Jimmy "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" Moore: Another Diet 'Guru' Exposed as a Sex Predator
Jimmy "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" Moore: Another Diet 'Guru' Exposed as a Sex Predator
Many of my long-time readers will remember a grifter by the name of Jimmy Moore, one of the numerous low-carb charlatans that rose to prominence in the post-Atkins era. Moore was the quintissential diet huckster, combining bombastic self-promotion, grossly misrepresented research, and a litany of false claims about his own weight loss 'success.'
Moore's initial claim to fame was a book titled Livin' La Vida Low-Carb, which detailed his alleged journey from "Flabby Fat to Sensationally Slim." Like any true shyster, Moore conveniently neglected a key detail: Namely, that any weight loss 'success' he experienced was temporary. Very temporary.
In reality, Moore was fatter than a sedentary whale.
Moore couldn't hide his obese state forever, and it eventually became obvious he was just another failed yo-yo dieter. Incredibly, rather than being denounced as the farce he was, Moore managed to parlay his fat loss failure into yet another selling point: He was the guy just like you, a person who had long struggled with his weight, experiencing the very same frustrations and setbacks that you did.
While some of us shook our heads, others eagerly lapped up Moore's "we're all in this together" sop and his following continued to grow.
To compensate for his own lack of expertise, Moore began interviewing other 'experts.' He wrote several more books, always teaming up with other avid low-carb shills such as Dr Jason Fung and Dr Eric Westman. While the ability of these 'experts' to judge both diets and character was highly questionable, their formal qualifications lent Moore an air of credibility. Moore's internet popularity, meanwhile, helped jump-start their own commercial endeavors.
The diet and health arena, you see, contains more brazen opportunists than a pickpockets' convention.
Disclaimer: I Can't Stand this Creep
In case you haven't figured already, I don't like Jimmy Moore.
Long before he was unmasked as a sex predator, I knew full well he was a two-faced phony.
Many many moons ago, I was dumb enough to follow a low-carb diet. That regrettable phase of my dietary life ended circa the mid-noughties, when I had to stop kidding myself and admit that a lack of carbs was killing my performance on the bike.
I'd also begun researching the “metabolic advantage” fraud, the claim that you could eat more calories on a low-carb diet and lose more weight. Some especially egregious low-carb authors, such as Robert Atkins and Michael Eades (who, like Moore, had longstanding weight issues despite their 'expert' status), had even claimed you could eat up to 5,000 calories on a low-carb diet and lose weight, yet gain weight on a high-carb diet containing a fraction of that caloric content!
Every single controlled study testing this claim has shown it to be complete and utter garbage (blog posts by people who suck at math don't count as controlled experiments). And I made sure to point this out on my website and in my book The Fat Loss Bible which, unlike 99% of low-carb books, was written by someone who does actually know how to stay lean and keep in good shape, even in his 50s.
But, as with climate change alarmists and Branch COVIDians, a little thing called scientific reality has never stopped diet hucksters and their perennially gullible followers. I promptly became the target of the flabby low-carb cult, with the likes of Moore leading the charge. One day he posted a highly defamatory post about me, featuring extensive 'commentary' (slander) by Eades.
True to form, Moore never contacted me for a response or rebuttal.
I was somewhat taken aback. While Moore's over-the-top, game-show-host style was never my cup of tea, we'd previously had a cordial relationship. I would've expected him to at least contact me, let me know about the article he was going to post, and get my side of the story.
But Moore, as history would later confirm, was a man utterly devoid of class.
A few years later, Moore was writing on the Internet that I was "irrelevant." So irrelevant, apparently, that he began pestering me to appear on his podcast.
Because you can't power slap someone over the Internet, I instead replied thusly:
To be perfectly honest, I don't want anything to do with you or the motley assortment of oddballs that seem to comprise the low-carb "community". Past experience has shown that they're pretty much impervious to conflicting viewpoints, no matter how scientifically robust.
And last I heard, you were making unfounded and slanderous comments about me:
http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/?p=2386
According to your juvenile diatribe, I abandoned the low-carb movement as revenge for poor book sales (?!) and had "taken on a martyr mentality" and "would do anything and everything to prove he's right no matter what."
What a load of one-sided bollocks. You included extensive commentary from Eades, but never consulted me for commentary on your slanderous claims. I guess you didn't want my refutation of your fallacious nonsense to ruin a good rant...
Furthermore, I think it's a little precious that someone who wrote a book about how he became "fabulously slim" when he was anything but that, who misquotes research non-supportive of low-carb diets as if it were supportive, and who reportedly made $15,000 on the Kimkins scam, thinks he's fit to piously sling mud at others. I guess when someone is so full of their own hyperbolic bullshit, anything's possible.
