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Mary of Allenwood NJ (01/28/08)
I paid $59.95 for a lifetime membership to Kimkins.com but was banned without explanation, warning, or refund. Kimkins is run by Heidi Diaz, aka Kimmer, who claimed to have lost nearly 200 pounds in less than a year. The membership included personal coaching by Kimmer/Heidi Diaz, support, message boards, etc. It has been discovered that Heidi Diaz is a morbidly obese woman with no nutritional or medical training or personal experience to base her advice on. She used pictures stolen from Russian online bride sites to represent herself (her "after" picture) and MANY of her fabricated success stories. There is a class action lawsuit against her. Her diet and fraud has been on KTLA, The morning show with Mike and Juliet, and Good Morning America. Kimkins is a scam. She's banning members without refunds or explanation. Members are experiencing health issues from this diet. Heidi Diaz recommends dangerously low calories, laxative use and very low fat.
I lost a ton of hair, had dizziness, nausea, rashes, dry skin, and loss of $59.95. I fear for the health of anyone who joins Kimkims.
Barbara of New Egypt NJ (01/22/08)
Kimkins.com is owned by a woman named Heidi Diaz, who claimed she lost 198 lbs in 11 months and kept it off for 5 years. Pictures taken by a private investigator show this to be a fraudulent claim by a woman who is over 300 lbs. She used false after pictures and success stories which she stole off the internet from Russian Mail Order Bride sites. She encourages those on her plan to go lower and lower in calories, and postings of fitday entries of her members show many doing less than 500 calories per day. This is a dangerous VLCD, low in essential fats and nutrients. Many have reported health issues from following this dangerous plan. She charges a lifetime membership fee (currently $79.95), yet has BANNED members from the site who asked questions about the diet that concerned them. The diet is dangerous, the woman is a scam artist, the lifetime membership guarantee has been broken time and time again.
Paige of Clinton MO (01/21/08)
On July 20, 2006, I purchased a lifetime membership to the www.kimkins.com website, based on the recommendation of another well know and respected LowCarb Blogger.
At the time I joined for $29.95, my membership was to include among other things, access to forums, access to the founder, an e-book written by the founder. The founder being Kimmer aka Heidi Diaz.
Heidi made the claim to have lost 198lbs in 11 months and kept it off for more than 5 years. The before and after pictures she used of herself were quite believable at the time.
At the time I bought my membership, there was no TOS agreement required of me.
Over many months it has be proven that Heidi did not lose the weight. The pictures she used to depict her weight loss were taken from Russian Bride websites. From the same sites pictures were also used to fabricate success stories. The e-book never materialized and at one point Heidi disappeared from the site prohibiting access to her by her members.
There is currently a pending lawsuit against Ms. Diaz.
I was banned from access to the website Kimkins when I asked about her credibility to give advice regarding maintenance, seeing how she never maintained her weight loss. The claim was I violated the TOS.
It has also come to light that her diet plan is really nothing more than a promotion of anorexia/starvation.
Many charter members who had followed her plan and advice are now experiencing many health problems.
Ms. Diaz is still extremely obese and can't seem to even follow her own program. She is now asking $79.95 for people to join and advise her on how to lose weight
Aside from people losing money to join her site, She is giving dangerous advice.
Teresa of Port Orchard WA (01/21/08)
On June 11, 2006 I signed up for a lifetime membership to this website. The website is operated by Heidi Diaz, who claimed to have lost 198 pounds in a year. She has testified under oath that she never lost the weight on the program
she calls Kimkins. It is a starvation diet which has harmed and is harming people's health. Heidi Diaz has testified under oath that she committed fraud by using images of people taken from the internet to represent herself and others she claimed to have lost weight successfully on Kimkins.
On October 7, 2007, Heidi Diaz banned me from her website, denying me the benefits I was promised when I purchased my membership.
I did not violate any of her terms of service to warrant being banned. In fact, I was not even posting on her site at the time she banned me. This woman is a proven fraud, yet desperate people are still dishing out money to her for memberships, to the tune of $79.95. She must be stopped! Please help!
I paid $14.95 for a membership that was supposed to be for a lifetime. However, my membership was revoked without cause and without remedy. I do not need an attorney to contact me because I am participating in a class action lawsuit to bring Heidi Diaz to justice.
B. of Portage MI (01/21/08)
The truth about Kimkins is still being uncovered, and none of it is good. Here are some of the dimensions of the situation:
1) Fraud
The site was founded by a woman who didn't lose weight on her own diet plan. She used photographs lifted from Russian bride websites. (No,
I'm not kidding.) The success stories were fabricated. There is a heavily spun confession to this on a link from her home page, presented there
when clips from the deposition for the class action lawsuit was televised.
