I hate conferences

Especially the kind that run all frickin' day, and end with me having to stand in front of a poster of my work for four hours straight while suits from industry meander past.

Gah.

Actually, it wasn't too bad. The problem with this particular conference is that it is for the larger center I work for, and I am the lone chemist in a sea of engineering types. The industry people are almost exclusively focused on their work, so I get almost no traffic. The few who throw me a mercy visit clearly do not know what I am nattering on about, me and my crazy polymer-protein stuff. All I can think about is the million other things I could have gotten done.

I did get smart this year, I didn't bother standing in front of the poster the whole time, I just circulated where I could see it in case anyone came by. A few did, including one very nice venture capitalist, who complimented my choice of color palette for the poster and laughed like hell when I told him I'd sell it to him for $10 million. He does think two of the companies he funds might be interested in my work, which is nice to hear but you do hear that a lot and I'll celebrate when the check clears and not before. And they had some really good food there, a lot of it LC friendly :)

Tired. Go sleepy now.

Elle

Review of $ 8 Zenni Optical Rx Eyeglasses and zennioptical.com

This is a sponsored post.

If you couldn't read that first sentence (or any other sentences in this post), you may need glasses. One option might be http://www.ZenniOptical.com, home of the $ 8 Zenni Optical Rx Eyeglasses, plus a case.

When I first decided to start doing paid blogging, I vowed to only take on work that didn't compromise my principles. Not that I have many, mind you, but the few I have are near and dear to my heart, and one of them is a distaste for blatant, biased, poorly written paid blog posts in which the author clearly would say anything for the money. This review, dear reader, will not be a blatant paean to the wonder that is http://www.ZenniOptical.com, though it may be poorly written. Poor writing isn't technically a principle, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway. Upon viewing http://www.ZenniOptical.com for the first time, my first thought was that whoever designed it is in fact themselves in desperate need of an $ 8 Zenni Optical Rx Eyeglasses. And a case in which to store them. This website reminds me of the first personal website I ever did, a slick little Geocities number, laden with buttons and banners and scrolling on for miles. My second thought was that perhaps this bargain-basement website was a deliberate choice on the part of Zenni Optical, a cost-saving measure, perhaps. You wouldn't believe what some people charge to design a website, and how many idiots out there will pay for it. I was told a little while ago that one company I used to work at, let's call them BadScienceXgen, paid over 100K for an website that makes this one look sparely beautiful in comparison.

Clearly, our friends at Zenni Optical are too smart to fall for that trap, and I am deducing this from the fact that BOW HOWDY THOSE ARE SOME CHEAP GLASSES! Whatever they didn't spend on web design clearly went into savings for their customers. The page of their $ 8 Zenni Optical Rx Eyeglasses may scroll on for miles, but there are some nice looking frames on there, such as these:


Also nice is that anti-scratch coating is free, a feature that appeals to me since I am squinting through some seriously scratched lenses right now. UV protection is also free, as is lens edge polishing and beveling, though frankly, polishing off those sharp little spikes of glass and finishing the edges strikes me as simply good business practice when one's business involves the manufacturing of little disks of glass or polymer to be worn near one's eyes, rather than a special deal.

I wear contacts when not at work, which means I wear glasses a lot of the time, and this pair I am wearing are nearing the end of their useful life. I am thinking of checking these guys out meaning buying some glasses from them, especially since shipping is a mere $4.95, whatever the size of the order. Of course this means I will need an eye exam, now a year overdue, since I don't know my prescription other than "nearsighted" and I think they may need that.

I must confess, one dream I have is to get a pair of rhinestoned harlequin frames, an extravagance I have not yet indulged in because my hold on a dollar is a lot tighter than my grip on good taste, and I can't see spending $100 or more for a second pair of glasses that only I would find amusing. I don't see any rhinestones on the site, but hey, I've got a glue gun around here somewhere!

Elle

Looking for something to read?

The ladies over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books posted today about an author named Patry Francis. She's mentioned as part of a larger post on using blogs for good. Patry Francis has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, and as a result, is unable to do any publicity for the soft cover release of her first book The Liar's Diary*. But, as a reminder that the world is filled with nice people, a bunch of authors who blog are getting together and doing it for her.

I must confess, I haven't read this yet. But, if anyone happened to be looking for something to read, consider moseying on over to amazon.com and buying The Liar's Diary.**

Elle

* No, it's not the diary of everyone's favorite discredited diet guru.
** Widget to the right notwithstanding, I get no credit if you click on the link. Just the widget. If you like, you can go directly to amazon.com and order it from there.

Someone made you a new logo, Heidi!

It's been reported that the Kimkins site has been updated, to reflect stunning losses of literally a few pounds in just a few weeks! Since Heidi is so busy redoing her site, a lovely lady by the name of Squeakie over on Low Carb Friends decided to help out by designing a new banner for Kimkins. I just love it, though my admiration is tinged with a bit of sadness. For, you see, as funny as this banner is ... it's sadly all too true.

No faster deadlier diet. None.


Elle

ETA: For Anonymous and others who only see the Kimkins logo, here is the rest, in sequence:

Jon and Kate plus SHUT UP, WOMAN!!!

In an effort to avoid 1.) working on my book and 2.) watching the State of the Union Address, I came across a show I've heard of but never watched, Jon and Kate +8. It's apparently a reality show about two crazy people, their twin daughters and their sextuplets, all the product of in vitro.

Okay, I shouldn't say they are crazy, to each their own and seriously, if Dancing in Socks Guy and I are going to have kids, we will probably need in vitro ourselves since my ovaries are rattling like seed pods. Making fun of these people is just asking Jesus to arrange it so I have quadruplets or something.

So, eight kids. That has got to be wearing. I remember how I felt after eight hours of watching my one niece when she was a toddler, and I got to go home at the end of the day. That said, Kate -- I'm sure they edit the heck out of this show, and I'm willing to believe that for the sake of drama they may be making you look a teensy bit worse than you actually are. But damn, lady, do you have nothing nice to say about your husband? You are on television, you know, and it might be nice if you didn't make it quite so clear that you think your husband is a jackass. Because the one thing that's more exhausting than being the mother of eight small children is probably being the single mother of eight small children.

I'm just saying. The kids are cute though.

Elle

Paid Blogging

I signed up for Pay Per Post last week, and apparently my blog gets enough traffic because they approved me. I've been toying with the idea of doing paid writing for a while. I've written plenty, though most of it has been unpaid or part of what I was getting paid to do in the first place. The main obstacle has always been time. Writing, serious writing, takes acres and acres of time, or at least it does for me. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who think that someday they'll spend a couple nights a week for a month and turn out a book in no time.

