journey, not a fearful one.”
And yet fear was exactly what gripped Christin and it would not let go of her.
“If I wasn’t losing everyday, then I began wondering what was wrong with me,” Christin admitted. “Nothing was wrong with me. My body was screaming at me. It was putting the brakes on and telling me you’re going about this the wrong way.”
As a devout Christian, she knew that “God created us to eat healthy foods; vegetables and fruits, whole grains, and yes, even fat.” Christin reiterated that she believes there is “validity to low-carb programs” like Atkins, Protein Power, and the like when they are done the correct way and not the Kimkins way.
“You will provide your body with all of the nutrients that it needs” when you follow low-carb by the book, Christin shared. “God did not create you to starve yourself.”
Outlining the “many dangers within the Kimkins program,” she said that it goes much deeper than just an eating disorder. She said that “something is going on within my body” and that it has been manifested in the form of “flutters” in her heart for the past month.
“Twinges, cramps, aches, all within my chest cavity right around the area of my heart,” Christin expressed, sharing that it all came to a head on Monday when the “severe chest pains…stomach aches, and nausea” were so great she was admitted to the emergency room staying there until late at night.
The doctors examined her with many tests, including an EKG, blood work, chest x-rays, and they kept her at the hospital for several hours to monitor her condition. It’s still unknown what caused the tremendous pain to come on Christin like it did on Monday night, but she was prescribed pain medications and was referred to a cardiologist for an immediate follow-up visit.
That visit to the cardiologist took place on Wednesday who shared several concerns for Christin. With a “more and more serious” look on his face after hearing Christin’s story about her starvation-mode weight loss method compliments of the Kimkins diet, he told her flat out that “our bodies can suffer damage from eating that little.”
After conducting more tests on her, including an EKG, an ECG, blood work, and “lots of listening with the stethoscope,” the cardiologist said he was not concerned about what he called a “normal” low pulse rate of 45 (incidentally, mine is in the upper 40’s since I lost nearly 200 pounds and Christin has experienced a heart rate in the low-to-mid 40’s). Even still, she says she “might get a second opinion on” just to be sure about it.
But there were real concerns that the cardiologist had for Christin, including “possible damage to my heart nodes and valves from malnutrition.” Because of that, he wants to have a sonogram of Christin’s heart to confirm whether or not there is this damage since it was inconclusive from the initial examination. He’s also concerned about some “esophageal spasms” that happen whenever there is a “rapid change in your dietary program and you lose a lot of weight.”
“Things can change on your insides,” Christin quoted the cardiologist as saying, “that it takes it a while to catch up.”
She is now medication for this “distress” with the contractions surrounding her esophagus and trying to rest as her body goes through the healing process.
Speaking passionately and directly to those who still think the Kimkins diet is a safe and effective way to lose weight in a healthy manner, Christin had an extremely clear and articulate message for them.
“If I and my story can stop anyone else from having pain and having the fear that I did that I might have caused even further damage and by attempting to be for my family I hindered my longevity with them–I was scared to death. That ride to the hospital was one of the most fearful ones that I have ever had! My husband was scared at having to face the possibility of losing his wife and his helper and his love,” she recalled from her haunting experience earlier this week.
When they got to the hospital, Christin said she and her husband “prayed together” while holding hands hoping for the best in God’s hands. And that’s something she wants to help others avoid if they will simply listen to what she has to say.
“If I can save any of you from having to go through that, then it is worth it,” Christin concluded.
Speaking about her role as the Public Relations head of Kimkins last month and as the cover girl on the Woman’s World magazine in June, Christin said she did it because she “thought [she] was helping” others as is her heart’s desire.
“It has always been my desire to help people,” she said. “And especially those that I feel a connection with, those who have struggled to lose weight their entire lives, those who have issues with obesity–something that I know all too well.”
Christin said taking on those responsibilities felt like she was “doing my part to give hope, to give assurance, to sympathize and to empathize” with people who were facing the same struggles that she had trying to lose weight. She still has those feelings for people who want to beat their obesity which is why she is still blogging and participating in a low-carb forum again.
“My heart goes out to you because I know what it’s like,” Christin stated. “I know the euphoria of losing weight quickly, but I also know the risks and the dangers involved and I am begging with you now to please listen to your body like I’ve said so many times and do the right thing.”
She added: “There is a right way and a wrong way to lose weight. And I am now convinced that starving yourself and utilizing the Kimkins program in that manner is not the right way.”
Realizing there is still a need for a community for people who desire weight loss the healthy way, Christin said we should all “stand together and learn together” the “correct way to use a low-carb program to make each other healthy, to live a longer life for our loved ones and our families.”
Christin said she’ll be back to blogging again soon and appreciates the friendship and love that has been shown to her through this horrific experience.
“I love you and I’m here for you,” she concluded.
Visit Christin and learn more about her continuing low-carb weight loss journey at her “The Journey On” blog as well as the “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Discussion” forum. And if you would like to contact Woman’s World magazine to let them know about your concerns regarding the Kimkins program, their direct e-mail address is DearWW@aol.com. Perhaps if enough of us let them know about Christin and others who have suffered serious health consequences from being on Kimkins, then they may print a retraction.