My advice - spend less time engaged in amateur attempts at psycho-analysis and spend a lot more time exercising than you currently do. Judging by your physical condition, that's probably the best advice anyone's given you in the last few years.
Moore's response was a feeble "ok, but the offer still stands."
Not with me. Unlike all those sellouts who kissed up to Moore because of the extra exposure his website and podcasts afforded, I found the guy repugnant and wanted no part of him.
Livin’ La Vida Low-Life
Turns out Moore was an even bigger creep than I'd imagined. Before I explain why, I should warn the following content may prove triggering to some. If you've just eaten, it may also prove nauseating.
On June 1, 2022, Moore was charged in Henrico County, Virginia on seven counts of carnal knowledge, vaginal intercourse, fellatio, cunnilingus and sodomy with "a child thirteen (13) years of age or older but younger than fifteen (15) years of age."
On October 4, 2022, Moore pled guilty to five of the 7 charges. Two weeks later, he was convicted by the Henrico County Circuit Court, making his sex offender status official.
On January 13 this year, Moore was sentenced and, for those of you sick of watching sex predators escape with light sentences, it was a doozy.
Moore received an active sentence of 20 years for carnal knowledge.
In a statement sent to Peter Heimlich (son of Henry Heimlich MD, famous for the “Heimlich maneuver"), attorney Cynthia R. Micklem (who prosecuted Moore on behalf of the office of the Henrico County Commonwealth's Attorney), shed more light on the offences:
James Moore was sentenced to an active sentence of 20 years for carnal knowledge on January 13, 2023. Evidence showed that from September through December of 2019, Moore started a sexual relationship with a thirteen year old. She was the daughter of people he had met in his role as a “social media influencer.” The sexual abuse began on a joint family vacation with Moore and his wife and the victim’s family. After that vacation, Moore would drive from his home in South Carolina to wait outside the home of the victim. On multiple occasions, he would encourage the victim to sneak out of the house after her parents were asleep. Moore would engage in sexual acts with the 13 year old in his vehicle and eventually began taking her to a hotel.
Law enforcement obtained records of Moore’s conversations with the juvenile victim. The records onfirmed the sexual abuse describing vaginal intercourse and sodomy. Among the sexually explicit messages to the victim, the messages also showed Moore manipulating the victim. Moore would repeatedly tell the victim that he was the only person in her life that cared for her. He would criticize her parents and other relationships creating distance between the victim and her family.
During sentencing, the Henrico County Circuit Court described Moore as being two people: one who is the well-educated community member who everyone sees as a good guy and second as someone who would describe “f- the brains out” of a thirteen-fourteen year old child. Someone who when the victim states she is feeling suicidal tells her “to get over it.”
The judge sentenced James Moore to an active sentence of 20 years.
In response to a request by Heimlich, Moore's attorney - Aubrey Russell Bowles, IV of Richmond - chose not to comment.
Even brushing aside my pre-existing disdain for Moore and examining the bare facts of this case, I can't feel an ounce of sympathy for him. Born December 27, 1971, Moore was 47 years old when the offending began. There's just no excuse for a man nearing 50 to be having sexual relations with someone barely into their teens.
For those subscribing to the grubby "old enough to bleed, old enough to breed" dictum, keep in mind a 13-year old is still essentially a child. They are still in their deeply formative years, still heavily reliant on their parents and not mentally equipped to properly handle sexual intimacy with their peers, let alone a conniving, opportunistic and morally bankrupt adult.
At any rate, real men protect the young - not exploit them and prey on their naivety and vulnerability in order to satisfy degenerate urges.
Jimmy Moore is not a real man, and he's not an expert on anything other than manipulating the young and vulnerable.
Diet & Health Gurus: Not Just After Your Money
So what's the lesson in all this, besides Jimmy Moore is a deviant?
Cast away your idols.
A dietary information source is just that: An information source. Not a 'guru’ or someone to look up to.
Humans, for some reason, have an ingrained need for 'leaders' and people to place on pedestals. Humanity also has a knack for placing its very worst on those pedestals.
Take the repulsive bogan known as Harley "Durianrider" Johnstone, whose former popularity rates among life's great mysteries, right up there with the location of Cleopatra's Tomb and the true identity of JFK's killers.
A scrawny, maladjusted, psychopath who looked a few kilos short of being a starvation victim, Johnstone nevertheless attracted a large following of clearly stupid people. Because if there's one thing dumber than a guy who loudly boasts about eating 30 bananas a day and who calls domestic violence victims "dumb fucking doormat losers," it's the vacant-skulled dolts who admired him and looked to him for diet, health and even life advice.
