I was just curious. I was thinking about signing up for this program for the one-on-one consults. I want to eat real food from the supermarket so Jenny Craig is not of interest to me. Anyone have any experience with the program...interested to hear about your successes or failures in relation to this program. Thanks, Sandy.

I went to find out about it a few years ago and it ended up costing a lot of money up front. You have to pay for all your weeks plus a big chunk of maintence weeks and snacks up front. It was too much for me but the menus seemed liek they would be easy to follow. I ended up going to WW and it was basically the same kind of deal just different vocabulary. But with WW, you don't get the one on one.
Just a thought, some times gyms or docotors have a nutritionist you could make one on one appointments with.

I joined and now I really regret it. I felt misled. All the questions I asked and the information I thought I obtained wasn't what I actually received. I paid out around $2500 to lose 100 pounds and I really had my heart set on this program. Everything was different after I started the program. They waited to start me out so it was too late to cancel. They have a good approach to healthy eating, but there are so many rules that are almost impossible to follow if you have a life or a job. You aren't suppose to eat 4 hours before bedtime, they prefer you don't eat out, eat the recommended frozen meals or combine certain foods together. They want it all stretched out within a very long day. Frankly, I couldn't get all of the food in in a day and it was expensive running to the store to keep up. The staff wasn't well trained and they didn't offer the same information. Each one had their own idea. I decided to stop the program and I was going to call, but I knew they would be calling me and I could tell them my problems. 5 weeks later they noticed I hadn't been in to see them and they really only seemed to be concerned about the financial portion and not me.
I am sure it has worked for some people, but the whole situation left a bad taste in my mouth. A friend has signed up three times and she still hasn't lost her weight.

Reading Lalene's story is like reading my own experience with LA Weight Loss. Though her post did not specify if she got her money back, I did not. I, too, spent around $2500 and though I am still getting my bars from them and selling them on e-bay, I did not get back the money I spent on the actual program (around $800). And, they had promised me when I first started trying to do a cancellation that if I got a dr's note saying I could not use the bars due to the soy content which interferes with a medical condition I have, they still would not give my money back even though I gave them the note.

The program is very difficult to follow in this day and age when women don't stay home and cook all day long. They advertise that you can still eat out on the program but their idea of eating out is a grilled chicken breast, rice (1/3 cup...like 2 bites worth) and steamed vegetables. If that was all I wanted to eat, I would just stay home and cook it.

The district manager, who has to approve all refunds, REFUSED to give them an answer about my case and REFUSED to call me. I guess she thought that if she just kept ignoring me, I would eventually give up. Well, she was dead wrong. Even though I am laying low right now, once I get all my bars everyone in that company is going to be hearing from me.

Also, you said you were interested in the one-on-one consults. To them, a consult is weighing you, looking over your diary, saying eat more of this, dont eat that, and getting you out of there as fast as they possibly can. More than once, while I was talking w/ my LAWL "counselor", another employee would stick their head in the door and say "there is a walk-in (possible new customer) out here and I am doing such and such." In other words, we already have her money, get her out of here so we can get someone else's money.

I would get on e-bay, you can buy the program for like a $5 or something, see if you like it and can stick with it and make it work for you before you spend all that money. And, once they get you in the door, they will hound you and harp you every time you go in to buy vitamins, buy snacks, buy this, buy that. JMHO

We do have an active LAWL subforum under General Diet Plans.

Given that, I must say that personally, I don't care for ANY 'diet program' that requires you to pay a big chunk of money up front, before trying out the 'services' they supposedly render. I remember reading a while back that one of the LAWL 'sales pitches' is that they are 'cheaper than joining Weight Watchers'. Of course WW you pay week by week unless you buy a package of classes, but you can stop whenever you want and you don't pay the entire thing up front. And personally the 'motivation factor' of 'I spent all this $$ on the program so it HAS to work' has never worked for me in the past...

I have never done a program like this, but my dead-honest opinion is that they are out for your money and if they worked so well they would go out of business. They are based on repeat customers from what I have heard. I hope no one takes offence that is just my take on it. You can do it on your own, it may be slower but that is only because learning lifestyle changes is a lengthy, life long process - but very enjoyable! I believe with these programs they restrict you too much so you see a loss and get motivated but unfortunately with those losses they tend to not to be permanent, which is the goal here

Good luck!
Cyndy

I've read a lot of disturbing things on various consumer complaint websites. Several former LAWL counselors shared their stories of how they were trained in sales only, and that the goal of every counseling session is to sell you something. They said that they are trained how to find your weak spots, whether it be family, job, personal frustrations, etc, and push you to the point of crying because you are more likely to sign up for something. "Cryers are Buyers" was repeated several times. Is this true? I have no way of knowing. It was so shocking that I found it hard to believe, but I saw it several places, not just one.

Other complaints: Women go in for information, based on the commercials advertising low rates, and walk out after spending over $1000 and feeling numb because they didn't know what hit them. Others complained that they signed up and understood the weekly fees were paid in advance, were told about the 50% back after you complete the program and maintain, but were not told about the LA Lites requirement (additional purchase of $28 per week for the duration) for this deal until after thier 3 day "buyers remorse" period was up. I"ve not only read this on consumer complaint websites, but our own LAWL survey on the main site turned up many many complaints. This one diet has generated more complaints than any other diet plan we are familiar with.

