Kimkins Diet Founder Heidi 'Kimmer' Diaz Sued

Heidi "Kimmer" Diaz, the founder of the Kimkin's diet - a low carb, low calorie diet - is schedule to appear in a Southern California court on Monday, November 12th, 2007. 11 former users of her Kimkins diet program filed a complaint against her one week ago, claiming fraud, false advertising, and unjust enrichment.
The Kimkin's scandal began when Woman's World, a popular women's magazine featured an article on the Kimkin's diet.

Ms Diaz, who was claiming to have lost 198 pounds in 11 months using her diet plan, refused to meet with the magazine in person, instead corresponding through email. She went so far as to send the magazine before and after pictures that looked nothing alike, which makes sense when people found out that the before pictures were Ms. Diaz, however the after pictures were taken from a Russian 'mail-order' bride web site.

People using the Kimkin's diet, eating no more than 500 calories a day to maintain what Ms Diaz calls a SNATT - semi-nauseas all the time - state - which according to Kimmer means the diet is working, began experiencing side effects such as hair loss, irregular heart beat, menstrual irregularities. When these user questioned Ms. Diaz's practices she went so far as to boot some of them off her 'lifetime membership' website.

The 16 page complaint submitted to the Southern California court by lead attorney for the plaintiffs, John Tiedt - previously involved in a number of lawsuits against the marketers of Ephedra - seeks restitution for membership fees ranging from 14.95 to 119.90 per plaintiff, damages for fraud, and an injunction to stop Ms. Diaz's possibly illegal business practices.

The legal action has Ms. Diaz scrambling to cover her seriously over-weight butt. She is claiming, via her website, that she kept her identity a secret not because she was still over weight but to protect her foster children. Also claiming that while she only lost 100 pounds she has had a stressful time since the diet appeared in Woman's World which has lead to over-eating and in turn re-gaining the weight she claims to have lost.

In response to the switched photos, Ms. Diaz claims this was merely a recreation of the results that are 'possible' with her wonder diet. As for the hair loss she claims to have a history of alopecia which apparently causes total body hair loss.

Sounds to me like Ms. Diaz has baked up quite a few reasonable answers to the many questions surrounding her controversial diet plan. Whether they are true or not only time and the Southern California court system will tell. The lesson to be learned in all this is that crazy, fad-like diets might work and they might not. The results they promise are generally not the results that regular Joe's and Jane's can expect to receive.

Use your common sense. If something sounds to good to be true, it probably is. And remember that good old fashioned food pyramid they taught us all about in grade school, that sounds a lot safer for your body than a 500 calorie (borderline anorexic) fad diet.

Calorie Lab, http://calorielab.com/news/2007/10/20/kimkins-diet-lawsuit-filed-class-action-certification-sought/, Calorie Lab

Heidi 'Kimmer' Diaz, http://www.kimkins.com/index.php, Kimkins.Com