Johnstone, like Moore, used his internet popularity to prey on young females. In 2016, his annual tradition of fleeing the Australian winter for the sunnier climes of Thailand left a number of victims in its wake. Two of those victims refused to remain silent and boldly came forward, with nothing to gain except Johnstone's trademark psychotic wrath. One of those girls, Julia, posted a video describing how Johnstone pressured her into sex. Another, Hannah, came forward in 2018 and stated that Johnstone had raped her, after luring her to his apartment under the pretext of needing help with a book cover design and giving her a bike pump he'd promised her friend.
You can read all about the allegations here and here.
Attempts to bring Johnstone to justice met a dead end. The Thai police asked Hannah to contact Johnstone to retrieve a key piece of evidence (seriously), while the South Australia Police, themselves a thoroughly degenerate, corrupt cartel replete with pedophiles, hebephiles, sex predators and their protectors, dismissed the matter out of hand by stating it wasn't in their jurisdiction (Johnstone hails from and lives in Adelaide, South Australia).
SAPOL were, however, quick to act when their kindred spirit received a dusting from yours truly. After almost 10 years of threats, harassment, taunts and nasty defamation, I'd had enough. Johnstone, the guy who once threatened me via email that I didn't want to be on his “bad side, bro" ended up flat on his backside after I hoisted him in the air, then slammed his perverted carcass into the pavement during a chance encounter at the Adelaide Central Market. I then sat atop him and made it clear to all who gathered around that Johnstone was not the kind of person they wanted anywhere near their daughters.
Johnstone left the scene outside the Central Market in an ambulance, me in the back of a divvy van. As news of the incident circulated, everyone from Johnstone's former victims to cycling fans to Australian Taxation Office employees publicly celebrated.
When even ATO workers regard you as a grub, you know it's been a long, long fall from grace.
The sexual assault allegations destroyed Johnstone's farcical pretensions to altruism and chivalry, while the Central Market body-slamming he copped buried the tough guy image he relentlessly cultivated among his gullible followers ("I've been to prison, and I'm not afraid to go back, man!!!").
Patronage of Johnstone's once-lucrative social media platforms faded away, forcing him to find other means of supporting his banana and steroid habits. He established a dubious hustle selling carbon bicycle frames from China at exorbitant mark-ups, claiming they were sourced from a special contact within the industry. In reality, Johnstone was sourcing the frames from AliExpress sellers like Tideace and TanTan/Seraph, and simply having them sent from China direct to his unwitting customers. That charade quickly fell apart when I found out about it and told readers where to get the very same framesets at a fraction of Johnstone's greatly inflated prices.
It's extremely regrettable that it took credible sexual assault allegations to finally turn people away from Harley Johnstone. The man was a nasty, nauseating sociopath from the outset, a lying bully who caustically derided innocent people for no other reason except to generate ‘controversy’ and fuel his online income.
Again, wake up people. Stop being so gullible, and stop exalting people who give (often absurd) diet and health advice into something other than transmitters of information. Stop treating them like rock stars.
In fact, stop treating rock stars like rock stars. Most of them are self-indulgent deviants, too.
Bikram the Fugitive
A good friend in the USA messaged me a few years back saying she'd added "hot yoga" to her fitness regimen. I clearly don't get out much, because I had no idea at the time what hot yoga was.
What I can now tell you about hot yoga, apart from the fact it is yoga performed in a hot room, is that it was originally called Bikram yoga and invented by a nefarious character named Bikram Choudhury. He has faced multiple lawsuits alleging sexual harassment, assault and rape. After being ordered to pay millions in damages after some of these cases were decided by US courts in 2016, Bikram fled for India.
In a 2016 interview, he told a sports journalist his accusers were "trash" and "psychopaths" and that "People spend one million dollars for a drop of my sperm."
Sure.
In 2017, a California judge issued an arrest warrant for Choudhury, ordering him to hand over the proceeds from his business to satisfy one of the still-unfulfilled court orders.
Incredibly, people continue to support Bikram, attending his yoga retreats in places like Spain and Mexico.
He has classes scheduled for the week of February 20 at the JW Marriott Parq Hotel in Vancouver which, understandably, is "raising concerns among some people in Vancouver’s yoga community."
“It’s bizarre to me that people still go to [Bikram's] trainings. I find it very hard to understand how someone could look [at the allegations of rape] and have questions about what happened,” said yoga instructor Jessamyn Stanley.
Huffington Post writer Jenavieve Hatch also notes the allegations of rape and harassment "raise the question of why so many people worldwide continue to give him their money."
Because some people never seem to learn. When it comes to diet and health fads and the dysfunctional characters behind them, history seems to be stuck on repeat.