[deepfried]

My beloved sister who is about 100lbs overweight has signed up for this program. Upon closer scrunity, I see it's a marketing pyramid with fancy celebrity names attached to it. John Gray (Women are from Mars..) is heavily touting this weight loss/wellness program. I can't talk to her without some speil about how great the program is and that she wants me to see the video, blah, blah, blah. I'm very dubious on pyramid marketing schemes and frankly I don't want to be involved.

I was in the fitness industry for a long time and generally know what works and what doesn't. I know that shakes and wafers alone DO NOT build muscle mass, weight bearing exercise does! This is the type of cr## she's being fed.

Am I being too cynical here??? Anyone else here of this company??

[Suzanne 3FC]

I had never heard of this product, but after checking their website, I agree with your opinion. I would avoid this product. It's easy to get sucked into the fabulous claims, the glitter of semi-celebrity endorsements, and to ignore that little voice inside that makes us want to question the claims. The fact that it is pyramid marketing is a HUGE red flag as to the quality of the product. Their focus is sales, not your health. They train people to make it sound like a miracle product, and it's your lucky day when you have the chance to buy it. It's a well designed sales pitch, and they generally learn techniques of high pressure sales.

One of the biggest scams today is the idea of cleansing, or detox. The body naturally cleanses itself, and is very well designed for it It's all a marketing gimmick. If you really did have toxins in your system, you'd better get yourself to a doctor or hospital, fast! Instead, they use the generic term "toxins" as a scare tactic, but they never tell what those mysterious toxins are, what they do, or provide ANY scientific tests or peer reviewed clinical studies to prove these claims.

As for the rest of their products, I don't see anything listed which would be useful, and their claims do not appear to be valid. Some ingredients have been shown not to be effective, others have been shown to be dangerous. Others have nothing to do with weight loss anyway.

I can't see their recommended eating plan anywhere. These products always come with a diet plan that is usually a 1200 calorie diet. Follow a 1200 calorie diet, and you will lose weight. You don't need the products for that. I see that they sell shakes and I'm assuming they recommend having them in place of a meal. Their s hakes contain 231 calories. If you have that instead of a regular lunch out, then you will have cut your calories. Cutting calories is what causes the weight loss, it's not the shake.

Get this...

A 30 day program of cleansing and 4 containers of shake mix costs $299 !!!

A 9 day program costs $149

The shake mix, which contains 14 servings, costs $39.95. If you want a calorie controlled shake mix, buy a box of SlimFast for a couple of bucks.

I hope your sister will realize that she can accomplish the same thing without lining the pockets of an MLM sales rep.

[kmg73]

I am not curious as to how well this system works for weightloss, because I know there is not a magic pill. But I am curious if there are any wellness benefits to this program? I had never heard of these products until today. A friend of mine (who I consider very health conscience, athletic and intelligent) loves this product and now sells it. She does need the money, so I assume she is selling because 1. She thinks it is a good product and 2. By selling it she can purchase her own products at a 50% discount. Now it is completely possible my friend could be jumping on the bandwagon here, but she sincerely says this product makes her feel better (i.e., more energy). She is skinny already and doesn't need to lose any weight, but she did say that the nine day program resulted in a 4lb and 13-inch loss for her. So I am curious if anyone on these boards has tried this? I can't seem to find any complete details about the contents of the products. It all seems hokie to me and I am surprised that my friend would fall for something like this if it is indeed just a pyramid scheme for a product with no real value.

[Amarantha2]

I've just never understood why folks are always buying into the "cleansing" of "toxins" idea for weight loss. In my opinion, it's kind of a spiritual or magical thing ... the idea that we're just full of these "bad" poisonous things because the world is so bad and poisonous and instead of weight gain occurring because of eating too much and moving too little (too simple), it's all the fault of these poisonous things we are inadvertently taking into ourselves, through no fault of our own (it's usually the fault of some big conglomerate company or the government or the hypocritical evil medical establishment just out to enrich itself) ... so isn't it lucky there's this cleansing product conveniently out there to save the day.

Cutting calories and/or salt, or a laxative, would, IMO, have produce the same effect.

For a protein shake, there's always milk.

[MrsJim]

OMG...I was listening to KGO-AM this morning in the car and caught the tail end of an interview with this John Grey guy...Ronn Owens sounded a bit skeptical to say the least. (BTW if you want to hear the complete interview, the archives at KGO-AM are kept for 24 hours after broadcast - you can right-click on this link and do a "Save Target As..." if you want to listen to it at a later time).

Judging from the 10 minutes' worth of the broadcast I heard today (I've saved the recording on my desktop and will listen to the rest later), I would have to say that I don't agree with the author's 'findings'.

And about his credentials as a 'diet expert'...ya might want to read THIS interesting article - if this is true...veeeerry interesting indeed....(libel suit threatened, according to this followup article).

One thing this goes to show you - just because someone has a "Dr." in front of their name, doesn't mean they know everything or even ANYthing, particularly about weight loss...

[Ilene]

Karen -- I listened to about 5 minutes of that :yadda: and it sounded like an infomercial

[Globix]

Isn't this the guy who had all those relationship books? I think he was married to Barbara DeAngelis, not sure how to spell it, and she is a big relationship expert too.

But they got divorced.