2) Stolen diet plans
She admitted to stealing the diet plan from Stillman and Atkins, though she did alter the diets significantly to be dangerously unhealthy. The Atkins
Center is working on legal action against her. The diet is not low carb, it is low everything. Members are to consume 0-20g carbohydrate (advice
is to get as close to 0 as possible, sacrificing vegetables in the process), 40-60g lean protein, with as little fat as you can get away with.
Common calorie consumption for diet users is well under 500 calories. Many members have dropped out of the diet after suffering medical
complications. Some of their stories are here:
http://kimkinssurvivors.wordpress.com/
3) Dangerous advice
She coaches people to eat less and less if they aren't achieving turbo weight loss. If they aren't losing fast, she says they don't 'want it bad
enough'. If they object to her advice to eat less, she calls them weak. She advises daily use of laxatives, which has dangerous health implications.
Sadly, this diet advice is given without medical training and without regard to member health or age. A 14 year old was openly posting on the
site, until her parents realized what she was eating. Some of the moderators even abused this teen when she said she needed to start eating
more - knowing full well she was only a teen!
As a result of her hazardous advice, many people are developing eating disorder behaviors.
4) Bad business practices
Members who question Kimmer's advice or history are banned without warning or refund. Posts on the site are heavily censored.
People have suffered health damage as a result of following this woman's advice. People have lost money by signing up for her plan based on fraudulent marketing.
Kathleen of Sacramento CA (01/21/08)
Kimkins.com is a Web Diet Site started by a morbidly obese woman named Heidi Kimberly Diaz, AKA, Kimmer, in an effort to scam thousands of innocent people out of their money in the name of losing weight. Ms. Diaz brought in over a million dollars in the month of June 2007 alone. Ms. Diaz used faked "after" pictures and success stories on her site that she downloaded from a Russian Bride site. Ms. Diaz claimed to have lost 198 lbs. in less than a year and kept it off for over 5 years; when in truth, she never lost the weight at all.
Kimkins is a very low carb, low calorie, low fat diet that promotes eating 500 or less calories, Eating Disorders (EDs), hair loss, and heart palpitations, are just a few of the health problems that can result. People are encouraged to go lower and lower in their calories to see the scale move down a pound. Ms. Diaz offered Lifetime Memberships and then proceeded to ban people from the site. This diet is dangerous and this woman needs to be stopped before someone dies.
Personally, after two months I started losing my hair, had problems trying to add food back into my diet and once I could...basically binged after that.
Lauren of Cocoa FL (12/11/07)
Ms. Diaz misrepresented herself in her website and showed false before and after pictures to lure myself and others to pay her website for her diet. The diet is dangerous and she has given advice to individuals that amounts to starvation and extremely low calorie counts per day.
Some individuals had heart palpitations and reported hair loss, others had rebound weight gain. Many were banned from her website after being promised a lifetime membership for the price of joining. These prices varied over time from $19.95 to $59.95.
Christine of Blaine WA (10/19/07)
I developed heart palpitations, hair loss and constipation after 2 weeks on this unsafe eating plan. I was encouraged to drop my calories below 500 per day! Luckily I stopped and saw my physician but so many hundreds even thousands of others were not as lucky and are either still following this unsafe plan or experiencing medical issues. A class action lawsuit has been launched against Kimkins.
Rene of Milwauke WI (10/18/07)
I joined the kimkins website forums and support group in June of 2007 after reading about the diet in Women's World Magazine. With my $59.95 I was given a lifetime membership along with diet information for the kimkins program. In August of 2007 I was banned from the website, thus ending my lifetime membership. I wasn't informed as to the reason beyond a blanket TOS violation screen. Repeated attempts to contact the company's administration went unanswered, as well as requests for a refund of my lifetime membership fee. In the meanwhile it's been discovered by private investigators that the entire program was based upon a fraud. A majority of the success stories, the testimonials, the photographs were all false, and many stolen from a Russian mail order bride website. Even the photos of the founder, Kimmer were false. The diet did not have medical/doctor support as was communicated, and the advice given was dangerous and led to many problems for it's followers.
I have had a few physical problems resulting from following this diet as laid out specificially by the founder, Kimmer (aka Heidi Diaz). I am suffering from severe and extreme hair loss. I also suffered some emotional consequences, specifically I ended up livng an anorexic lifestyle, eating not more than 600 calories a day..all the while being supported, encouraged, and applauded by the kimkins organization. They gave medical and physiological reasons why this was okay to do, why it was to be supported and why I should continue. Yes, i lost weight. And now I am trying to recover, trying to save what is left of my hair, trying to learn to eat again, and awaiting medical test results hoping that no other more serious consequences will be the result of my voyage into the kimkins hell.
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