Had to share!

I found this on someone else's blog. Too funny!







Elle

Dang!

Scrabulous is down!

Now what in the heck am I supposed to do with myself tonight? I'm actually working -- I still work home health aide work for the agency I worked for steadily while still in grad school. Once I graduated and got my higher-paying job, I cut way back on my home health care work but in the name of frugality and paying off those student loans, I kept one night a week. It's permissable to sleep with this particular case (some are what we call 'awake overnights') and the person is very pleasant and a joy to care for. So, why not get paid for sleeping?

But I was looking forward to Scrabble, dang it! Thank God I brought a book.

Elle

LA Tactical Gear!

E. and A. are my cousins, who are both in law enforcement and sporadically read this blog. On the off chance that they drop by here, oh, sometime this decade, I have a link for them. It's LA Police Tactical Gear, and they are featuring tactical boots.

I love websites like this, I've always been fascinated by how there are all these things that surround different types of work that those of us who are not directly involved in such work know nothing about. I know what a holster is, for instance, but not what kinds are used for what situation.

Anyway, guys, there's the link for you. I hope I see you before the next funeral!

Elle

Ketosis and Protein Scavenging -- NOT the Same Thing!

I mentioned this over on Low Carb Friends, but I'm repeating it here because I think it's important.

The cardiologist (on the Insider Exclusive segment) said several things that were just not correct. Chief among them was lumping in ketone bodies with protein scavenging.

Ketone bodies are a byproduct of fatty acid metabolism. It is chemically impossible for them to be generated from protein catabolism.

Protein scavenging occurs as part of an effort by the body to supply energy by way of glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis.

One of the many problems with the Kimkins Diet, and possibly where the cardiologist was confused is that when you are taking in no carbs AND no fat, you basically force the body to consume muscle. Yes, you are also metabolizing fat, but fatty acid metabolism is a wildly inefficient process -- witness the ketone bodies, which are basically bits cleaved off the fatty acid chains that can't be further broken down.

So, the body also turns to gluconeogenesis for fuel. But, fuel is only part of the reason -- you're constantly breaking down muscle and building it back up again as part of the body's natural efforts to maintain itself. It needs amino acids, essential amino acids to do this. If it's not getting it in the diet, it will get it from the large muscles. As with everything, the body conserves life -- you can live with atrophied leg muscles but you can't live without cardiac muscle or the smooth muscle which lines your blood vessels.

If you're in a starvation state, you will almost certainly be in ketosis. BUT, you will also be scavenging your own muscle at the same time. I think that's what the doctor was trying to say, albeit not very well. I wish they'd get their ducks in a row, as it were, before they said things like this. The truth is the strongest weapon we have against Heidi, mistakes like this just bolster her argument that the "experts" are wrong.

Some of them may be wrong about some of this, Heidi, but you're wrong about all of it.

Elle

American River Capital, Inc.

I came across the website for American River Capital, Inc., a company which bills itself as An Investment Company that you can Trust. If their website design is any indicator of their professionalism in other areas, this may be worth checking out. It's a very clean, slick design. They offer investment services for e-gold and e-Bullion account holders to grow their funds through an offshore finance partner.

Elle

Transcript of the Insider Exclusive Segment on Kimkins

Below is the transcript of the Insider Exclusive segment on the Kimkins Diet fraud, for those who can't watch it for whatever reason. It features John Tiedt and Michael Cohen of Tiedt & Hurd, a cardiologist (who, in my I-have-a-doctorate-in-biochemistry opinion, could benefit in a refresher course on the difference between fatty acid metabolism and gluconeogenesis) and our very own Magicsmom, a lovely lady with a lot of guts.

This is an unofficial transcript. The copyright for the show belongs to someone who is not me, and any mistakes in the transcript are my own. The segment uses clips from the Mike& Juliet Show as well as the Good Morning America segment on Kimkins. I did not transcribe those parts, but you can see a full transcription of the Good Morning America segment here. You can also see a transcript of the Mike & Juliet Show on Kimorexia's blog.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

[Clips from the Mike & Juliet show, not transcribed]

STEVE MURPHY: I am very pleased to have with us today John Tiedt of the law firm Tiedt & Hurd. Welcome to the show.

JOHN TIEDT: Thank you very much.

STEVE MURPHY: We’re going to bring your co-counsel on here in a minute, but before we do that – this show is about health care fraud. And it’s about one particular multi-million dollar scam which is a diet scam. It’s called the Kimkins Diet scam.

JOHN TIEDT: Yes, that’s right.

STEVE MURPHY: Tell us a little bit about how you got involved and what is this thing anyway?