Would that it were that easy. All I know is I spent an hour today rewording a paragraph for a grant renewal. It's not always that bad, last night I whipped out a 3,500 word synopsis in just under two hours, and it needed very little editing when I looked at it tonight. Blogging is different, somehow, I never have much trouble finding something to say though if you're paying attention you'll see that occasionally I'll go back and edit/fix things.

I've been aware of 'paid blogging' for a while. It's pretty much what the name implies, someone makes you an offer to write about something, and you get paid for it. I've decided to give it a go, for two reasons. One obvious reason is that even a little money is always helpful. Unlike some people, I am too ethical a person to start my own fraudulent diet site and I'm actually paying back my student loans.

The other, more important reason has little to do with money. Frankly, I'm not going to get rich from this, or even make more than might treat me and Dancing in Socks Guy to an extravagant meal at Sonic, mostly because I can't do it full time or even truly part time. But there are other tangible benefits from this. Those who read the non-kimkins content may know that I have been writing fiction for some time. Some of it appears to have gotten to the point where it doesn't suck so badly no one would look at it, and it's ready to earn me the first of many rejection slips. One thing that is helpful to a first-time author is to get something, anything published. Apparently, it serves as an indicator that your book might sell, or something like that. I'm in a bit of an odd position here, I actually have been published, but it's in the scientific literature, which while important to some people, doesn't carry all that much weight when it comes to fiction.

The same goes for my foefiction (I was thinking of doing a quick fraud-fiction based on you-know-who here) -- it's nice, if you like that kind of thing, but no one is paying me to do it. Thus, I thought trying paid blogging might be a good way to get going. It's not Vanity Fair and I doubt it'll impress an agent, but you have to start somewhere, and I'm hoping that it will help me sharpen my prose skills. Beyond those which I use in my everyday work, that is, but honestly, those skills are useless unless you happen to be writing something in which 'elucidate' and other big words must appear constantly.

After careful consideration, I decided to go with payperpost , mainly because they offer the opportunity to write positive, neutral, and even negative posts. The money is a nice little side benefit, but not so great I'd throw everything away and go to the dark side, you know? Not that many people read here, but I value those who do and I'd rather not run all one hundred of you away by littering this site with stuff best left to spam filters. Not every post will be paid, and those that are will have that nifty little graphic at the bottom to indicate that I am being paid to write it. I think paid blogging has it's place if it's done right, and I think I can do it. You may recall some time back I burbled unsolicited about my Collette Vacations Tour to Italy with my mom. Hand to God, somehow Collette heard about it and contacted me, asking if they could use some of what I'd written. Even though the actual post had the word "snot" in it.

Of course, if you hate it, feel free to get together and send me a hundred dollars each, and promise to buy my self-published book and we'll call it even ;)

Seriously, this is an experiment. Most of what I write will not be paid and if the paid posts are too obnoxious, if it's too jarring, comment and tell me so. If it doesn't work, I won't do it.

Elle

Twenty-Five Reasons Why I Love Dancing in Socks Guy

1. I love that he loves cats as much as I do.
2. I love that he's such a good driver. I have to confess, I'm a big baby when it comes to driving on mountain roads with steep drop-offs and no guard rails, but I'm never afraid of them when he's driving.
3. I love that his best friend is a woman, who is not me.
4. I love his shoulders.
   
5. I love his 'phone voice.' It's so damn sexy!
6. I love the way that he's an unabashed Adidas whore and will buy anything with those three stripes, even knowing as he does that he's basically paying them to advertise their stuff.
   
7. I love that he's like a sommelier, except for beer. The man has an exquisitely developed beer palate.
8. I love that he loves cartoons as much as I do. This is what really brought us together.
9. I love that he has a very close relationship with his sister, especially since I don't have the same with my brothers.
   
10. I love that he worries about me as much as he does. After years of being with men who mostly worried that I might dare begin thinking about having a long-term relationship with them, having someone worry about things like my health and the safety of my vehicle is refreshing.
    
11. I love that he's such a foodie. He has a real talent for finding the best (insert cuisine here) wherever he goes.
12. I love that he's still friends with people he knew as a child.
13. I love the way he smells.
    
14. I love how he can wax enthusiastic for hours over some obscure House music.
15. I love that he's as much of an Anglophile as I am.
16. I love that we can talk for hours and hours and hours and still have things to talk about.
17. I love how he goes out of his way to tell me he appreciates little things I do for him, even if I've done them a million times.
18. I love that he's Navajo and proud of it.
19. I love that he has the same encyclopedic memory for one-hit-wonders and obscure television shows that I do.
20. I love that I can start to say that I heard about something or other on NPR and he'll say, "Oh yeah! That's where they ..."
    
21. I love that he literally can remember, almost word-for-word, the first telephone conversation we had nearly twelve years ago.
22. I love that he enjoys fantasy shopping for furniture with me, where we look at stuff we'd like to have someday and fantasize that we'll actually be able to afford it.
23. I love that he drinks tea, specifically PG Tips.
24. I love that he listens to BBC1 as much as I do.
25. I love that this list could number into infinity and I still wouldn't be done talking about the things I love about him.

Elle

White Rice Hangover

Blech.

Last night I went to dinner at the home of two-coworkers. One works in the intellectual property division of the University, and has done a lot of work in getting two of my inventions patented. Her wife is a director of one of the research centers at the same University, which pays part of my salary. Thus, it was incumbent on me to go, though honestly I like them both a lot and would have gone even if the politics of the situation hadn't demanded it. The dinner was in honor of another co-worker and her parents, who are over from China for Co-Worker's upcoming wedding. My boss and her wife were also there.

This sort of dinner party is the kind that could only happen in a liberal enclave like Massachusetts. Two same sex married couples, half the guest list cooing in Mandarin over the host's wedding album, and two heterosexual women talking about their own wedding plans. It was a great night.

Also great was the food, authentic Chinese, which happens to be one of my most favorite things in the world. In the time that I've been on maintenance, my daily carbohydrate allowance is around 70-90 grams a day in the form of non-white carbs, except for special occasions, like last night. Most of the carbohydrates were of the good kind, that is, vegetables. But there was also my bete noir, sticky white rice. I ate some, and boy howdy, am I feeling it this morning!

I repeat, blech.

But that's okay, you know? Because damn, that was some good food! And food is one of life's great pleasures, not the enemy it used to be for me and continues to be for some people, for instance, those who are at kimkins.com, desperately trying to follow Kimmer's dangerous Kimkins starvation diet.

Speaking of which, MJR has an excellent post over on Kimkins Scam. One claim by Kimmer and certain of her deluded followers is that Kimkins does not now and never has promoted very low calories and laxative abuse. MJR neatly disposes of that claim by providing an abundance of evidence to the contrary. Mariasol also has a nice post about how Kimmer, in one of her 'invincible moments,' lied to the California Attorney General. Honeybee has a hysterically funny post on Kimmer's latest award, and owes me a new keyboard because this one is now covered with coffee.

