September 24th, 2008

Product Review: Gloves in a Bottle

When I was asked to review Gloves in a Bot­tle, I was slightly intrigued. Usu­ally, when asked to review a prod­uct, I imme­di­ately head to Google to find out what exactly the prod­uct is all about. How­ever, life got in the way and I wasn’t able to check it out in advance. When the box arrived, I sat and read all of the lit­er­a­ture before try­ing using it– partly because I had no clue that it was a lotion and partly because i half-expected to be able to scrub my stove after using the stuff. Suf­fice it to say, had I gone to the web­site, I would have seen this message:

Gloves In A Bot­tle is not intended to pro­tect against any chem­i­cals or irri­tants other than dirt and grime. Always fol­low manufacturer’s safety direc­tions when han­dling any harm­ful sub­stance. Gloves In A Bot­tle is not a sub­sti­tute for required safety pro­tec­tion, includ­ing gloves.

Gloves in a Bot­tle is a shield­ing lotion that bonds to dead skin cells in order to form a pro­tec­tive layer over the skin. This shield pre­vents bad ele­ments– wind and irri­tants to name a few– from dam­ag­ing the skin. What’s more, this pro­tec­tive layer does not wash off so it pro­vides pro­tec­tion continuously.

Armed with a clue and my sam­ple lotions, I decided to focus on two of my prob­lem areas. Pre­vi­ously I talked about my embar­rass­ing prob­lem of really dry feet, so that was one area and the other was my face. For some rea­son my face has been extremely dry and there are areas that seem to be peeling.

Unfor­tu­nately, Gloves in a Bot­tle did not work for mel. After apply­ing this lotion to my face, it still felt rough and dry. I actu­ally had to apply it three times before I felt some relief. I tried it for a week and found myself reap­ply numer­ous times through­out the day as my face never felt mois­tur­ized. In fact, by the end of the week, my face felt and looked the same. While it did help a lit­tle on my feet, I did not see a great improve­ment. I wasn’t impressed with this lotion at all. This is not to say that it won’t work for some­one else. Lotion is a funny thing in that everyone’s body chem­istry reacts dif­fer­ently. It may be worth giv­ing it a try if you are look­ing for some­thing to help alle­vi­ate very dry skin.

May 10th, 2008

Product Review: Slow Cook Your Way to More Time

My hus­band and I eat fast food way more than I usu­ally like to admit (which pretty much explains why we are so over­weight). But despite our busy sched­ules, we have made a promise to cook more for our­selves in order to save money and how health. My sister-in-law has long been a fan of her crock pot, so when she found out that we did not have one, she bough us a Crock-Pot® 5.5 Quart Slow Cooker w/ Lit­tle Dip­per for Christ­mas this past December.

And we love it.

We use it for stews chili, gravy (what non-Italians call sauce), roast beef, pot roast, and so much more. And, because my hus­band works the second-shift, he puts meals on in the morn­ing and by the time I get home around 4:00 pm, din­ner is ready for both me and my daugh­ter. I love walk­ing into the house and smelling the great fra­grance of a one pot meal.

November 12th, 2007

Product Review: The Cost of Losing Weight

The Morn­ing Show had a hot topic of dis­cus­sion today about the KimKins diet (I am not link­ing to the KimKins site as I do not want any­one going there think­ing that I have endorsed it), a dan­ger­ous online diet that seems to pro­mote star­va­tion (600–800 calo­rie diet) and is run by a deceit­ful woman named Heidi Diaz (aka Kim­mer, aka Kim­berly). The Kimkins diet web­site boast suc­cess sto­ries in which peo­ple lost sub­stan­tial weight in as lit­tle as 5 months. Unfor­tu­nately, they have also expe­ri­enced severe health prob­lems in the process.

But this post is not about the dis­hon­est Heidi. It is, how­ever, about peo­ple like me. Peo­ple who are mor­bidly obese are sus­cep­ti­ble to these kinds of scams.