JOHN TIEDT: Well, what it is, it’s an internet diet program. You go on the internet and you click on this website, you pay fifty nine dollars and when you get on the website they give you a diet program. They tell you precisely what to eat and what to do. And in this particular case you’re told to take as little as five hundred calories a day. You’re also instructed that – to use laxatives at times. You’re a- also have an internet – like a chat room where you can chat with other dieters. When you’re on the website, also, you see the miraculous transformations, the unbelievable success stories, and, ah, I found out they actually were unbelievable. What happened when you get on the site, you’ll see a picture of a beautiful lady named Kimmer who lost two hundred pounds in only eleven months. What happened was that Kimmer was supposed to be the founder of the Kimkins diet. And in reality, she is a morbidly obese woman from Corona that never lost two hundred pounds, that for her before picture, she used her actual before picture, and this is Heidi Diaz (referring to video of Heidi Diaz in a grocery store). But for the after picture, which is the “after diet” picture, she used a picture of a Russian model, named Leysa, I think it is. She not only did it for herself, she had approximately thirty five other false testimonials on there. You see a beautiful woman which is, in most cases, a Russian model, who claims to be from some particular state in the United States. They, in the website, there’s a claim that this particular person lost a great deal of weight, a hundred pounds, let’s say. In reality, this never happened, it’s all fraud. But it worked on the public. People who saw these wonderful testimonials they are people who were obese, they had hope, you know, for – to avoid gastric bypass surgery. So, they naturally went with it.

STEVE MURPHY: Now, taking this diet, and spending the money – first of all, she’s fraudulently declaring she lost weight, it works for her, but there’s dangers involved with this diet program. What are those dangers?

JOHN TIEDT: Well, this is what we’ve seen. We’ve had complaints from users of the diet from hair loss, um, if you lose a significant amount of weight on a low-calories diet that’s one of the dangers. Another danger is, especially with the use of laxatives, is irregular heartbeat, arrhythmias. We’ve had one particular woman -- was rushed to the emergency room with an arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat. There are other problems that you will have with ketosis which is the shut-down of the amount of calories that you get, you start eating your own protein. You become lethargic and you have absolutely no energy. We had quite a few complaints like that.

STEVE MURPHY: There was an endorsement by a magazine which really pushed this diet program all across the country. Was it Woman’s World?

JOHN TIEDT: Yes, it was.

STEVE MURPHY: And, then a lot – a lot more victims seemed apply for this, bought it, and that’s basically how you got involved, right?

JOHN TIEDT: Well, that’s right. The women that were looking for an attorney wanted someone who was in California, that had a background in litigating against dietary supplement companies and diet companies. Also, I was on the Health Fraud Task Force in California. And, this product was typical of some of the products we’ve seen with regard to the California Health Fraud Task Force. What people like Heidi Diaz do – they prey on people’s hope and fears. For example, in this case a lot of women feared gastric bypass surgery and the hope to avoid that was this particular diet program. So, I think I was a good candidate for the job, and when I got the case, I analyzed it and it fell right in line with a lot of the cases I handled in the past that had false testimonials and that provided a dangerous diet product. So naturally, it was a good candidate for a class-action lawsuit.

STEVE MURPHY: Now, you have deposed Heidi Diaz, haven’t you?

JOHN TIEDT: I have, on two occasions.

STEVE MURPHY: Okay and right now we’re going to go to that deposition that video deposition, to show exactly what she says. But as it plays out, I want you to comment a little bit about – what’s her whole approach on this whole thing.

JOHN TIEDT: Well, her approach to this diet was that if people were to see these wonderful testimonials, they would rely on those testimonials and purchase the product.

STEVE MURPHY: Right.

JOHN TIEDT: Which is the subscription.

STEVE MURPHY: Right.

JOHN TIEDT: She said some of that in a deposition. She knew she was not telling the truth. She knew that prospective members would rely on her representations.

STEVE MURPHY: Right.

JOHN TIEDT: And she testified to that under oath.

STEVE MURPHY: Let’s go to that video right now.

JOHN TIEDT: Okay

-- Begin Video Clip of November 12, 2007 Deposition of Heidi Diaz –

HEIDI DIAZ: I had thought it was time to just come clear. People were unhappy – some people were unhappy and we would give an offer of a refund. I want – I would like the website to be nice again, without the fighting and the bickering.

JOHN TIEDT: Did you ever weight it out in your mind that your privacy interests are not outweighed by the need of your customers to know the truth –

HEIDI DIAZ: Oh.

JOHN TIEDT: -- about your purported weight loss using the Kimkins Diet.

HEID DIAZ: No, I don’t – I think differently. And I did not.

JOHN TIEDT: Why?