There are many, many such great blogs and sites on the Just Say No to Kimkins Webring, which I urge you to visit. Sites like Kimtanic, A Pinch of, and Kimkins Nightmares all are worthy of a nice, prolonged visit. A Pinch of has a wonderful post which explains how Kimkins by its very design imposes very low calories. Kimkins Nightmares shares her own story of how she was sucked into Kimkins, what it did to her, and what really goes on at Kimkins. Kimtanic has a very amusing post in which she introduces the captain of this shipwreck.

To round out your reading list, please also visit The Lighter Side of Bad Bad, a fake blog about a real scam. I'm off to drink a gallon of water to flush out the white carb toxins.

Elle

Tom Venuto cashes in ...

Tom Venuto, who hawks his "Burn the fat!" plan all over the internet, has decided to join the ranks of the anti-kimkins bloggers.

Sort of.

You see, while the rest of us are doing this gratis to stop Heidi K. Diaz aka Kimmer from hawking her dangerous starvation diet all over the internet and we're doing this for free, Tom Venuto is using it as a way to advertise his own program.

I don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand, it's a free country/internet, and if people want to buy what you're willing to sell, why not? On the other hand, with so many free diet support sites, there's really no need to pay for such a thing.

So, for what it's worth, here it is, the aptly named Kimkins Dangers.

On the deposition front in the Kimkins class action lawsuit, it's been reported that Heidi aka Kimmer showed up for it, and that it went well. I just want to know what she wore. Red?


Elle

In other news ...

Cassie Edwards deleted her My Space Page and her website now contains just the words "under construction" whereas before it directed visitors to the aforementioned My Space page. Hmmm.

For some time I have been writing 'foe fiction' based on a popular comic strip and posting it on my Live Journal site. Of course it is sorely in need of updating, but one reason for that is I have been working on original fiction. I may, repeat, MAY start posting that here, chapter-wise. Doing so will mean it will be nearly impossible to ever get it published as a book, but chances are excellent that won't happen any way with this particular piece. I'm just not sure anyone would be that interested in it, even if it's free ;)

Elle

Happy Deposition Day, Heidi!

According to weather.com it will be around 60 degrees in Corona, California today. That mild temperature notwithstanding, at least one person in Riverside County will be sweating bullets, and her name is Heidi K. Diaz, founder of kimkins.com. And why is she sweating? Because she's scheduled to give a another deposition in the class-action lawsuit against her and her fraudulent starvation diet today!

One wonders if she will wear the same kicky red number she wore at her first deposition.

Heidi, I know you are very busy what with the lawsuit and everything, and I'd like to help out. I know it's hard to find the time to photonap images from the internet for your 'Watch us Lose!' updates, to say nothing of all the time it takes to manipulate them, so here is one I picked out just for you:




I'll leave it up to you to decide which barbed wire doll you want to pretend to be. At first blush, one would pick the brunette, since that is the color of your Eva Gabor Wigs, but it's not like having your photos match each other ever mattered to you before, so you could be the Frost-n'-Tip in the foreground.

Have a depositionlicious day, Heidi! :)

Elle

Stupid Tricks with Meta Keywords

It was a busy day of putting out scientific fires at work, so I didn't get a chance to post until now. Today's topic is, uh, the same as most days, my favorite morbidly obese diet guru, Heidi Diaz aka Kimmer founder of the dangerous and fraudulent Kimkins Diet which was recently featured in all its false glory on Good Morning America.

I decided to take a look at the page source for kimkins.com. On a semi-related note, she's taken to banning people via their IP address from the front page, but that doesn't worry me since I know how to get around it. Nice try though, Heidi -- is your son helping you with that? It's not like the tech guys know who comes from where, although now that I think about it, you're probably not getting that many hits these days. Anyway, one interesting tidbit is in her meta keywords, a bit of code used to attract people via search engines. By adding them, your site will come up when people search for XYZ. So, if I wanted people to learn the truth about Kimkins, I might put "Kimkins Fraud" or "Big Fat Lying Liar Who Lies" in my meta keywords.

Here are the meta keywords for the kimkins.com site.

<meta name="keywords" content="loose weight,diets to loose weight,loose weight quickly,
how to loose weight,loose weight fast,to loose weight,loosing weight,weight gain diets,
weight gain tips,weight gaining diets,pregnancy weight gain,healthy weight gain,
fast weight gain,fat weight,weight lost,food weight,dieting weight,quick weight,
la weight lost,body fat weight,over weight,gaining weight,weight,weight control,
healthy weight,weight idiots,diets to gain weight,reduce weight,loose pounds,diets,
fat diets,lose 10 pounds,fat loss diets,appetite suppressant,lose 10 pounds fast,
ketosis,domino effect, kimmer experiment,OAMC,boot camp,camp kimkins,starvation mode,
metabolism" />

Nice spelling. I hope that was deliberate. The value of meta keywords is debatable, and in Heidi's case, they are useless because when you search for Kimkins now, you get a bunch of blogs dedicated to telling the truth about this dangerous starvation diet and the fraud who started it. Sites like Honeybee's I Am Not Ready to Make Nice to Kimkins, and Kimkins Scam and Kimorexia. These are just a few of the many fine anti-kimkins blogs you can find at the Just Say No to Kimkins Web Ring, all of which I encourage you to visit.

Getting tired, and Dancing in Socks Guy will call soon to tell me about the first day of the new semester :) I'm so proud of him!

Elle

Desperate Times Call for Lame Measures, I Guess

It looks like the Good Morning America segment on the deadly Kimkins Diet struck a nerve. I have an 'invisible counter' on this site, one which tells me not only how many people come here, but how they got here. I had quite a spike in traffic yesterday, which is always nice, but what was truly wonderful to see was how many of you came here as a result of a Google or Yahoo search for things like "Kimkins + Lawsuit" or "Kimkins + Dangerous" and so on.

If you come here as a result of such a search and would like a good overview of the Kimkins Diet, its dangers and the evolution of this scam, please visit the Three Fat Chicks: Anatomy of a Diet Scam site. If you would like more information about how to join the class action lawsuit against this fraud, please visit the Kimkins Class Action Lawsuit site. If you would like to read stories from real people (as opposed to fake Kimkins "success stories" represented by pictures of Russian Brides) who have been harmed by the Kimkins Diet, please visit the Kimkins Survivors site.

Then there are the many wonderful anti-Kimkins bloggers, who you can find over on the right on my Kimkins links, or by visiting the Just Say No to Kimkins Web Ring. Which brings me to a prime example of the desperation of Heidi Diaz and her minions -- one of these anti-Kimkins bloggers is the fabulous HoneyBee, a Kimkins victim who maintains two sites dedicated to the subject of the Kimkins Diet scam; HoneyBee's Blog and I Am Not Ready to Make Nice to Kimkins.

