Who is the woman in the red dress?

My beautiful cyber friend Anani wrote this and I wanted to make sure everyone who wanted to could read it. Please pass it on if you are engaged in this horrible debate.

Who is the Woman in the Red Dress?

I’m haunted tonight. I can’t sleep because my head is full of images. Images of people just signing onto Kimkins.com. I can see them vividly and I can feel their feelings and hear their thoughts as they introduce themselves. As they type out their first greetings, nervous with anticipation and filled with renewed hope. Another beautiful soul, who has dared to dream again, hopping onto the magic carpet that will only disintegrate into dust.

Who are these people? Heidi Diaz aka Kimmer doesn’t care. They’re faceless to her…just another $60 in her pocket.

Let me introduce you to some of these people. They are real. They are just like you and me.

There’s the woman who has battled with her weight all of her life. Her husband has left her for a younger and thinner woman, annihilating her feelings of self worth. She sees the beautiful woman in the red dress and gets excited for the first time in a long time. “Oh my God,” she thinks, I can do that too. If she can lose 200 pounds in less than a year, so can I. She immediately begins doing the math and based on what Kimmer tells her is possible, she realizes she can be thin in a few months and maybe she can shed the overwhelming shame she feels and won’t have to live in terror of running into the ex or the other woman. She begins to fantasize about running into him in a “sexy - in your face outfit” She also dares now to hope that maybe she even has a chance of finding a special new someone.

There’s the young girl who is so tired of crying inside all of the time. She looks at her thin friends with their cute clothes. She dreams of wearing those clothes and having the boys look at her. She’s tired of wanting to hide all of the time. She’s tired of feeling like she doesn’t fit in. Even in her own family. She’s tired of the disappointed look her mom tries to hide. She’s tired of her brothers making fun of her. She sees the woman in the red dress and for the first time she has hope. She begins to fantasize about fitting in. Having a boyfriend. Tubing on the river with her friends and wearing a bikini. Laughing and going to parties. Being normal. If she does what Kimmer says, she’ll have her dream in just 3 months, 4 tops.

Then there’s the Mom. She tired of her whole life being defined by her size and her weight loss attempts. Her mom put her on her first diet when she was 8. By the time she was 15 she was a compulsive dieter and over the years and after 3 pregnancies she has dieted herself up to 300 pounds. She can only sit and watch while her kids play at the park. She sadly watches another mom swinging with her kids. She yearns to run and play and swing with her own children.She is forever haunted by the humiliation of having the chair break under her while sitting in the gym at their Christmas concert. She has to squeeze into seats at the movie theatre and is terrified of going into restaurants and not fitting into the booth. She is so afraid that she embarrasses her husband in public and she can’t undress in front of him any more. She worries when her kids bring friends over that they will be embarrassed. She wants so badly for her kids and husband to be proud of her. She’s tired of feeling like a failure because she has tried every thing. She’s just about lost all hope.

She sees the Woman in Red.

There’s the woman who is tired of seeing jobs given to people far less qualified than her. She knows it’s because of her weight. She is tired of people never looking her straight I the eye when she is at the bank or in stores. She is sick of elastic waisted pants and long ugly shirts to hide her tummy. She is tired of having to settle for clothes just because they fit. Even though they are ugly and completely not her style. She has to go to a wedding soon and is dreading it because she can’t find anything to wear. It seems she has spent her whole life feeling like she is on the outside looking in. Just once she wants to know what it’s like to feel pretty. What it’s like just to feel normal. She’s tired of hating what she sees every time she looks in the mirror.

She sees the Woman in Red.

These women and millions of women like them, all have one thing in common. No, they don’t want to be the next super model. They want nothing more than the chance to be and feel…normal. To take for granted what it’s like to move freely, to go into a “normal” store and not only be able to buy normal clothes, but to actually have a choice of style and colour. To walk down the street or into a room and not feel eyes on them, judging them, to have people thinking …”why doesn’t she just go on a diet. To know that every time someone looks at them, all they see is their fat, not the beautiful, intelligent, creative unique individuals that they really are.

Heidi Diaz knows and understands the feelings of the women I have described. She has likely lived and experienced every one of them. She knows the desperation. Yet these are the feelings, and that very desperation that she has chosen to exploit in others like herself. She has zeroed in on that desperation that she understands so well and used it as a way to load her bank account. She created a diet with no basis in fact or scientific studies. She sells a diet plan based on her claims that there is “no such thing as starvation mode”. That “if you have excess fat on your body you don’t actually need to eat”. That “there is nothing more dangerous than being overweight”. That “you don’t need to eat dietary fat”. That “you don’t need to exercise”. That “you only need to take a multi vitamin to get your nutrients”. She has been asked to back up her claims with any sort of evidence or documentation, but she refuses. Why? Because she can’t. They are theories and ridiculous notions that she cleverly fabricated in her own twisted and greedy mind.

She created this twisted and sick fairy tale while being morbidly obese herself. She can’t back up one iota of her plan, even with her own experience. Any attempts at weight loss she has undergone in her life have been miserable failures. She is the walking and talking, living example of poor life choices and ill health. But somehow she managed to lure nearly 40, 000 people into this deadly illusion with brilliant marketing, a beautiful website, slick and clever words and borrowing on the “credibility” of a nationally published magazine. All while hiding behind a fantasy picture of a thin beautiful woman in a sexy red dress, and promoting this…as herself. She created a completely false persona, a cleverly created story about her personal life and newfound happiness and health, attached it to a picture of woman we have all fantasized looking like. And I must state again all while living in an obese, unhealthy body. And she is charging and getting $60 for this.

Heidi Diaz knows these women. She knows of their desperation and lost dreams, their desire to be normal. She knows their unbearable pain because she is one of these women. But she doesn’t reach out to them in understanding and compassion. She ruthlessly targets them and uses them. They are easy prey for her, because she knows their torment so well, because she lives in their mind.

People have been exploiting the desperation of the obese for years, but for a woman who lives and breathes that desperation and lost hope, to have done this, is about as morally bankrupt as a person can go. She cares nothing about the ever-increasing stories coming to light about people suffering ill health from following her advice. When confronted with these concerns by others, she states “It’s not my fault if they’re too stupid to go to their doctor.” She called those of us who dared to question her, “Recalcitrant Morons.”

There are still many followers hanging onto the dream. Many state that they are feeling great, having suffered no ill effects...(yet) They have lost weight. The diet works. They focus only on the stories of others that are still doing well, while ignoring the multitude of stories emerging of those who have not.

Well, there are many who have survived playing Russian Roulette. What if I were to say, “Well look at them, they’re all right, maybe I should try it too.” So I say to the myth that is Kimmer…”At least take down that silly, cute harmless sounding name Kimkins and call it what it really is”. “The Russian Roulette Diet”

In closing, I have this to say to all of you. Love yourself enough to do the research. To do what’s right for you and for those who love and need you. Your children, your husband, your sisters and brothers, parents and all who love you are counting on you to make the right choices. Please don’t sell their need for you and your long-term health and well being, for an illusion.

The illusion of The Woman in the Red Dress.