HEIDI DIAZ: Um, well, privacy is something that is important to me and I wanted to encourage others towards weight loss, which we have done. Um, that’s it.

JOHN TIEDT: So at the time you felt that your privacy interests outweighed your obligation to tell the truth to the public, is that correct?

HEIDI DIAZ: I wanted to motivate people. I didn’t see how myself was part of that.

JOHN TIEDT: So that’s a yes?

HEIDI DIAZ: Okay.

-- End Video Clip of November 12, 2007 Deposition of Heidi Diaz –

STEVE MURPHY: As you can see, she doesn’t deny this at all.

JOHN TIEDT: Oh, yeah, she’s still (inaudible)

STEVE MURPHY: I mean, her whole point is, people did lose weight. Well, you will lose weight if you don’t eat, right?

JOHN TIEDT: Absolutely.

STEVE MURPHY: So, the real issue is, she’s kind of almost acting as an unauthorized, unlicensed doctor, isn’t she?

JOHN TIEDT: Well, we also point out in the deposition that she has absolutely no medical background.

STEVE MURPHY: Mmm hmm.

JOHN TIEDT: She’s not a nutritionist. She has no background in pharmacology. She has no science background. She knew nothing about the ramifications of a low-calorie diet.

STEVE MURPHY: But I want to point out one thing – from what you told me, she didn’t even care.

JOHN TIEDT: No, she didn’t care. Because her response is, ‘they lost weight.’

STEVE MURPHY: Mmm hmm.

JOHN TIEDT: And in fact, we’ve had one of their administrators say, ‘So what if I lose hair? It doesn’t matter.’ ’

STEVE MURPHY: Yeah.

JOHN TIEDT: But that’s actually a very serious sign that your body’s shutting down.

STEVE MURPHY: There are how many women in this class action suit?

JOHN TIEDT: We have over forty thousand people who subscribed to Heidi’s diet program. We have right now seven class representatives.

STEVE MURPHY: How many – how much money did they pay on an average?

JOHN TIEDT: Well, the most commonly – about fifty-nine dollars.

STEVE MURPHY: Sixty bucks. That’s two and a half million dollars. We’re going to talk about where that money went in a minute, but I want to bring on your co-counsel, Michael Cohen, so we’ll do that right now.

[Clips from the Mike & Juliet show not transcribed]

STEVE MURPHY: I’m please to have with us Michael Cohen.

MICHAEL COHEN: It’s a pleasure.

STEVE MURPHY: Thank you for being with us. You are the co-counsel on the case?

MICHAEL COHEN: That’s right.

STEVE MURPHY: And before you came in, we were talking about the money. Heidi Diaz has collected two and a half million dollars, roughly?

JOHN TIEDT: Well, we won’t know for sure but it’s over two million. That’s our best estimate.

STEVE MURPHY: Now, you did a rather unusual thing when you certified this as a class. You actually have frozen her assets, haven’t you?

JOHN TIEDT: Well, it’s actually a little bit more peculiar. We haven’t certified yet. We filed a complaint, immediately. We tried to get a writ of attachment immediately, the first few days after filing.

STEVE MURPHY: Yes.

JOHN TIEDT: That was denied. I took her deposition, came back and filed a writ of attachment in an uncertified class action lawsuit and I got it. And as far as I know, and Mike can tell you, I’ve never heard of that being done before. In these cases, a lot of times, when the perpetrator committed a fraud, there – once they’re caught, the money’s long gone. We got lucky. We were at least able to freeze some of the assets in her PayPal account, and also freeze a house that she just bought for cash.

STEVE MURPHY: I saw on a news report that she wrote a check to the IRS for seven hundred thousand dollars, was that it?

JOHN TIEDT: Yes. This was done on a whim. You know, right after she found out her deposition was going to be taken, she decided to – on November 9, which was three days before her deposition, she wrote a check to the IRS for seven hundred thousand dollars because she knew I was coming.

STEVE MURPHY: Right.

JOHN TIEDT: Because I would have attached it. We attempted to do it, but the check had just cleared the bank.

STEVE MURPHY: Now, speaking about class certification (referring to Michael Cohen), I understand you’re the expert in that area.

MICHAEL COHEN: That’s right.

STEVE MURPHY: And where is that right now?

MICHAEL COHEN: We anticipate within the next month or so filing a motion for class certification and that’s a procedural device where we ask the court to certify it as a class. In other words, we can treat all forty-thousand members of the Kimkins website as part of the same lawsuit.

STEVE MURPHY: And you’ll be seeking to have their money sent back to them?

MICHAEL COHEN: As much as we can, yes.

STEVE MURPHY: So she hasn’t, I guess, spent all of it. Has she?