Some enterprising and stunningly original person has been using the name 'honnybe2' on the ABC News site under the comments section of the Kimkins Diet Scam story, no doubt as a homage to HoneyBee's screen name on Low Carb Friends, HoneyBee2. Whether or not this is Kimmer (who has a history of sockpuppetry) or some poor Kimkins Member with Kimmer's scaly hand up their butt, I can't say.

I think I am safe, however, in calling it lame. And desperate.

Elle

Beautiful Man

Thank you, Dr. King.

Elle

Transcript of the Sunday January 20, 2008 Good Morning Segment on Kimkins

I recorded the Sunday, January 20 2008 episode of Good Morning America, which featured a Consumer Alert segment on the Kimkins Diet. You can see the video of it here, but for those of you who can't see the video for whatever reason, I transcribed it. Remember, this is an unofficial transcription, any mistakes are mine. There is one minor addition and some clarifications, I added Delaney Deaver's screen name on Kimkins (SingingLass) to the transcript, it was not mentioned in the segment, though it was shown in at least one screen shot. I also clarified which dialog came from Heidi Kimberly Diaz's deposition video, and noted where John Tiedt was quoting Heidi Diaz. And, since Heidi Kimberly Diaz is so in love with her full name, I used it to refer to her where she is speaking in the deposition video. The segment just referred to her as "The Kimmer" and "Heidi Diaz."

Enjoy!

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

KATE SNOW: Well, there’s no shortage of diet advertisements on the internet and it may seem like an easy way to take off the pounds but beware, there may be hidden risks in subscribing to a diet online. Our consumer alert this morning, Andrea Canning is here this morning with more on this particular story, this particular diet. Good Morning.

ANDREA CANNING: Good morning Kate, yeah, today we’re taking a closer look at a diet called Kimkins. A woman who lost big weight on the Kimkins diet says she now has big concerns about the program, and she’s reaching out to other internet dieters looking for that quick weight loss fix.

CHRISTIN SHERBURNE: I yo-yo dieted my entire life, I’ve been overweight since I was a child.

ANDREA CANNING: At one hundred pounds overweight, Christin Sherburne says she was vulnerable and desperate to get healthy. So when she heard about a popular new internet diet called Kimkins, that promised big results fast, she couldn’t resist.

CHRISTIN SHERBURNE: The theme on the diet site at that point in time was that there was no faster diet, so that was what caught my attention at first.

ANDREA CANNING: The Kimkins recipe for weight loss replaced fiber with laxatives and while the recommended daily number of calories for the average woman is 2000, Kimkins calls for 500.

CHRISTIN SHERBURNE: You can learn different tricks in how to not be hungry which are very similar to the same tricks that anorexics use like drinking chicken broth when you’re trying to stave off hunger pains until lunch or Crystal Light popsicles, all of which have zero to little calories.

ANDREA CANNING: Christin said it seemed to good to be true, and it was. She lost a hundred pounds in five months, and went to work for the company. But along with others, she said she experienced alarming side effects.

CHRISTIN SHERBURNE: I was taken to the emergency room, um, because I was having chest pains and that’s when I started having some of the side effects, some uh, hair loss and that is also when my menstrual cycle stopped.

ANDREA CANNING: She says she was fired after raising concerns about the safety of the diet. Still, Kimkins, that had a one-time feauture in Woman’s World Magazine, generated more than a million dollars in sales at sixty dollars a membership. But do you really know who’s behind these internet diets? For Kimkins, it’s a woman calling herself “The Kimmer” who claims to have lost 198 pounds in just five months. But skeptical members hired a private investigator and found some of the website testimonials were fake. And The Kimmer? She’s actually Heidi Diaz, a woman who clearly doesn’t resemble this photo she used, which was actually taken from a Russian mail-order bride website. There’s now a class-action lawsuit in the works against Diaz by her alleged victims, as seen here in this deposition.

(Deposition video)

JOHN TIEDT: (quoting from Heidi Diaz’s own words) “Can you imagine him telling a judge that he wants to certify class action against a housewife, hee hee hee.” That’s your statement, is that correct?

HEIDI KIMBERLY DIAZ: Yes. Is it too late to take that back?

(End deposition video)

JOHN TIEDT: People want a miracle remedy and uh, unfortunately the internet is an avenue wherein the worst people of our community can take advantage of the most vulnerable.

ANDREA CANNING: But Kimkins employee Delaney Deaver fired back. She admits some of the original testimonials were fake, but still stands by the diet, claiming to have lost a hundred pounds herself.

DELANEY DEAVER (aka SingingLass): We don’t tell people to starve, we encourage them to eat and I think there’s gonna be eating disorders that happen, you know, in any situation when somebody has an issue with food, but we try to prevent that from happening by giving people support.

ANDREA CANNING: And Deaver claims those side effects, like hair loss, are common after rapid weight loss.

DELANEY DEAVER: I needed to lose the weight or else I was gonna have major health problem, my heart was at risk and that losing a little hair was kind of a small price to pay.

DR. DAVID KATZ, GMA MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR: I have never heard any scientific basis to suggest that healthy, sustainable weight loss and weight balance should be associated with hair loss. What is associated with hair loss commonly in medicine is relatively severe disruptions of the body’s hormonal balance.

ANDREA CANNING: As for Christin, who’s now following a diet designed by her doctor, she hopes this serves as a wake-up call for others willing to lose weight at any cost.

CHRISTIN SHERBURNE: It breaks my heart to see these people hurting and nothing is being done to help them. And that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing, is to help those people.

ANDREA CANNING: Lawyers in the class action say they’re going after the company for false advertising and fraud, Diaz has denied some of the charges. And, Kate, if you are going to do internet dieting, there are some things that you can do. First of all, find out who’s behind it, is there a doctor behind it, is there research. Also, cutting out one entire food group is usually a bad idea, like dairy for example. And the best advice is if it seems to god to be true, it probably is.

KATE SNOW: Probably is. Andrea Canning, thank you.

END TRANSCRIPT

I just got a little wuv note from what appears to be a Kimkins adherent who has yet to see the light! Jamaica24 aka Denise L., put down the sugar-free Kool Aid. The Kimkins Starvation Diet is well documented, and for all you know I do have a membership and can see everything that's going on there. As it happens, I don't. But someone else does :)

But Jamaica24/Denise L., I care. I really do. Please seek medical help immediately to make sure you have not suffered any health problems from following the Kimkins Diet.

That said, the spirit of honesty (a spirit apparently wholly unknown to Heidi Diaz aka The Kimmer) compels me to point out one error in the GMA report. Andrea Canning says that Kimmer claimed to have lost 198 lbs in five months using the Kimkins Diet. In reality, Kimmer claimed to have lost 198 lbs in eleven months, which of course was a lie.

