Fools, money, parted--you know the drill

One of the most overwhelming dangers of the Internet is the false sense of intimacy it provides. Even smart people can (and do) fall prey to this; back in the early days of "phishing" I thought I was updating some information for eBay and as a result got my bank account cleaned out. I got the money back but it didn't change the fact that I felt like a complete moron when I found out what had happened. A lot of times it takes situations like that to wake people up, but when something is glaringly obvious and still people fall for it, then whine about how they got ripped off? To paraphrase Seinfeld's Soup Nazi, no sympathy for you.

And so it is with me and Kimkins.

If you've been around the low-carb world for more than a couple of years you have undoubtedly encountered the sordid saga of one Heidi Diaz, who one day got it into her head that she wanted to be Grand Poobah of Something and came up with Kimkins, essentially a low-fat low-calorie low-carb plan. She created a website, charged people thirty bucks for the privilege of accessing her wisdom, and essentially had thousands of people falling all over themselves to sign up. The devotees raved about the ease of the diet and how wonderful "Kimmer" was and how beautiful she looked after losing all the weight and Heidi basked in all the attention. If someone dared to express even the slightest doubt about the Almighty Kimmer they were immediately banished from the cult website. At its peak Heidi was literally raking in millions of dollars--raising the admission price helped with that--and got Kimkins a cover story in Woman's World magazine.

As it's said, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Our Heidi got greedy and mean, and Kimkins wiped out in spectacular fashion complete with lawsuits galore. That didn't surprise me. What did surprise me were the enormous amounts of people who gladly handed over money to someone who, to her credit, never claimed to be a doctor or any sort of weight loss expert except for her personal experience. Hell, she even got people to work for her that had never met her in real life. And the merry chase she led Jimmy "Livin' La Vida Frankenfoods Low-Carb" Moore on when he was blustering all over the place that Kimmer was Teh Awesome was one of the best 'net trainwrecks I've ever seen. Now there are websites for "Kimkins survivors."

Back in the day for shits and giggles I checked out the Kimkins site. The first thing I saw was a picture of actress Jaclyn Smith. Below was a blurb along the lines of "Ask me, Kimmer, how I got to look this great!" When I pointed out on the forum I was visitng at the time that it was Jaclyn Smith, you would have thought I said "the Antichrist." "No, it's not, it's Kimmer!" cried the acolytes, even after I linked to a Jaclyn Smith fan site that had the identical picture. These same people were the ones crying loudest about how Heidi ripped them off when everything went down. Countless blogs kept track of the downfall, all outraged that they had been led astray by some fat housewife from California. And I just watched, and occasionally snickered.

A good rule of thumb to go through life with is don't give money to strangers. I have broken the rule occasionally, but never in large amounts. How often have we heard about someone supposedly down on their luck that everyone runs to give money to, only to learn that the whole story was bullshit? I've seen many instances on the 'net of this as well. If someone has their hand out asking for mandatory donations? Walk on by. I don't care if they're offering the secret to eternal life ... or a quick easy way to lose weight. If you're dumb enough to do it and get ripped off learn from the experience instead of whining about being a victim.

So yeah, Oprah.

By now everyone's heard that Oprah Winfrey, the Goddess of Daytime TV, is back up to 200 pounds (at least that's what she's admitting to). Like many things Oprah does this was reported as news of the utmost importance and has been a hot topic in the blogosphere as well. Of course the low-carb/zero-carb blogs are sniffing "well, she just needs to eat like US!" And therein lies the problem.

It is amazing to me how many people gush over how "real" Oprah is, and her latest trip up the scales has her fans billing and cooing about how BRAVE she is to come out and admit what anyone who's stood in a supermarket checkout line could have told you six months ago looking at her magazine--she's porking up again. "I have trouble with my weight toooo!" they say. "Oprah's just like MEEEEEEE!"

I personally have nothing against Oprah. Anyone who can go from abject poverty to three-times-over billionaire without whacking somebody gets props from me. But a little fact seems to slip under everyone's radar ... she's an actress. She got her start in TV news, where anchorpeople are required to constantly feign emotion. When she made the jump to films, she was nominated for an Oscar for her role in "The Color Purple" and that in a lot of ways spurred the talk show. She can ACT like she gives a shit about you when in fact she lost herself in her own PR a while ago. Come on, who else would buy a magazine just to put her own face on it every month? Who else would charge her minions $200 a pop to hear her mouth platitudes Dale Carnegie would find stale? She pays people to tell her what she wants to hear. In this case, it's that she has a bad thyroid, that her hormones are out of whack, that it's not her fault. No one's going to tell her "you're eating too much fucking sugar and Bob Greene is a crackpot and Dr. Phil has no right to have any opinion on diet considering he could stand to lose about fifty pounds and we all know you have a crush on that Oz guy which is why you have him on every other week."

Maybe someone has told her. But ... she's Oprah. One word from her can get your book on the best-seller list, have your movie gross another $10 million, get your own talk show. She will listen to only what she wants to hear ... and she doesn't want to hear that she can't eat mashed potatoes again, just like a crack addict can't get told "you can't smoke rocks anymore."

So ... I'm back.

Time to get this place fired up again. I'm pretty sure zero carb is the way I need to go. I feel my best on it and I do lose weight. Back to the gym too, but more as a sleep aid than a weight loss aid. I'm not going to worry about portion size or how many pounds a week. I'll just eat meat when I'm hungry.