JOHN TIEDT: She dissipated some of it. She spent money on a house, which she bought for cash, close to five hundred thousand dollars. She’s paid taxes, which I don’t think she’s done in the last eight years. So, she does have money in other accounts right now and we’re looking to attach that as well.

[Clips from the GMA show, not transcribed]

STEVE MURPHY: There’s a couple of others things that makes your case a little unusual. What are they, Michael?

MICHAEL COHEN: Well, one is the very fact that it’s a class action. Although there are thousands of them, they don’t always get certified. And the reason it’s important in this particular case is that most of the people who are involved only lost fifty, or a hundred or two hundred dollars, while Miss Kimkins, Kimmer, made millions. And without this kind of procedural device to collect all the cases into one case, no one would be able to get any justice. And the other thing that’s important about this is we’re not just seeking a return of the funds to these people, but also what’s called injunctive relief. In other words, we want her to stop doing business and stop defrauding the public with her website and that’s as important as anything else.

STEVE MURPHY: From my understanding she has been at this before, with other types of products or schemes, hasn’t she?

JOHN TIEDT: Well, she has been accused on a number of occasions of using a false identity to acquire assets and credit. And in her deposition she had admitted to using a variety of different names, including male names.

STEVE MURPHY: Yes. Okay, one of the things that we saw in the videos of these victims was that there was some medical problems that occurred to them, and we’re going to bring on right now a doctor that can actually tell us what the problems are with a low carb diet that’s just totally, you know, not correct.

[Clips from the GMA show, not transcribed]

STEVE MURPHY: I’m very pleased to have with us today a medical doctor, Dr. Sammonini?

DR. SIMONINI: Simonini.

STEVE MURPHY: Simonini, who is at Cedars and Sinai?

DR. SIMONINI: Cedars Sinai Medical Center.

STEVE MURPHY: And you are a cardiac surgeon?

DR. SIMONINI: Cardiologist.

STEVE MURPHY: Cardiologist. Okay, you have come here today to talk a little bit about the dangers of a low carb diet or the dangers of – let’s be specific, of the Kimkins Diet.

DR. SIMONINI: Exactly.

STEVE MURPHY: Tell us about it.

DR. SIMONINI: Well, I mean the Kimkins Diet basically advocates starvation, they’re talking about taking five hundred calories a day or less and the danger with that (inaudible) one, you’re not getting enough calories to sustain normal body metabolism, normal body function.

STEVE MURPHY: What does a body usually need?

DR. SIMONINI: Well, the average man, about twenty-five hundred calories, the average woman about two thousand calories.

STEVE MURPHY: And if you don’t get that number of calories you’re actually burning what, a lot of --?

DR. SIMONINI: Well, actually, you go into starvation metabolism which you talk about ketosis, making ketones, talk about metabolizing proteins, breaking down muscle as a fuel source. Because remember, when you run out of glucose to burn, your body turns to muscle and breaking down protein to make more sugar to burn. And in a byproduct of that, the body uses fatty acids to try to metabolize, energize that process to make sugar out of protein. So then you get the ketones being produces and you get muscle breakdown. So basically you get a muscle wasting that goes on when you have that low of a calorie state. In addition, you have to remember that there’s lots of nutrients and supplements that people need to be taking, lots of vitamins, essential vitamins such as niacin, B-complex vitamins which are missing so when you’re in that low, starvation state and you’re not getting any of these calories, you end up missing a lot of the essential vitamins which can lead to heart problems, digestive problems, neurologic problems, and these are all things that can get exacerbated when you go further and further in the process of the diet.

STEVE MURPHY: With some diets that have been popular over the years, like the Atkins Diet and a variety of others, Jenny Craig, they have kind of a menu. Richard Simmons goes back to this, okay? How did she come up with a list of foods to eat, how did she recommend these things? Where did she get those?

JOHN TIEDT: Well, we’re in the process of acquiring that information, one thing we can already tell you is that she didn’t have the background in nutrition to formulate these diets. As a matter of fact, we’ve heard from experts that unlike Atkins, she didn’t have a balanced diet, that provided all the vitamins and minerals that one would need.

STEVE MURPHY: How can you, really lose weight, and you’re the right person to ask this, Doctor, can you really lose weight by basically eating the right kind of foods and doing a lot of exercise?