Elle

A life goal, realized!

I'm on National Public Radio!

Okay, I, personally, am not on NPR. But the Cassie Edwards plagiarism story, in which I was ever so peripherally involved was! The Bitches at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books revealed today that ferret story made its way onto Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!

So, even though the examples of plagiarism that I found along with specious claims of Cheyenne ancestry technically had nothing to do with this, I will claim a very small share of the NPR appearance. Because it's the closest I am likely to ever get to actually being on NPR.

Elle

Bulimia

Somewhere, in the otherwise pleasant community of Corona California, sits a woman. At least, I assume she's sitting since she's claimed for years that she never exercised and still lost 198 lbs in 11 months on her Kimkins Plan. Of course, that was a gigantic lie.

Anyway, this woman sits, most likely in front of her computer, and she's probably heaving a sigh of relief, because the story of her diet scam didn't appear on Good Morning America today as scheduled, although word has it she knew this story on what she's calling the Kimkins Debate might not appear today. But she shouldn't be too relieved, and she should put away those celebratory sugar cookies because the segment hasn't been canceled, it's been rescheduled, probably till tomorrow, Sunday, January 20, 2008. And as Heidi well knows, it isn't because they've lost interest.

One thing I find amusing: In one Kimkins Class Action Lawsuit court filing, Heidi K. Diaz aka Kimmer's attorney huffs that opposing counsel and plaintiffs are attempting to (paraphrasing) "try this case in the media." Keeping in mind that Heidi's lawyer is just doing his job .... well, yeah. I can't speak to the plaintiffs or attorney's motives as I am neither, but plenty of us are actively working to see that this is publicized. And why not? It works.

Still. The size and sheen of this woman's gigantic brass balls! Heidi was desperate to use the media to promote her deadly starvation diet wherever she could. It was, after all, the infamous Woman's World cover story which earned Heidi most of her ill-gotten gains. And make no mistake about it, if she could have gotten more magazine covers or any television airtime without revealing that she was, in fact, a morbidly obese woman who had never lost the weight she claimed at all, she would have leaped at the chance.

This begs the question as to just how she thought she was going to get away with never making a personal appearance indefinitely, but that aside, the media was for a time her friend. Sadly, as another blogger points out, the upcoming ABC News story will likely drive some traffic to kimkins.com and result in some new subscribers. That's unfortunate, but you can't save some people from themselves. The ultimate goal here, lawsuit aside, is to see that kimkins.com no longer exists. Until that happens, some people are going to be desperate enough to give her starvation diet a try and damn the risks. Eating disorders, at their cold and lonely cores, have little to do with successful weight loss and common sense and everything to do with desperation.

I know this kind of thinking all too well. For over two decades my weight 'control' method of choice was bulimia (note to other bulimics -- IT DOESN'T WORK!!!!). I knew full well, better than most people, how dangerous that is and what I was doing to myself, but you could not convince me that I needed to stop. Not that anyone was telling me to stop, since I was extremely adept at hiding it, and I outright lied about not having any eating disorders, ever, more than once or wildly minimized it. I honestly can't recall if I ever posted about it anywhere else. But the people in my day to day life -- family, close friends -- knew nothing about it. In fact, until I hit send, about the only people who knew the extent of my illness were my boyfriend, my OA group (who helped, and continue to help me recover) and now, the Internet.

And that, dear readers, is why I care about this so much. I know what disordered eating is like. I know how hard it is to admit you have a problem (there's a reason why most of the people closest to me still don't know), that it is out of control and I know how much work it takes to recover and I know how much easier it is to just take the path of least resistance and justify what you know is dangerous. I KNOW what an eating disorder looks like, and people, Kimkins is nothing more than an instructional pay site for anorexia and bulimia. Encouraging very low, very strict caloric limits and encouraging daily laxative use so fecal matter and water won't show up on the scale is ANOREXIA AND BULIMIA!

This is why, though I never followed the Kimkins plan and was not scammed by this woman, I want her stopped and will do whatever is in my limited power to help see that happen.

Elle

It's the End of the World, Heidi :)

Or at least, the beginning of the end of the Kimpire.

Why is that?

Kimmer, as the ten people who read here may recall, is an individual who claimed to have lost 198 lbs in 11 months by following a very-low calorie diet, a diet she later went on to sell through her own website, kimkins.com. Eventually it was revealed that Heidi K. Diaz aka Kimmer had never lost the weight at all. And what's worse, several people who paid for and followed this diet plan ended up with serious medical complications as a result of following a starvation diet formulated and hawked over the internet by a morbidly obese woman with no medical training whatsoever.

That's bad enough, but what's worse is she's still doing it. Even after all of her lies were revealed, even after it was known that people were getting sick as a result of her starvation diet (a diet, incidentally, that she can't even follow), even after a lawsuit was filed against her and even when she knows she's being investigated, her website is up, it's active and people are still signing up at kimkins.com.

But her salad (sugar cookie?) days are about to come to a screeching halt. A concerted effort has been made (and is still being made) to have as many people report her to various law enforcement, regulatory and complaint sites as possible, thanks to the Take Down Kimkins Contest. More and more people have joined the class-action lawsuit against Heidi K. Diaz aka Kimmer. Excellent bloggers such as Mariasol and Honeybee and Kimorexia and Wildangel6 have made a dedicated (and often hysterically funny) effort to spread this story, as have individuals on sites such as A Pinch of Health and Low Carb Friends.

And it's working.

It's working so well, in fact, that the national media is picking up the story. On Saturday, January 19 2008 ABC's Good Morning America is going to cover the kimkins.com story. That's a lot of people who are going to hear about this scamming lunatic. Those who have never heard of her will know to stay away. Those who have joined her site and are still languishing there, somehow desperately convinced that someone who has never successfully lost weight herself can help them drop 100 lbs in a month. Hopefully this will wake them up, or someone who loves them will see it, realize what's going on, and intervene. And, hopefully, this will help put her out of business for good.

It's the end of the world, Heidi :)

Elle

In today's Kimmer news ... (and save a ferret!)

It's not too late to contact ABC News regarding your experience with Kimkins. Both Carb Wire and Jimmy Moore have posted about it (actually, now that I look at it, Carb Wire has Jimmy Moor's post!) and so are many, many others. You need to contact them by Thursday, January 17 2008 (tomorrow) so if you are a Kimkins victim, please consider contacting them. You can help stop Kimmer, a sociopathic nutbar who has absolutely no medical training at all and can't even follow her own deadly diet (I heard you're up a pound this week, Kimmer!) from hurting anyone else. Be a hero!

