I have gotten some not so polite messages in the past saying…how I never mentioned any medical or emotional issues with Kimkins until I was banned. My first reaction was to blast back and remind these people that I was told while active at Kimkins what I could and could not say about issues such as my hair and DR appt etc. But I held off. Why? Because I am not going to be bullied. I had not been ready to share some issues. In fact maybe I am still working on allowing myself to deal with some of those issues. But I am ready to share some issues I had with the Kimkins diet plan..both medical and emotional. And trust me..we all have a tad of both. Maybe you do not see it yet….you will. And by the time you do…permant damage and bad habits may be too late to reverse.
First of all..I had mentioned many times in open post on Kimkins that I had some “issues” going on. I am not sure why there seems to be such a problem with people believing that some have medical issues on this plan.
My blog today will show my history of dealing with these issues…
From Kimmer ( Sept 2007)
To answer your question, you are banned.
I am done dealing with the issues on the group. I will let you back in group but you will follow what I say.
No more talk about your hair. You have hair so stop talking about it. IT can not be falling out that much.
I do not want any talk about your Dr telling you to add foods back in. That will just make you gain weight . NO talk of vitamins .No medical issues at all.
You do not mention Jimmy Moore on my site. You need to reconsider a lunch meeting. I am very upset that you would consider this after the UTube video he made making fun of Kimkins. Just do not meet him.
Enough of the fake niceness. No one can be that nice. You pop in and out with fake nice post. Stop it. It seems you do this to make me mad.
I will share a very personal e-mail from Oct 2007 between myself and Becky….I think these words will share my feelings LONG before I ended up being banned …and started this blog.
—– Original Message —-
From: AmyB <amyb1569@cfl.rr.com>
To: dovecreekwinns@yahoo.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 9:57:54 PM
Subject: Hello
I have wanted to talk with you for a while but never have reached out to do it. I wanted to make sure first that what I say to you is private. I have the up most respect for you. But in truth I would like to talk with you and not a anti kimmer site ect. I think you know what I mean.
Let me know your thoughts about this and I will e-mail you .
Amy B
—– Original Message —-
From: AmyB <amyb1569@cfl.rr.com>
To: Elizabeth Winn <dovecreekwinns@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 10:51:28 PM
Subject: Re: Hello
I just want our conversation kept between you and me.
First let me say..that even though you do not know me. I so feel like I know you. For months while I was at Kimkins…I followed you. I read what you wrote. I did boot camp with you. No I did not stalk you ..haha.
I have to say that I am sad. I have been sad. I have a mixture of feelings. I miss things the way they were. I miss kimkins being a hopping place. I miss the old familiar faces..such as you. I miss the fact that I USE to think there was a miracle plan…Kimkins.
I thought I was numb to everything. I was not as out raged with Kimmer being heavy. I know she lied and that was wrong. But when I saw the photos..I felt bad for her and embarrassed. And yes I was disappointed in her also. But the day I found out about the Russian brides and the red dress..I felt my heart sank. It was one thing to lie about her size…but to lie about the diet and the people who had succeeded on it..well it was hard to hear. Then of course I got some feedback that people where asking if I was real or a Russian bride. It kind of took away the excitement of being on the success stories.
I had planned to leave kimkins but I find myself needing to be involved in the weight loss lives of my buddies I have become close with. But in truth I feel like a fraud being there sometimes. Such a mixture of feelings.
I know for me right now..I am not ready to leave. I think deep down I kept thinking it would blow up or blow over. But this status of just being ..is weird.
One thing I have been doing while I am there is working on myself adding food back in. I also working with my buddies to do the same.
What I wanted to share with you is something I have been holding in. I must say that I am not sure why I would tell you all this. But I feel like I need to tell someone.
Kimkins has not been a good plan for me emotionally. I have learned to eat very little and lose a lot. I have developed a habit of worrying if I eat an extra crumb of this or that..what will the scale say. But then worse thing is….I have been sick. I have felt awful. I ended up having some lab work done and I have some serious medical issues going on. Do you know what my Dr said to me. Well unless you are starving yourself….I have no idea why your levels are so off. I just smiled and never said a word about the diet ect. Then my next appt she said..well we sometimes see this type of issues in Gastric bypass patients. I sat there with a smile and left. The next visit..she said..well you now will need injections and your thyroid is ruined. All this in 5 months. I have been seeing a counselor for some personal issues..and she said as clear as day. Kimmer is a fraud and her diet could kill you. I think I had never wanted to think..I did this to me and my body. I thought I was doing good. I looked good. I can dress great. I feel like crap and my Dr basically said I was starving myself. Wow. There I said it. I said it to someone. I feel nervous now.