DR. SIMONINI: Eating proper foods, smaller portions, exercising, of course and that’s what you’re trying to do, you’re trying to reduce – I mean, it’s enough in the American, western diet that are bad foods such as trans fats, fast foods, things that have high fructose corn syrup – these are all out there that we can cut out. And exercise, I mean we’re becoming a sedentary people, between internet and TV and so on. You sit there and watch TV and watch the internet. So we can easily exercise, we can easily watch our diets, watch portion size, eat healthy kinds of foods. And it’s all about moderation and balance, a lot of people try to go for these extremes and I guess that’s part of the fast-food culture, we want an answer and result now. But basically by finding a diet that you can adhere to, by eating good carbohydrates, complex carbohydrates, by eating good fats, not the trans-fast, we’re talking about the polyunsaturated fats, and eating, you know, good amounts of protein and exercise, we can have a healthy diet and we can lose weight.

STEVE MURPHY: Some of the victims, if you will, the clients in the class that are represented by John, how are they adversely affected? I understand some of them lost their hair, correct?

DR. SIMONINI: Exactly, some of them complained of hair loss, some were complaining of palpitations, and remember when you go into a starvation diet, or starvation mode, a couple of things happen. There are hormonal imbalances which can occur which can lead to the hair loss, There’s also nutritional deficits which can happen which can lead to cardiac dysfunction, so there are a lot of dangers of – doing these acute diets, especially when you totally starve yourself of essential amino acids and essential vitamins and you make your body break down proteins to survive.

STEVE MURPHY: Very good. I want to thank you very much for sharing on the show.

DR. SIMONINI: Oh, my pleasure.

STEVE MURPHY: Please, we’ll have you back again. Thank you.

[Clips from the Mike & Juliet show, not transcribed]

STEVE MURPHY: I am very pleased to welcome Terry Lind, how are you?

TERRY LIND: Very good.

STEVE MURPHY: Thanks for coming to the show. We have seen some other testimony of some other victims that have taken the Heidi Diaz ‘Kimmer’ Diet. You’re one of the people that actually took this diet, right?

TERRY LIND: That is correct.

STEVE MURPHY: Run through our – run through your whole background about why you took the diet to begin with. What made you decide to buy it in the first place?

TERRY LIND: I had lost one hundred and three pounds using the Atkins program –

STEVE MURPHY: From what to what?

TERRY LIND: I went from two eighty two to one seventy eight.

STEVE MURPHY: Okay.

TERRY LIND: And that was about a fourteen month period of time. I did it on the Atkins program. At that point in time I hit a really stubborn plateau and I knew this Kimmer person from a free website and her whole thing is, plateaus don’t exist, they’re not real. If you’re not losing weight, you’re doing something wrong. Ad I liked what she said, because she seemed to have the information that would help me to start losing weight again.

STEVE MURPHY: So, you sent of your money?

TERRY LIND: Yes. Once Kimkins was up and running, I was a charter member, one of the very first people to sign up.

STEVE MURPHY: Charter member meaning you’re a lifetime member with these folks.

TERRY LIND: Well, that’s an interesting story in and of itself, because yes, she sells you a lifetime membership. But, the interesting part is, she determines the length of your lifetime.

STEVE MURPHY: I see. (Laughter)

TERRY LIND: So, she can terminate you –

STEVE MURPHY: That’s kind of dangerous! (Laughter)

TERRY LIND: -- she can terminate your membership for any reason or no reason.

STEVE MURPHY: So, basically, she – people who complained, she terminated their membership.

TERRY LIND: I didn’t even complain and she terminated my membership.

STEVE MURPHY: So you really believed in her and were severely disappointed.

TERRY LIND: Oh, yeah.

STEVE MURPHY: How long were you a charter member?

TERRY LIND: I was actually a member for, oh, more than a year, close to a year and a half.

STEVE MURPHY: And on her program did you lose weight, more weight?

TERRY LIND: I did. I only did her program for a month because I couldn’t stand it any more. I couldn’t stand the feeling, the sick feeling.

STEVE MURPHY: When you compare Atkins Diet to her program, did you find it similar?

TERRY LIND: It is similar, what her program is, really, it’s an amalgamation of Atkins and anorexia.

STEVE MURPHY: Yeah.

TERRY LIND: That’s basically what it is.

STEVE MURPHY: Yeah.

TERRY LIND: It’s (inaudible).

STEVE MURPHY: The Anorexia Diet Program.

TERRY LIND: Well, Atkins, Stillman’s and anorexia. It just combines a starvation plan and –

STEVE MURPHY: So, you were feeling sick –

TERRY LIND: Yes.

STEVE MURPHY: How were you feeling?

TERRY LIND: Nauseated.

STEVE MURPHY: All the time?

TERRY LIND: All the time.

STEVE MURPHY: And your hair loss --?

TERRY LIND: No, I didn’t have any hair loss because I didn’t do it long enough.

STEVE MURPHY: So, why did you decide to get off the program?

TERRY LIND: I couldn’t take it any more. I couldn’t take the, the deprivation.