Even if you weren't harmed by this menace, you can still be a hero by saving a ferret! For those of you who are following the Cassie Edwards plagiarism developments, Paul Tolmé, an environmental journalist appears to be one of the individuals whose work was plagiarized. Parts of an article he wrote for Defenders Magazine later appeared in one of Cassie Edwards' books. In an effort to bring about something positive from this mess, Smart Bitches Candy and Sarah at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have joined forces with the incomparable Nora Roberts to raise money for Defenders of Wildlife. Nora Roberts has very generously offered to match contributions made to Defenders of Wildlife up to $5,000 US! You can read all about how you can help the Smart Bitches and the Bitchery get this generous match and defend wildlife right here.

Elle

Harmed by Kimkins? Share your story on national television!

Helping to get the word out ... if you have been harmed by the Kimkins Diet, and would like to share your story on national television, please visit Say No to Kimkins now. Ah, heck, this is so important I will snarf the whole post and reproduce it here. The direct link is here.

Harmed by Kimkins? Share your Story on National TV

Posted on January 15, 2008 by anonymous

Have you experienced medical problems due to Kimkins?

Do you have any medically documented health issues related to the
Kimkins Diet?

Do you have some free time this weekend for an exciting opportunity to appear from the comfort of your home, on national television, in a prime time spotlight?

If you have suffered any of the following doctor verified medical conditions:

• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Muscle fatigue or weakness
• Heartbeat palpitations
• Moderate to severe hair loss
• Bone and joint pain
• Mental changes - irritability, forgetfulness, confusion
• Bowel complications/symptoms of laxative abuse

as a result of your experience with the Kimkins Diet, and would like this exciting opportunity to share your experiences with the public, please contact KimkinsonABC@gmail.com within the next 48 hours.

No travel will be required, an ABC crew will come to you to discuss your experience.

If you know of anyone who fits the above-mentioned medical criteria, please share this contact information with them for this important opportunity.

Please, if you have been affected by this sociopath, consider appearing. You can help someone else avoid harm.

Elle

I think I'll write an 'Indian Romance'

I mean, why not?

"So," Charlynne said. "The lake ... is sacred ... to your Native American Indian people?"

Silver Falcon nodded. "The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitchee Gummee."

Charlynne raised an eyebrow. She was stunned by the depth of his concern for her! He was sharing ... the legends of his people!

"The lake it is said never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy," Silver Falcon said thickly.


Elle

Back to Kimkins!

Goodness, what a week.

When I first started Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Pickles I wrote a post about the origins of the name. I also babbled something or other about putting up samples of my writing, but what I seem to do is talk about my fiance, bitch about my job, rave about my cats, talk about plagiarizing romance novelists with specious claims of Indigenous ancestry and what appears to be my favorite subject of all, Kimkins and Kimmer.

What's funny about that last is I had no time at all for Kimmer when our paths intersected over on Low Carb Friends. I thought she was an obnoxious know-it-all who was probably lying about the extent of her weight loss. As it turned out, I am a psychic, at least about people who claim to have lost 198 lbs in 11 months and kept it off for years by the expedient method of eating like a concentration camp victim. That claim, of course, turned out to be totally false.

There are many wonderful blogs about this lying scammer, and I urge anyone who's reading this to check out the Just Say No to Kimkins webring (you can find it at the top right of this blog). I have many favorites, such as the ever-funny Medusa's Blog and 2bigformysize (who comes here to comment on occasion) but really, they're all amazing.

---------------------------------------------------

One final note about Cassie Edwards -- someone over on Fandom Wank (Hi guys! I love you and wish I could join but I don't know any paid members) mentioned that they were cautious to agree with my conclusions regarding the Cheyenne thing given that people changed their names etc.

I know, and I think that's a valid point. People did change their names, or the spelling of their names, which makes genealogy an ever-fun pursuit. But as for census records -- those weren't self-reported then. It was the census taker who recorded names (a big reason why names don't always match) and races. If an ancestor was listed as white on a census, chances were excellent they were just that. I repeat again, though, if you were a full Indigenous it was very, very unlikely that you were listed as white on an official document. Marrying someone of another race doesn't change this. Of course, if you and all your progeny thereafter married Europeans -- this changes. Your children could possibly be listed as white. Your grandchildren, probably. Your great-grandchildren, almost definitely. But you? Highly unlikely. Don't forget, this was a country which classified 'negro blood' to octoroon status and beyond.

Furthermore, anti-miscegenation laws, segregation, removal and reservations and the fact that there were just not that many Indigenous left in this country compared to the European population means that very few people actually have a Cherokee Princess great-grandmother. There are some like me who may have indigenous ancestry, but it goes way back -- in my case, to a tenth-great-grandmother (maybe, there is a weak link in that chain) who was a Canadian Algonquin. But seriously -- absent a DNA test (only useful for matrilineal descent) or an entry on one of the reservation rolls, people should treat claims of Indigenous ancestry with a healthy skepticism, particularly if there is no long-standing knowledge of such ancestry in one's family.

In other words, if you are in your fifties and your great-Aunt Mildred suddenly recollects being told that there was 'Indian Blood' in the family, something you have never heard before, you may want to investigate before accepting it as gospel. Yeah, it could be true. But it's probably not.

At the very least, and this is important, while CE may have Indigenous ancestry somewhere in her line, it is unlikely that the great-grandmother in question was a full-blood Cheyenne. She was born in Illinois, her parents were from Ohio, their parents were from Virginia and Ohio ... all counted on the census (as most Indigenous were not, they were counted separately and generally incompletely) and all listed as white.

I could be wrong. But I don't think I am. In the end, that possible tenth-great-grandmother and full-blood Navajo fiance notwithstanding, this is not 'my' fight. Her publisher and authors of copyrighted works will determine what, if anything needs to be done regarding the plagiarism charges, as for whether or not she is Cheyenne at all and whether it matters ... who knows.

The Ferret Guy, on the other hand, has something to say about all this.

Elle

Snow Deer, The Musical!

Oh, please.

Okay, so I mentioned in an earlier post that author Cassie Edwards based one of her novels, Savage Longings, on her alleged great-grandmother who was supposed to be a 'Cheyenne Princess' named Snow Deer. Snow Deer fell in love with a white man, allegedly Edwards' great-grandfather Charles Cline, married him, and lived happily ever after. Well, maybe in the story but probably not in real life.

Well, guess what? There's an old song called Snow Deer, and guess what it's about? An Indian Maiden and her Cowboy Lover! There are different versions of Snow Deer/Snowdeer floating around, but here is one version taken from The Mudcat Cafe.

SNOW DEER
Words, Jack Mahoney. Music, Percy Wenrich.
New York: Wenrich-Howard Co., 1913.