I am 341 pounds. I am severely over­weight and have been for some time. I wasn’t always. I used to be very fit but always on the high end of my accepted weight range. I gained a lot of weight over the last ten years and am now try­ing to lose it. But I am frus­trated. I am depressed. I am tired of the star­ing. The under-the-breath com­ments from my stu­dents. The arro­gance of the doc­tors who look at me and assume that I sit at home all day stuff­ing my face with food. The peo­ple who think that because both my hus­band and I are fat that my daugh­ter must be nutri­tion­ally abused. Even my mother, the woman who is sup­posed to love me uncon­di­tion­ally, has remarked that I would be pretty if I lost weight and that I am too fat to be preg­nant. I am dis­heart­ened by com­ments of some peo­ple who say that they would rather be with­out limbs than fat. I hate that when movies want to show that some one is ugly, they make them fat AND dirty. That soci­ety says that it is OK for fat peo­ple to be treated like dirt. Being fat is the only hand­i­cap that is not pro­tected by any laws.

So I can see why this KimKins diet has such a fol­low­ing. You get results. Even the naysay­ers admit that you will lose the weight. But, you do it through almost anorexic behav­ior. And even­tu­ally, you pay. Your hair falls out. You have abnor­mal peri­ods. You have heart pal­pi­ta­tions. And more.

For peo­ple like me, those side-effects may not seem any worse than being fat. Noth­ing is worse than being obese. And Heidi knows that. She banks on it. She knows that peo­ple are for­giv­ing of scams when they are los­ing pounds by the truck­load. And that is the real prob­lem. Not that she is a scam artist but that she was able to get such a fol­low­ing. Her “apol­ogy” posted on her site is noth­ing if not bril­liant. She man­ages to admit that she is a fraud AND make you want to sign-up despite all the controversy:

Dear Kimkins Members,

OK, so it’s time to come clean.

In view of recent events and the feed­back I’ve received from mem­bers, I’ve decided to set a few things straight. Those of you who know me are well aware I’m a pri­vate per­son and pre­fer to remain that way. How­ever, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

So, let’s put a few burn­ing ques­tions to rest:

Q: Who is Kimmer?

A: Heidi Diaz

Q: Why the drama, denial and hiding?

A: For the past 10 years it was to avoid an inva­sion of my own pri­vacy. How­ever, for the past 3 years it was to pro­tect the iden­tity of my fos­ter chil­dren. Cal­i­for­nia fos­ter reg­u­la­tions pro­hibit fos­ter par­ents from mak­ing state­ments that would iden­tify chil­dren as “fos­ter”, even by asso­ci­a­tion. Iden­ti­fy­ing myself which could lead to my home address or iden­ti­fy­ing me in pub­lic could iden­tify them.

Q: Did you lose 198 pounds in 11 months?

A: No. But I did lose 100 pounds in 6 months. How­ever, since Kimkins appeared on the Woman’s World cover, I’ve been glued to my com­puter. I’m no dif­fer­ent than any of you and I’m well famil­iar with stress eat­ing or grab­bing what’s handy instead of what’s Kimkins friendly.

Q: So you’ve regained the weight?

A: Yes, but I’ve been back on Kimkins for 2 weeks and have lost 23 pounds so far. I gain fast and I lose fast, that’s how it’s always been. I’ll be exper­i­ment­ing and rotat­ing with each option except Cycling because that will be too much temp­ta­tion for me. I’m a life­long dieter and I know what a free week (or week­end) will do to my willpower.

Q: What about the model pho­tos in some of the Suc­cess Stories?

A: The major­ity of our ear­li­est Suc­cess Sto­ries were from another web­site and we couldn’t take those with us. We wanted to show vis­i­tors the pos­si­bil­i­ties with Kimkins. So, while we built up our newest batch, I cre­ated sto­ries which were a com­pi­la­tion of pre­vi­ous suc­cesses that peo­ple had shared with me over the past 10 years. We’re extremely proud of all of our mem­bers (paid and unpaid) who have expe­ri­enced weight loss success.