STEVE MURPHY: What would you like to see happen to this woman?

TERRY LIND: I want to see her out of business.

STEVE MURPHY: And what else?

TERRY LIND: Well, I’d like to see her in jail.

STEVE MURPHY: Okay.

TERRY LIND: That would be the icing on the cake.

STEVE MURPHY: Is there a possibility of that happening, John?

JOHN TIEDT: Right now we produced evidence to both the FTC, the Attorney General’s office, and we are speaking to the District Attorney.

STEVE MURPHY: Okay.

JOHN TIEDT: And we expect and hope that criminal charges will be filed fairly soon.

STEVE MURPHY: Alright, very good. (To Terry Lind) Listen, I’m very glad you came here and shared.

TERRY LIND: Thank you.

STEVE MURPHY: Because your story’s important. In other words, don’t be duped on the internet.

TERRY LIND: Oh, amen. You can be anybody on the internet that you want to be, and Heidi Diaz has proved that.

STEVE MURPHY: Yeah. And we’re going to bring in Michael again to talk about being anybody on the internet, because it’s hard to check, isn’t it?

TERRY LIND: It is.

-- Begin Video Clip of November 12, 2007 Deposition of Heidi Diaz –

HEIDI DIAZ: These stories are compilations of actual stories, with names and a few other things changed to not reveal who they are. The photos do not … the photos do not belong to those stories.

JOHN TIEDT: So you claim that these stories are based on real stories that occurred (inaudible) –

HEIDI DIAZ: That people have told me over ten years, yes.

JOHN TIEDT: …over ten years. By the way, with regard to these real stories, do you have a copy of those real stories?

HEIDI DIAZ: No.

JOHN TIEDT: Do you keep a file anywhere, with any stories in it?

HEIDI DIAZ: I don’t.

JOHN TIEDT: (inaudible) that was used as a predicate for the stories that had the false photographs?

HEIDI DIAZ: No.

-- End Video Clip of November 12, 2007 Deposition of Heidi Diaz –

STEVE MURPHY: I think we’ve all learned one very important factor – you can be anybody you want on the internet, can’t you?

MICHAEL COHEN: That’s exactly right and that’s been part of the problem here, that Kimmer, Kimkins, she pretended to be someone she wasn’t, but how do you check? And it’s very difficult to know, because if you make up a person, there’s no background to check.

STEVE MURPHY: Right.

MICHAEL COHEN: A real person leaves traces, and you can Google them or search and you can learn about them. But if you make up someone from the get-go, there’s no way to check.

STEVE MURPHY: John, you’re a member of the California Health Care Fraud Task Force, is it?

JOHN TIEDT: Yes.

STEVE MURPHY: (Inaudible) this organization tries to investigate, you know, cases like Kimmer, Kimkins Diet, you know --?

JOHN TIEDT: Well, yeah, absolutely.

STEVE MURPHY: And follow them up.

JOHN TIEDT: And what we’ve seen is scams just like this. There are dietary supplements that claim to cure cancer. There are medical devices which claim to cure neurological diseases. There are phony treatments in other countries, such as Mexico, for cancer treatment. They’re being promoted on the internet. People are at their most vulnerable when they’re in their home, late at night, sometimes. They have a disease, they have a medical problem, and they want hope for their problem. And, unscrupulous people sell hope like this.

STEVE MURPHY: Alright.

JOHN TIEDT: And they do it fraudulently, so you have to be really careful. If something is too good to be true, it is, typically, on the internet. If you have a dietary supplement, a drug that’s proposed on the internet, or a medical treatment, run it past your doctor. That’s really important. Do some investigation. Don’t buy something on impulse on the internet.

STEVE MURPHY: Right. I think another problem you run into is that people want to believe these things that are too unbelievable.

MICHAEL COHEN: Right.

STEVE MURPHY: They want the miracles. I also want to point out that when I went to your website I saw that you have a lot of information about other scams on there, don’t you? About other cases and that sort of thing. So people, if they have a problem they can give you a call, right?

JOHN TIEDT: Oh, absolutely. We also list resources such as the FDA, FTC, if you have a particular medical product or drug that you question, you can go to my website and there are plenty of government resources that listed on that site.

STEVE MURPHY: Right, very good. Thanks for keeping up the good work.

MICHAEL COHEN: Thanks.

STEVE MURPHY: Thanks for being here. Thank you John.

JOHN TIEDT: Thank you.

STEVE MURPHY: And we’ll have you back again.

MICHAEL COHEN: Thank you.

JOHN TIEDT: Thank you.

-- Begin Video Clip of November 12, 2007 Deposition of Heidi Diaz –

JOHN TIEDT: Did you value your right to privacy over your customers’ right to know the truth about your weight loss results, as a result of using the Kimkins Diet?