You know what I wish. I wish kimmer was really gone. I wish her site could be legit and start over without her. But even if that were to happen it is ruined now. I am hopeful my race buddies I am so close to will leave soon. I have tried other places…started a journal at Jimmy’s. It just does not feel at home. Not that Kimmer’s feels like home..but the people do.
is any of this making sense?
I hope it was okay for me to share this with you. And let me add..you can share parts of my e-mail with \whoever or in blog…just not my name. I would like to stay private.
I guess I just felt like I wanted to tell you that I miss things before all this. I wish Kimmer had been real.
Thanks for being a solid person in all this mess.
And thanks for listening to me.
Amy B
—– Forwarded Message —-
From: Elizabeth Winn <dovecreekwinns@yahoo.com>
To: AmyB <amyb1569@cfl.rr.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 4:39:05 PM
Subject: Re: Hello
Oh, Amy! I am sorry for all you are going through! I will be praying for you.
To have this diet drama is bad enough. To develop serious complications makes it so much worse. And to have all this on top off your own personal battles for your son — well, to tell the truth, it makes me feel so sad and so angry I don’t even have words for it.
You said you wanted to feel numb. I really understand that. You feel sad and disappointed, but you want to hang on. I understand that, too. You wish it would go back like it was —- I did, too, but I can tell you for certain that can never happen. You wish Kimmer was really gone, and all could be healthy and legit — but I know for a fact she is not. She still runs the site, and is counting on it all blowing over so she can get back to business. And, sadly, the lead Admins putting the public face on Kimkins and deleting the links to evidence and banning the truth-tellers are by now also guilty of aiding and abetting in fraud, and are criminally prosecutable, just like Kimmer is, if the authorities decide to press charges. They will not be allowed to carry on without Kimmer. It is all coming down, before too long, and nothing can stop that from happening.
I agree that the problem is not that Kimmer is overweight. We could all understand that, since we’ve been there ourselves. If she had told the truth instead of selling a lie, she would not be in so much trouble.
No, the problem is that she broke the law, more than a few laws, actually, and continues to do so, even today. She has committed several felonies, she is not sorry, and she has not changed her ways. She is hurting people for money. She is more guilty and more dangerous that most people realize. The whole truth hasn’t come out yet — believe me, it’s worse than people know.
Let’s talk about the diet. Did Kimmer do it herself? We don’t know for sure, but I think she did at least once, as a teen, and she probably tried again, more than once, when she wanted to lose again. But look what it did for her. She, like you, ruined her thyroid, and slowed her metabolism to a crawl, so that she ended up even bigger than before. Plus, like VLCDs often do, it set off binging. So she has sat at her computer, weighing probably over 300 lbs. snacking on cookies, bald and hypothyroid, telling people to eat 600 calories or under, and that it wouldn’t hurt them at all, just to get their money. SO many people are now ending up hypothyroid, sick, malnourished, hair falling out, skin and muscle tone suffering, with electrolyte imbalances, bowel problems, and heart problems. One woman may need a transplant. AND HEIDI KNOWS THIS. Yet she is still promoting and selling the diet, knowing that it is damaging people like you who trusted her. Your health is now damaged for life, with the thyroid condition meaning you will probably always have to eat fewer calories than you could have otherwise. Low thyroid affects hair, skin, nails, energy levels, body temps, mood, mental clarity, libido, and a host of other things, including the possibility of autoimmubne disorders, affected for life so she could put $60 of your money in her Paypal account.
Yes, the diet peels weight off —- for now. But it makes it extremely difficult to keep the weight off later. It DOES damage the metabolism. It is highly likely to damage thyroid function. It often triggers binge eating disorder or anorexia. It frequently causes a whole slew of health problems — some permanent. It is a bad diet, and it is not worth it. Think about it — if it really works long-term, why are there not many more REAL success stories by now? And why have at least half of the people in those few real stories now renounced Kimkins, with any of them having health problems?
I am going to say 2 things you really do not want to hear. I am really sorry to do this. I hate making you feel bad when you are already in crisis. But you reached out to me, and I would not be serving you or telling you the truth if I did not say what I am about to say.