Q: You have been pho­tographed with­out hair. Did Kimkins do that?

A: Absolutely not. I devel­oped alope­cia uni­ver­salis 23 years ago. It is an autoim­mune dis­ease that causes total body hair loss. Our fam­ily has clus­ter autoim­mune con­di­tions. Mine are alope­cia, hypothy­roidism and eczema. Other fam­ily mem­bers also include alope­cia plus type 1 dia­betes type 1, mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis, lupus, eczema and rheuma­toid arthri­tis. Autoim­mune is when your body attacks itself and destroys cer­tain func­tions. Most peo­ple with an autoim­mune con­di­tion develop more than one. If one per­son in a fam­ily devel­ops an autoim­mune con­di­tion, other fam­ily mem­bers tend to develop them.

Q: What about the peo­ple who joined Kimkins because you said you lost 198 pounds in 11 months or because of the suc­cess story re-enactments?

A: I offer my sin­cere apol­ogy to any­one who felt mis­led or joined purely on that basis. That was never our intent. Kimkins will pro­vide a refund and mem­ber­ship can­cel­la­tion upon request to any­one who joined Kimkins prior to Novem­ber 1, 2007. Please write support@​kimkins.​comThis e-mail address is being pro­tected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it by Novem­ber 16, 2007 and pro­vide your full name, cur­rent or for­mer user name, Pay­Pal trans­ac­tion num­ber and Pay­Pal email address.

Q: What about the peo­ple who want to con­tinue with Kimkins?

A: A life­time mem­ber­ship is life­time. You’re here and that’s permanent!

In fact, I’m going to be part of the “Watch Us Lose” mod­els on the home­page and will update my stats each week, add updated pho­tos and post in the Kimmer’s Back on Track Chal­lenge. I will lose my weight all over again and every­one is wel­come to lose right along­side me. I had base­line med­ical tests done a few weeks ago and will share both my start­ing and final results once I reach goal which I hope to be around my birth­day in May 2008.

Q: Will we ever meet “Kimmer”?

A: I’m going to do my best. I truly am a shy per­son who prefers to stay in the back­ground, but a Kimkins Cruise is planned for Sum­mer 2008 and I’ll be there to meet & greet every­one! We will be ask­ing mem­bers for feed­back on local meet-ups as well so every­one has a chance to meet me and net­work with other Kimkinites! Sup­port is every­thing in suc­cess­ful long term weight loss.

Q: Any­thing else?

A: Kimkins works. I have offered my inter­net style of Kimkins diet advice for 10 years. It was hugely suc­cess­ful which is why Kimkins became pop­u­lar. My first 8 years were 100% vol­un­tary and I even turned down gifts. My goal has always been for peo­ple to learn the very sim­ple and very effec­tive basics of quick weight loss. This remains our focus today. Any­one who wants a refund and can­cel­la­tion, please let us know.

Every­one who wants to stick with Kimkins — well, what are you wait­ing for? Let’s do it! I’ve got, uh … a cou­ple of pounds to lose myself and I could use some support!

Q: What about start­ing a Kim­mer Challenge?

A: Excel­lent! Let’s do it! I’m set­ting up the Kimmer’s Back on Track Chal­lenge thread, so come on over and say “Hi!”

I was going to sign up for her plan back in August, but after vis­it­ing the site, I was con­cerned with the lack of infor­ma­tion avail­able before pay­ing; never pay for some­thing to find out what it is. Lo and behold, a week later, I came across an arti­cle about the con­tro­versy. I am dis­gusted over this sit­u­a­tion. I am scared for the men and women who have fallen vic­tim to the greed and cap­i­tal­ism that is Amer­ica. And at the same time, I want to be one of those who lost the weight and stopped before any­thing went wrong. That is why diet scams suc­ceed. That is why there will always be peo­ple like Heidi Diaz.

*This has been cross posted at my Mom on the Rise blog http://​kristinabrooke​.org