HEIDI DIAZ: It may seem that way, that is not how I intended it, but I see now in retrospect that that is how it was probably taken.

JOHN TIEDT: So that’s a yes?

HEIDI DIAZ: Yes.

JOHN TIEDT: Okay.

-- End Video Clip of November 12, 2007 Deposition of Heidi Diaz –

STEVE MURPHY: Thanks for watching our show; you can get more information at www. insiderexclusive.tv. I’m Steve Murphy – thank you.

END TRANSCRIPT

Xtreme Tanning Lotion Spring Break Contest!

There's a really cool Spring Break contest going on! All you have to do is create your own Ocean Potion Xtreme Spring Break commercial (mine is below), submit it, and you could win $5,000 or the Xtreme Dream Vacation! That vacation would be a trip to Las Vegas, air combat fighter pilot training, racecar driving experience and a dune buggy excursion!

How cool is that?




Don't forget to visit opotion.com and check out their many great products such as their Anti-Aging Sunblock! There's lot and lots of other wonderful sun care products there as well. So, stop by opotion.com and check them out! Don't forget to enter the Spring Break contest as well!

Elle

The Media Blitz Continues!

Things continue to go from bad to worse for everyone's favorite discredited diet guru, Heidi Diaz aka Kimmer of the Kimkins Diet Fraud. Insider Exclusive has a segment featuring everyone's favorite lawyer, John Tiedt. The link is currently down while the website moves, but there's an abbreviated version embedded below.

As soon as the full version is up I'll work on a transcript of it for those of you who can't watch it for whatever reason.

Elle

Time for a new watch!

I was talking to a colleague the other day, and in the middle of the conversation, she asked me what time it was. I look at my watch and said, "Two-thirty." She sort of laughed and said something about how since everyone has a cell phone now with a time display, who still wears a watch?

Well, obviously, I do.

One of my favorite watches is the Seiko watch, particularly the two-tone dress watch. It's very similar to the one I wear now, which, frankly, is nearing the end of its useful life. Well, it works fine, it's just beat up because I've had it forever. I'm thinking it's time to get a new one, and given the awesome selection and prices of watches over at Bluedial.com, I'm thinking that's where I'll start shopping!

Elle

Zucchini Love

I made Cleochatra's Zucchini Pizza Crust tonight.

I love Cleochatra. I mean, I think I really love Cleochatra!

I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent and creative, but she's got it all over me. It's possible I could have tripped over the cauliflower crust recipe on my own, but chances are excellent I probably wouldn't have made it. I don't particularly like the taste of cauliflower, and besides, the fact that it looks like brains squicks me. But I never would have thought to substitute zucchini instead.

Aside from the fact that the pizza was delicious and OMG so filling (I have leftovers for breakfast AND lunch tomorrow), it reminded me a lot of my grandfather, who died eight years ago. There are two reasons for this.

First, the zucchini. Grampie always had a vegetable garden. A huge, ginormous, half-acre garden. That is, the main garden, he also had bean poles alone the fence and planted herbs in borders out front.

My Nana always said you could always tell if a house was occupied by Italians because you'd see tomatoes planted in the front yard instead of roses.

Anyway, one year when I was about seven, one of his zucchini grew to an incredible size -- it had to be nearly two feet long. That was his pride and joy, and whenever I came over (so long as it was still on the vine) we'd go out back and admire it.

The other thing that reminded me of him was the pizza pan I was using. It's a square, and it came from his first restaurant, which makes it at least sixty years old. Now that's a well-seasoned pan! It's heavy, and sixty years of more or less continuous use have turned it a lovely black. It's one of my more cherished possessions.

So, it was a night of good food and happy memories. Thank you, Cleochatra!

Elle

Did you know VistaPrint offered Car Magnets?

Oh boy! I'm going to have fun with these!

You may have heard of VistaPrint before, they offer a wide variety of printing services, such as checks, rubber stamps, cards and things like that. And now, they're offering car magnets!

There's a lot of things you can do with these magnetic car signs. Take my Dad, for example. He's a small business owner, and he relies on fliers and signs for his advertising. Something like this would be really useful for him -- he could make up a bunch of magnetic car signs with his company name, phone, email etc. and hand them out to friends, customers, and of course, his children. They're removable, and I know I'd be a lot more likely to agree to put a removable sticker on my car than I would a permanent sticker.

That's one use. But, this is me we're talking about, and I thought it would make a nice little gift for my fiance. Some time back he saw a slogan he really liked, on a t-shirt. He wanted to find it in the form of a bumper sticker, but hasn't had any luck so far. So, I made one for him:

What do you think? I kind of like it! *

;)

Elle

* Just kidding, Texans!