Sweet Snow Deer mine, moon's a-shine through the pine.
While Mohawks sleep, let us creep through the vale.
Your cowboy lover your heart will cover.
Don't hesitate. It is late. Ponies wait
For you and me by the tree in the dale.
Hear tom-toms beating. Let's hit the trail.

CHORUS: My pretty Snow Deer, say you will go, dear.
From your side I'll never part.
Every trail leads to your heart.
It's time to marry, no time to tarry.
Let me carry you from here, my sweet Snow Deer.

The red men come, bullets hum! There�ll be some
Left on the trail. I can't fail. Cling to me.
We'll crown the story with love and glory.
Now after all, must I fall? Hear my call
And fly away while we may. Can�t you see
Those ranch lights gleaming? Safe there we'll be.

Now I actually wish I owned a copy of Savage Longings so I could check if phrases like "every trail leads to your heart" appear in it.

Elle

Cassie Edwards -- Cheyenne Blood?

Today I am taking a break from the Kimkins mess, and jumping into a whole other controversy. Those of you who love romance novels (as I do) may have heard about recent plagiarism charges leveled against Cassie Edwards, author of many "Indian Romances." The ladies at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books found, with the help of their readership, that Edwards apparently lifted passages from various out-of-copyright (and some still copyrighted) reference books and inserted them, unattributed, into her own work. You can read all about it here. Follow the links in the header, or look on the right menu bar to find all the stories.

This has exploded into a Big Honking Deal, mainly due to Edward's publisher's initial response (no big deal) which has since been amended to 'We're looking into it.' Powerhouse author and plagiarism victim Nora Roberts has weighed in on this, calling it plagiarism and condemning Edwards. Other individuals have decried the Smart Bitches' actions, basically calling them mean and nasty and accusing them of willfully trashing Cassie Edwards' career.

A disclosure: I actually have some Cassie Edwards books lying around here. The condo complex where my mother lives has what they call a 'free bench' which is, as the name implies, a bench in a common area. People who live there put out things they don't want, but are still fine to use. Books are a popular item, and because of Mom's free bench I have a complete set of Tony Hillerman Navajo novels and a few Cassie Edwards tomes.

I've definitely read better. But that's not the point of this post. The point is, in the author blurbs in all of her books that I've seen, it's stated that her grandmother was "a full-blood Cheyenne." However, in a recent quote, Edwards states that it's actually a paternal great-grandmother. From romantictimes.com:

"Along the way, Edwards learned she had a very personal connection to the Native American community when her father casually revealed that one of his grandmothers had been a full-blooded Cheyenne named Snow Deer. Stunned that he didn't tell her when she launched her Savage series, Edwards never actually learned much about Snow Deer from her father beyond the story of how she came to marry a white man. That became the inspiration for a novel, Savage Longings, and a photo of Snow Deer appears in the back of Savage Secrets. "Knowing about her truly didn't influence my writing, but I am very proud of my Native American heritage," Edwards says. "

That's nice, or it would be if this were true. I don't think it is.

One of my interests is genealogy, and once the plagiarism mess began, I fired up my Ancestry account and Google and started digging. Savage Longings stars 'Snow Deer' and 'Charles Cline.' Through obituaries and census records, I established that Cassie Edwards' great-grandfather was indeed a Charles C. Cline. But her great-grandmother was almost certainly not a Cheyenne named Snow Deer. She appears to have been a white woman named Mamie Bolinger (alternate names Mary, Mame, Mayme, and Bolling, Bolner, Bollinger). Illinois marriage records show that Charles C. Cline and Mamie Bolinger were married on 30 October 1884 in Clark County Illinois. Mamie Bolinger is the daughter of Hiram and Nancy Bolinger (Bolling in the census, Bolner on other records). The 1870 Census lists Hiram and Nancy as white. I have traced her maternal and paternal ancestry back several generations, and none of her ancestors are listed as any kind of Indigenous.

So, what does this mean? Am I right? Did she lie about her ancestry? Or was it an innocent mistake?

I don't know. I could, of course, be wrong but I haven't found anything yet that convinces me that I am. I have multiple sources to verify her lineage, and despite what a lot of people would like to think, full-blood Indigenous people rarely passed for white on census records. It is entirely possible that Cassie Edwards was told her great-grandmother was a Cheyenne. Certainly she would not be the first person to be told that her family had Indian blood (usually a great-grandmother, invariably a princess) and she has more reason than most to want to take such a statement at face value, given what she writes about for a living. I haven't seen this alleged picture of Snow Deer, but if Kimkins proved anything, it's that pictures lie all the time.

So, there it is for what it's worth. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she is part Cheyenne. But given recent revelations, I'd certainly want to see some proof of that.

There is an old song called Snow Deer though. I think the lyrics are quite interesting since it's about an Indian Maiden and her Cowboy Lover.

Here are some pix of the records. I am not including anything about living people (in so far as I know whether or not they are living.)

Here is the Cline Family Tree. I still have some work to do on it. Cassie Edwards' birth name is Kathryn Cline.

Here is the the 1920 US Census. Cassie Edwards' father, Virgil F. is listed on this as the son of Hiram F. and Hannah Cline.

Here is the 1910 US Census. Cassie Edwards' probable grandfather is listed here as Frank, son of Charles C. and Mamie (Mame) Cline.

Here is the 1900 US Census. Cassie Edwards' probable grandfather is listed here as Hyram F. son of Charles and Mamie (Mayme) Cline.

Here is the marriage record of Charles C. Cline and Mamie Bolinger, retrieved from ancestry.com

Here is the 1870 US Census. Cassie Edwards' probable great-grandmother Mamie Bolinger is listed as Mary Bolinger (Mamie was a common nickname for Mary), and her parents are listed as Hiram and Nancy Bolinger.

Keep in mind, these are just records. I could be wrong about my conclusions. Let me also make it clear that I am not basing these conclusions on the names proper. Many Indigenous people adopted English- or non-Indigenous surnames. I am basing these conclusions on the racial designations on the census racial designations. Are those always correct? No. But contrary to what some people would like to think, full-blood Indigenous were generally listed as Indian.

Here's another little something. This review of Savage Longings (the book allegedly based on Cassie Edwards' Cheyenne great-grandmother) from romantictimes.com points out the following:

"If the stated date of Cassie Edwards' story is correct, her history puts the proud, fanatically brave Cheyenne in Kentucky villages 30 years after the northern group moved to Montana, the southern group settled in Oklahoma and nearly 20 years after the notorious massacre at Sand Creek, Colorado."


Elle

PS: I dug out my CE books, and within five minutes found another instance of plagiarism. She literally just changed a single comma:

Savage Passions

By Cassie Edwards
Published 1996
Dorchester Publishing
Company, Incorporated
Romance
ISBN 0843939028

p.204

“Indian corn and sweet flag in the swamp, are the descendants of beautiful spirits who still live in them."

