Tears of Anger and Sorrow.....PLEASE READ THIS!

I had a post all typed out about my semi-blah day, my weight training at the gym and just overall daily struggles but then I read this article about the KIMKINS Diet. I'm not sure if you know which diet this is but it was featured on the cover of Women's World Magazine with a tag line that read "Better Than Gastric Bypass Surgery". The creator of this diet boasts of losing 198 pounds in 11 months. Now it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that this diet is a) bullshit or b) really, really, really unhealthy or c) BOTH. I am opting for C - I actually read the article and thought - is that a feasible diet plan?? It is a low carb (less than 20 grams), low fat, high protein diet. Evidently, the website lured people in by promising great support and weight loss advice all for the nifty price of like $60 bucks - what these people got was a restrictive, 500 calorie diet that was based on feeling semi-nauseous all the time........WTF is up with that??? That was the question that I asked myself, who in their right mind would do something like that to themselves and then I realized who would do it - ME.

That realization sickened me - now I'm not saying the me of now but the me of yester-years was desperate, scared, depressed and hopeless. I weighed almost 400 pounds and I was 24 years old. I couldn't fit in a booth at a restaurant and I lived in fear of riding in a car with someone because the seatbelt, all to often, would not latch. I rode in an airplane with no seatbelt because I was too embarrassed to ask for an extender, I couldn't ride amusement park rides, hell I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs! As sad as it sounds, my overweight friend and I would make a game out of who could dump a whole bag of M&M's in their mouth and eat them the fastest. Even as I write this I am ashamed of my behavior. Food was my drug and I like most drug addicts, was desperate to change but I didn't know how! That is how people get sucked in to these diet myths & ridiculous weight loss schemes. This feeling of desperation is how people become dependant on pills, laxatives, chemicals......OR they starve themselves.

I would be lying if I said that I hadn't thrown around the idea of how to lose the weight. I went through my bouts of eating only brocolli and even contemplated pill popping. My fear of failure and my depression at each failed attempt only provided more ammunition for my downward spiral into "diet hell". The never ending cycle of "I'll start Monday" - only to starve for three days and then down 2 double cheeseburgers, a large fry and a milkshake. After the binge, you go home, look in the mirror, call yourself every derogatory name in the book, curl up into a ball and figure out HOW you will make it work next "MONDAY". Of course then you walk down the grocery store aisle and right in front of your favorite stop (the candy racks) is a magazine that offers amazing weight loss with no exercise - this sounds appealing because a) you weigh 400 pounds - what the hell kind of exercise can you do effectively and b) you really need some instant gratification to keep you motivated - losing 4 pounds in a month ain't gonna cut it. So you dig out the $1.49 for the magazine - take it home - read it and think it sounds a little kooky but hey desperate times call for desperate measures, right? The sad thing is you will lose weight fast because you're starving and that only magnifies the need to continue on. Thus the cycle has begun...........thousands of people get sucked into this - people die because of this......because of their despair about their weight and their inability to see a better way.

The fact that people prey on this and profit from it, sickens and saddens me. I sat and read this article with tears streaming down my face. Tears for who I was and for who I struggle to be - tears for every overweight person that has been scarred by society and it's definition of acceptable. For every housewife who feels ugly, every child who is made fun or teenager who doesn't get asked to the prom......for those that feel desperate enough to go beyond what they know to be sane and sound to prove that they are worthy. I'm sorry for rambling on about this but it just hit home for me and angered me.

The article http://www.3fatchicks.com/Diets/Diet_Articles/Kimkins%3A_Anatomy_of_a_Diet_Scam/ suggests sending a letter to Dateline for investigation - I'm going to do that AND I'm sending a letter to Woman's World, letting them know how appalled I am that they would support something like this - I will NEVER EVER buy this magazine again.