Today's menu

Christin has a great post up, detailing her maintenance plan, one she was intending to use for Kimkins, until Heidi Diaz -- a morbidly obese fraud with no medical training whatsoever -- put the kibosh on it.

That got me thinking -- we all have different ways of maintaining our weight loss, and while some strategies work better than others, there's lots of little tricks and tips each of us knows that others might find useful. So, I thought I'd periodically post what I'm eating, in case anyone is interested, along with some little strategies that work for me. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Today's Menu:

Breakfast

• Coffee with cream, no sugar
• 8 oz water
• Four strips of crisp bacon (the texture of bacon fat squicks me, so I George-Foreman-Grill mine until they're basically linear pork rinds)

Mid-Morning Snack

• More coffee
• 16 oz water
• 1 oz peanuts

Lunch (brought from home)

• Curried chicken
• Lentils
• Butternut squash
• 16 oz water

Afternoon Snack

• 8 Strawberries
• 16 oz Water

Dinner (as planned)

• Chicken Caesar
• 16 oz water

I'm usually not hungry after dinner, but if I do want a snack, I almost always have sugar-free jello which I make up every week and keep in the fridge.

You'll notice the abundance of water. That leads me to hint #1 -- drink lots of water, just as much as you do when on Induction or OWL. The 64 oz total I listed above is a minimum, I try to drink 120 oz a day. This is a big one, because I find that the times when my weight starts to creep upwards are pretty well correlated with the times when I'm less than diligent about my water intake.

I also try to get the bulk of my calories in during the day, though I'm not always good about that. I do this for obvious reasons, that's when I'm most active. I'm not too terribly vigilant about when I eat at night, I don't have a hard and fast rule like not eating after 7 PM, for instance. But I try not to have anything too heavy, because it makes me feel yucky in the morning.

Does anybody want to share what their daily menu looks like? Hints? Tips?

Elle

Mother's Day is Coming Up!

And I need to get creative. For the last few years my gift to Mom on Mother's Day has been a renewal of her membership in a roadside-assistance service. Which is nice, but on the practical side, and Mom is the sort who enjoys sentimental presents.

Fortunately, I've found a site with some cool mothers day gift ideas. It's Photofiddle, and as with so many other things, where has this been all my life? You can transfer any photograph you'd like into a piece of art, such as the one below:



It's been featured on Oprah's Olist, as well as in PC Magazine, and lots of other places. You can convert a photograph to several different artistic media -- oil, watercolor, pop art, collages etc. You can get them stretched or framed.

I'm really liking this idea!

Since Mom has no fewer than ten thousand pictures of each of her grandchildren, any one of those pictures would make a great candidate for Photofiddle art. Alternately, I might use some of the pictures from our trip to Italy. Or, and this may send her over the moon, a picture of me and Dancing in socks Guy together. Yes, I realize that giving someone a work of art featuring one's own portrait is more than a little narcissistic, but you don't know my mom. She's been waiting forever for me to get married and she loves my fiance. In fact, she refers to him as "her" Dancing in Socks Guy, as in, "How's my Dancing in Socks Guy?"

Fortunately for all concerned, he thinks that's cute.

Anyway, if you are interested in some unique mothers day gift ideas, definitely check out Photofiddle, it's worth a look! Don't forget to check out some examples of Photofiddle customer art at the customer gallery!

Elle

When I was a child, I thought as a child ...

... And then I grew up, and stopped thinking like a child. But that's just me.

When I was a kid, my brothers and I had a game we called "Whomper Sock." This action-packed activity consisted of stuffing a tube sock with other socks, and the person who was "it" chased the others around our basement, trying to hit someone else with the Whomper Sock. If you were hit, you were then "it." Hours of fun!

And then we got older and stopped playing with socks. But apparently, some people (*koff* Singinglass *koff*) continue to think and act like children and play with socks even well into their purported adult years.




Apparently, Kimkins admin Singinglass created her own sockpuppet, LittleSina over on Low Carb Friends, something verified by the admins. LittleSina posted a bunch of stuff about how to find Singinglass's webpage and some other stuff. Looks like someone is not getting enough attention in her everyday life!

Grow up, Drama Queen. This isn't a game.

Elle

Smarten up!

Mariasol has a great post up today about one of the Kimkins admins, titled "Singinglass in the Spotlight." Mariasol raises some very good points, but I'm going to take it one step further.and ask the following question:

Singinglass -- are you stupid?

Look, I don't know you, and if Jesus loves me as much as everyone says He does, I'll never know you. But seriously, smarten up!

You work for a fraud. You know you're work