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Kimkins Diet: Big Fat Fraud? | Diet Reviews

May 12, 2008 on 9:11 pm | By Matt | In Diet Reviews | 10 Comments

The Kimkins Diet Promises Dramatic Weight Loss, But A Little Investigation Shows Kimkins Is A Diet Disaster

I first saw the Kimkins Diet pop up in the Yahoo Answers Diet and Fitness category about 12 months ago.  Someone calling herself “Kimmer” was trolling the diet-related questions and posting cookie-cutter answers touting an amazing new diet that was “better than Atkins.” The claims seemed incredible: weight loss of up to 124 lbs and zero need to exercise.

Being curious about this “miracle diet” I clicked through.

What I found was typical of a fad diet site: Unbelievable claims of dramatic weight-loss, the usual testimonials (predominately from women) with before and after pictures, and “Kimmer’s” story of how she went from fat to model-thin using her own “amazing” diet plan.

There were even before and after pictures of Kimmer demonstrating her own transformation from morbidly obese to svelte beauty. With her low-cut leopard top and smoky eyes, I had to admit Kimmer looked pretty hot. It was hard to believe she was the same woman in the grainy “before” picture who looked like she was steadying herself with the handrail to keep from falling over under all that extra weight.

I clicked back to Yahoo Answers, marked her post as “spam” and moved on. 

Over the coming months, I saw a few questions about the “Kimkins Diet” here and there, posted some responses dismissing it as a unhealthy crash diet and recommended spending your $79.95 “membership fee” on some healthy, whole food.

I more or less forgot about it.

And then it hit. In June 2007, Woman’s World Magazine featured a cover story on the Kimkins Diet, complete with the pictures of glowing Kimkins success stories and the sensational headline “Better Than Gastric Bypass!”

Suddenly, Kimkins had gone mainstream.

What Is The Kimkins Diet?

The Kimkins Diet website describes the Kimkins diet as a “low-fat, low-carb” weight-loss program that “doesn’t require pills, special foods, expensive supplements” or “exercise.” It also presents itself as an alternative to costly gastric bypass surgery, which immediately throws up a red flag that the diet is targeting the most desperately overweight people — people who really need the help of a nutritionist and medical weight loss professional, not an Internet guru.

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