Algonquin Legends of New England
By Charles Godfrey Leland
Published 1884
Houghton, Mifflin and
Company

p. 339

“The Indian corn and sweet flag in the swamp are the descendants of beautiful spirits who still live in them"

The funny thing is, Savage Passions is about the Ottowa Tribe in Michigan, and Leland wrote about the Algonquin of New England. That's some meticulous research!

And here's another:

Savage Passions, p.206

“But I will tell you this now – that the highest ambition of an Ottawa Indian is to become mequomoowessoo, a mystical being who enjoys all highest privileges of humanity allied to the supernatural.”

Algonquin Legends of New England, p.376

“The highest ambition of an Indian was to become a Megummoowessoo, a mystical being, which is explained differently as a fairy, faun, sylvan deity, but which means one who enjoys all the highest privileges of humanity allied to the supernatural.”

And goodness! It looks like she lifted something from yet another book which is presumably still copyrighted. I am using Google Books for this, and this book offers only a 'snippet view' which you can see here.

From Savage Passions, p.206

“A bearwalker was a man or a woman who, with herbs and special words which only they knew, could instantly transform themselves into balls of fire, or assume animal forms. Anthony had explained that once the person was transformed, they were able to travel great distances quickly, and go unrecognized.”

And from:

The Tree that Never Dies: Oral History of the Michigan Indians
By Pamela J. DobsonPublished 1978
Grand Rapids Public
Library

p.82

“man-doz-it to the Potawatomi, can with herbs and special words which only they know, instantly transform themselves into balls of fire or assume animal forms. Once transformed, they are able to travel great distances quickly and go unrecog-“

That's the only text available from the snippet view.

Not as egregious, but pretty damn similar:

Savage Passions
p.344

“But we must remember always the belief of our people, that the eye of our Great Spirit is the sun by day, and by night the moon and the stars, and therefore the Great Spirit sees all things everywhere, night and day. It is impossible to hide any action, either good or bad, from the eye of the Great Spirit. When no human eye can observe a criminal’s evildoings, the criminal action will be revealed at some future time, to his disgrace and shame.”

History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan
By Andrew J. Blackbird
Published 1887
The Ypsilantian job
printing house

p.13

“They also believed, in their primitive state, that the eye of this Great Being is the sun by day, and by night the moon and the stars, and, therefore, that God or the Great Spirit sees all things everywhere, night and day, and it would be impossible to hide our actions, either good or bad, from the eye of this Great Being. Even the very threshold or crevice of your wigwam will be witness against you, if you should commit any criminal action when no human eye could observe your criminal doings, but surely your criminal actions will be revealed in some future time to your disgrace and shame.”

That last line is quite poignant, I think.

Stop this woman before she kills someone! Heidi Diaz encourages a woman to starve!

For those of you who are following the Kimkins mess, you must check out Medusa's blog and see what a menace Heidi Kimberly Diaz truly is. Please read here and here and here and you will realize why it is that so many people are trying so hard to stop this woman before she kills someone.

Oh, and for those who were upset by the recent 'hacking' upset, here is some advice:

1.) Go into your bathroom and shut the door.
2.) Step out of your knickers.
3.) Untwist your knickers.
4.) Put them back on and revel in the feeling of well-fitting underwear.


Elle

Ding Dong! Avon Calling!

Some time ago, someone claiming to be a relative (or ex-relative) of everyone's favorite discredited diet guru posted a little something about Hidey on Slamboard. One interesting tidbit was the allegation of a scam in which Hidey was selling Avon and claimed products and money were stolen from her.

Well, she was selling Avon, that much is true, as is evidenced by this horribly designed Avon Leadership Referral Page. Beware of the multiple pop-up ads. That's a valid past address for her.

A 'leadership unit' is apparently Avon-speak for recruitment. One wonders how many people actually contacted "heidi4avon@aol.com" and got sucked into whatever scam she was trying to pull.

Elle

Back!

I had a lovely time, thank you very much :) But I miss my sweetie already :(

I also ate all kinds of crap. Since I've been on maintenance, lo these last few years or so, I don't worry so much day to day about what I eat. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so I find it easy to resist that stuff when it comes my way. Things like bread, pizza, pasta, potatoes, on the other hand -- well, those are my weaknesses. But in every day life it's easy enough to stay away from them or to restrict how much of them I eat. The most I have by way of a challenge with that stuff is the interminable student and guest seminars we have at work, where refreshments=pizza and even then it's easy to limit it because there are thirty or so people there to share the same six large pizzas.

But vacation is a different story, especially when I go to see Dancing in Socks Guy (or when he comes here) because he's a bit of a foodie himself though he is supportive of how I choose to eat even if he doesn't do the same. Plus, there's a whole host of places that are local, or mostly local, to New Mexico that I find irresistible. We keep saying, Dancing in Socks Guy and I, that next time we will go to Whole Foods and buy good, healthy food and make nice healthy meals at his place. Of course we're saying this through a mouthful of Sonic Burgers or breakfast burritos from The Frontier, but still.

Anyway, I ended up sowing on a lot of stuff I normally don't eat and while I was good in the sense that I drank a lot of water, didn't eat EVERYTHING on my various plates, and we made a real effort to walk around a lot while I was there, and while I didn't actually gain any weight, I feel like absolute shite, gastrically speaking. Carbs just kill me, I find that I actually get a rash from eating them in any significant quantities, and I'm just so bloody exhausted this morning. I really am allergic to the little bastards.

So, I'm on induction for two weeks to detox. Six slices of crisped bacon (nearly no fat left), 1 oz of cheddar cheese and coffee with heavy cream for breakfast this morning, and I'm 32 oz of water into my 120 oz total for the day.

I checked in on my various favorite blogs while away, but briefly, and I have a lot of catching up to do. I note, with interest, the latest drama in the Kimkins starvation diet saga, including an increase in the price to starve yourself to death. I would like to point out, to anyone who is considering a starvation diet such as Kimkins or the Supernatural Fowl Starvation Plan, both of which charge you a significant "one time fee" to teach you the "secret" of losing weight by eating like a concentration camp victim, that I lost 37 pounds for FREE and have more or less kept it all off for years, also for free and you can do the same. Well, you may have to pay for the cost of a copy of Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution (I got mine for nothing from my mom) but you can also find all you need to know on the Atkins Website or find information on that and many other low-carb plans for FREE on Low Carb Friends or other, similar, FREE support sites.

And, unlike what happens to people who do kimkins, I didn't get sick from doing it. My hair didn't fall out. I never passed out from screwed up blood chemistry. I didn't wreck my thyroid gland. Nor did I end up with heart palpitations.

Yes, you too can lose weight and keep it off, for the cost of a single book, written by an actual physician instead of a woman on disability with no medical training at all.

Okay, off to catch up.

Elle