First, Amy, I will say that you are doing your friends there more harm than good by staying. Your support and your example may be the very thing keeping some of them there. Your encouragement may be the thing keeping some of them going. Your pictures and your success story may be the motivation inspiring them to dig deeper and try harder. You have not told the whole truth about the problems you are developing, and your friends there really need and deserve to know the truth, before it happens to them.
I know you say you are adding more food in, and encouraging others to do the same. I’m sorry, but that won’t be enough. As long as that site continues, the record of the encouragement to super-low calories, daily laxative use, and disordered behavior is still there. I know Tippy is trying to say to go at least 800 calories, but, for one thing, that is still low, and for another, the plans as written do not support that. Boot Camp is meant to be 500ish, 600 tops by Kimmer’s own words and calculations. The shake option is meant to be 3 to 4 shakes of 200 calories each or less, so 800 tis the very top, more like 450 – 600. All that info and history is still there for any new people to find and follow, and get into trouble with, just like you did.
As long as that site exists, with big success stories on the front page, promising amazingly fast losses, new people will continue to join every day (putting money in Kimmer’s pocket still.) They will read the plans and see what is intended. They will read the Ask Kimmer thread and lots of old posts in the journals and challenges and boot camp and everywhere. Most of them will go for the super-low fat, low-calorie diet as it is written to be. Many of them will develop the same health problems you and many others are facing.
And, Amy, the participation of the members like you is what keeps that site going. I know you are all staying just for the support of the friends you have made, but that also helps the new people feel welcomed and supported and enabled, too —- and many of them will suffer for it. The best thing you and your friends could do would be to abandon that site, and quit supporting Kimmer’s fraudulent enterprise that is hurting so many people.
But even if they were to erase everything on the whole site, and rewrite the plans, as long as people are there who remember it from before, who know about cutting so low for fast losses, it will always be to tempting to go back to that when losses stall, or weight starts to creep up. The allure will always be there, built into the culture, and it will continue to harm people.
And that brings me to the second thing that I don’t want to say, and you won’t want to hear. I am terribly sorry.
Amy, I have to tell you that you have developed (or at least, are developing) an eating disorder.
The fear of eating, the obsessing over small amounts of food showing up on the scale, the hiding the truth about what you are eating and how you are feeling, the health complications — those are classic signs of an eating disorder. In your heart, you know – or at least suspect – that it is true.
I beg you to tell your doctors the whole truth of how little and just what you have been eating. Tell them what you are thinking and how you are feeling. You will probably find, like Christin did, that they send you to an eating disorders specialist. She has to get counseling for it now, and she has shed so many tears over this struggle. Please, Amy — your family needs you to take care of yourself. Losing weight is wonderful — but not at this high a cost. Don’t trade one way of being unhealthy for an even worse one.
I just wish you would tell the truth about what is going on — to yourself, to your doctors, to the members of Kimkins, and to the rest of the people watching this saga. Your truth could save some people some real heartache.
I wish you would leave Kimkins, with or without your friends, to quit adding support and legitimacy to something that just needs to end, before it is too late.
I didn’t mean to write so much. I am available to talk more, if you are willing. If I have offended you, I really am sorry.
I will try to find a way to share your story without giving away anything that would identify you.
Becky Winn
—– Original Message —–
From: Elizabeth Winn
To: AmyB
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 11:16 PM
Subject: Fw: Hello
Hi, Amy I just read your new blog post, and saw I was mentioned.
I ended up not blogging about your story, because I knew you would be easily identified from the details you gave. As you know, I did share your struggles with Jeannie Baitinger on the phone, when she was first coming out of Kimkins. I was trying to convince her that, yes, people doing Kimkins really were developing serious health problems and eating disorders, that it was not a bunch of made-up claims by people mad at Heidi, but even people like you who supported the diet and the site (at the time) were in trouble. Thank God, Jeannie, you, and a bunch of people have come to realize the dangers now.
Anyway, I wanted to say that if you ever want to put these emails (the one included here below from me to you) on your blog, you have my permission.
I know you are bravely coming to grips with what you went through and what Kimkins did to you. If telling more about it, like you did in your email to me helps you, or you think it might help someone else, feel free to post it.
As always, you are in my prayers.
Becky Winn
AmyB: Food For Thought 
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