The diet plan itself looks fine. It's low fat, includes lots of veggies, and they have several different plans to suit your age, etc. It does seem rather restrictive, though, like Cyndy mentioned. After reviewing the diet plan, I can say that I know I would not be able to stick to it very long. That's just me. Some people are happy with it.

It's the financial issues that make this a bad program. Would I recommend it to anyone? No. Will this diet help you lose weight? Yes. But so will Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, or good old fashioned calorie counting. All diets work, if you stick to them. The trick is to find the diet that fits your personal tastes and lifestyle, because that is the diet you will stick to. The problem with LAWL is they don't give you the chance to find out if this is the diet you are happy with and can stick to. You will pay for it anyway, even if one year from now you are on Atkins. You still paid for a full term of LAWL.

Having said all of that, you probably wonder why we offer an LAWL support forum here. It is filled with really nice people that support and motivate each other, and we believe that everyone can benefit from peer support, no matter what diet you follow. While we would not recommend the plan due to the financial aspects, we don't believe that it is an unhealthy diet, so we support it. I'm pretty sure that not everyone in there is currently a paid customer of LAWL, and you don't have to be, to be part of our forum. As someone else mentioned, you can get the diet plan on ebay for 5 bucks, or from a friend, then do it on your own. Our members will support you no matter how you get the plan

I had not heard this but I strongly believe it to be true. It makes perfect sense now that you say that. They do try to sell you something every time you go in. It's not "how are you doing? How is your plan going?" etc. It is "have you tried our new salad dressings? They are really good." or "Do you want any of the smoothies today?" Blah, blah, blah. As far as the weaknesses go, they've done that to me too. They know how desperately I want a baby and that I am not going to start trying to conceive until I lose at least 50 pounds. They showed me pictures of their kids and told me how they are the light of their lives and what a joy they are (this was when I was trying to get out of the program). So, I know they used that against me and almost convinced me to stay. I just had to leave and tell them I would think about it and then call them on the phone to tell them I did not wish to continue with the program....for all the good it did because I never did get any of my money back.

On the blog post I did about LA Weight Loss I got about 39 different comments - mostly negative - but a few positive ones. There was an overwhelming number of people who felt ripped off.

Quite frankly I couldn't believe the amounts of money people were handing over. Weight loss help just should not be that expensive.

i tried to do lawl a few years back. my sister had done it and got all of the info so i didn't have to pay for it. it was not enough food for me. i realized this when i found myself binging on cold mac and cheese in the middle of the night. my sister caught me with my hands in the dish up to my wrists. very humbling.

i do ww (the on-line version cause it's cheaper) now and I find it to be a better amount of food.

It's definitely a strict plan! You'll eat the bare minimum and nothing more. I think it would be difficult to maintain your weight after losing it on this type of plan, assuming you reach your goal.

It is a huge amount of money to invest in something you may not be able to use in a month. If you need to lose 50 pounds, it can cost $2,177. This includes the $7 weekly fee (assuming you get the $7 fee and not the $9 fee) for the 25 weeks they assume it will take you to lose the weight, PLUS the 6 week stabilization period, PLUS the 1 year maintenance, PLUS the LA Lites bars (2 boxes per week until you reach maintenance and then it's 1 box per week). And of course this does not even include your groceries.

I don't think they are as "big" as they would like us to believe, they just rake in enough money to appear that way. They may have a lot of people sign up, but how many of those people stick it out? We surveyed over 10,000 dieters this winter, and only about 200 were in response to the LAWL diet. Of those, 76% said they would not recommend LAWL to other people.

I think they were offering "Breath a size " as part of their program ..(do I remember the ads right?) which is ridiculous to me.
I have a buddy who signed up for a different program but sounds similar. She had to pay a year in advance because they want you to prove you are committed. They guarantee weight loss of 10 pounds a month..but the diet is so strict she couldnt stick to it. What a racket!

If you lurk and silently read the posts and threads in the LAWL forum here (a subforum under the General Diet Plans section) you can really learn a lot.
I have found that a lot of the LAWL members will defend LAWL if you make bad comments about it, but if you read through the posts you hear about the terrible counselors, the high pressure sales tactics, the nonrefundable money-and some really horrible things they are doing to some of their customers.
For instance, there is a thread going right now where an LAWL counselor is trying to ge a breastfeeding woman to wean her infant so that she can buy some of their diet pills. In essence, tempting her to stop doing something wonderful for her baby, so she can supposedly drop weight quicker. That is awful.

There was an ad in the local paper in my area for a "counseler"..it was all about sales, sales, sales. No experience needed,,,except for sales.. Must be to push their products. I went to LAWL about 6 months ago more out of curiousity more than anything. Once I found out you had to pay for a whole year upfront, I told her that lately I couldn't commit for more than one day...no way a year! SHE WOULD NOT LET ME LEAVE!!! She just kept on and on about how really inexpensive it was compared to other programs. Seemed "cultish" to me.

that is so bad. The same kind of thing happened to me there. when I went in I was breast feeding and they said that the plan was not balanced enough for breastfeeding mothers, the LA lites are to high in protein or somthing. They told me I should stop breastfeeding. but my son was only like 8 weeks. No way, I went across the street to WW instead.