We’ve touched on Amway’s diet plan a few times in the past, mostly to poke fun at the speakers on the stage who are walking advertisements Trim does not work so I thought I’d take a closer look at it.
Ambot’s sponsor Captain Fuck Up claimed to be on Trim and was losing weight so Ambot decided to try it. Or more accurately, buy it not try it. I recently found this Amway Trim Advantage binder way up high in the cupboard behind where I store spare cookie tins. I doubt Ambot ever opened it. It has several sections in there - Meal Plans, Recipes, Exercises. At the back is a CD. Like we need another fucking Amway CD! Its called the Trim Advantage Body System. Never opened. Can we get a refund?
There’s an introduction letter at the front of the binder’s contents and then a commitment to optimal health “contract” that the IBO is supposed to sign. And here I say IBO because its unlikely that a person who was not an IBO would spend the hundreds of dollars needed to get going on the Trim Advantage diet plan. Cheaper to sign up with just about any other diet plan and get personal support. What do you do with the contract after you sign it. Give it to your upline Platinum so he can mock you in board plan meetings if you’re not losing weight?
Right behind the commitment contract is a page titled “Plan Ahead” with the Amway products you need to stock up on. Nutrilite Vitamins:
CLA 500 - $79.95
ProDigest - I can’t find it on Amway’s web site so I don’t know if the name changed or if the product was discontinued - last known cost $60.44
Chromemate - As above, can’t find it - last known cost $44
Digestive Enzyme Complex - $46.90
Below that a paragraph that says “Keep Your Commitment - Stock Up on Favorites”:
Trim advantage Protein Bars
Chocolate Delight - $24.99
Mixed
Berry Smoothie - $20.97
Nutrilite Protein Powder - $30.75
I looked on Amway’s website to find this binder thing that we have in the house and the big thing I discovered was that Amway has changed the name from Trim. The diet plan is now called Nutrilite Weight Management Program. I found their Better Balancer Program kit which I believe may be similar to what Ambot purchased a few years ago. It costs $236.78. I seem to recall Ambot paid over $200 for the system and in addition to this binder full of “important” information it included a box of food bars and meal replacement powdered drink.
Amway also has a kit called the Fat Trimmer Plan - $265.88
So just to get started buying all of the above and I’ll go with the Better Balancer not the Fat Trimmer price. $544.78. Wow!
Now lets go to the meal plan in the binder. The first few pages talk about dieting stuff that you can find for free in the library or on the Internet such as drink water, serve meals on smaller plates, choose low fat products when grocery shopping, etc.
Let’s look at Day 1 meal plan:
Breakfast: Trim Body System
Berry Vanilla Shake. I won’t give the whole recipe but the Amway product needed to make it is Nutrilite Protein Powder ($30.75) which may have already been purchased if you followed the above rules and stocked up.
Snack: 1 bag Trim Advantage Crunch Zone Snack Chips. Can’t find it on their web page but if I recall correctly it came in a box and had 2 different flavors and cost around $60 and this was for like 10 bags of chips in each flavor. At this snack time you also get a cup of vegetable juice. Horror of horrors. You need to go to the grocery store for that one because they’re not slinging an Amway product.
Lunch: Apple and cheddar salad. There’s a recipe. No Amway products. Sucks to have to go to the grocery store again!
Snack - Trim Advantage Meal Replacement Bar - $26.39 for a box.
Dinner - Beef Stir Fry - there’s a recipe, no Amway products. 2/3 cup Uncle Ben’s instant whole grain brown rice, 1 cup skim milk.
That’s over $100 of Amway products to have on hand just for Day 1. I won’t bore you with the rest of the week. Does anyone wonder if Uncle Ben is getting a kick back from Uncle Dickie?
Does anyone else see a problem here besides the cost? What about 5 to 10 fruits and vegetables a day? Let’s throw that out the window, though there is about 3 servings in their recipes for lunch and dinner. Oh wait. What the hell do you need to eat fruit and vegetables for?
They have a vitamin for that. $40.99.
Obviously this is a ploy by Amway to sell more overpriced products to IBO’s who feel they need to lose weight.
Amway is hardly the only company out there to flog a diet system using their products.
A friend of mine used to work for Jenny Craig. As far as I know Carla was never overweight. I got the scoop from her about working as a Jenny Craig counsellor even though she has no training in weight loss, nutrition, counselling, etc. She was paid a salary or hourly wage I don’t recall which but she also got a commission from all the Jenny Craig food products she sold. And decent commission. Worked out higher than her salary. Just luck of the draw if she happened to be working when a Jenny Craig customer walked in and needed to buy the next week’s meals. I don’t know what the meals cost but seeing as how there is enough mark up for staff to get a decent commission I’d say they’re on the high priced side. Amway does not sell frozen entrees so Jenny Craig gets a leg up on them there. Jenny Craig charges for its services. I’m not sure if its by the pound or by the month or the year but its probably semi expensive, say a couple of hundred dollars to reach your weight goal not including food - but I’m not sure. Just ballparking.
I also remember reading the Special K diet plan directed to their website from a cereal box. A ploy by Kellogg’s to sell their cereal products but probably relatively low priced compared to other diet plans. A box of Special K cereal is about $4 and I think the diet plan had a different flavor each day of the week. Even if someone went out and bought all 6 or 7 flavors of Special K to stock up that would still be under $30 enough to cover many breakfasts. The other meals were salads or various recipes that the dieter would prepare themselves. Snacks usually were Special K bars. Yes I’ve eaten their bars and like them. They cost about $2 a box and there are 5 or 6 bars in the box. Relatively low priced. I would say a person could stock up on one of every flavor of Special K cereal and cereal bars and the bill would be under $50 and probably last the dieter a month. No fee to use their diet plan. Save money and eat healthier and choose Special K over Amway!
There’s a website called
Spark People that helps people losing weight. Menu plans, exercise plans, articles, discussion forums. All free to use. They’re not flogging vitamins, food bars, CD’s, or anything else.
There are lots of diet programs out there ranging from fees to use the program to purchasing the program’s meals and supplements. It looks like Amway’s plan is the most expensive for what you get. It offers no support, no individual counselling (ha ha counsel with upline!), no discussion forums, nothing. Just pay your money, buy the overpriced shit, and hope for the best.
The secret to losing weight is no more complicated than eating less and exercising more. Cutting out products high in fat and substituting healthier options and eating more fresh fruit and vegetables. Drink several glasses of water daily and drinking green tea in the evening is supposed to help with weight loss.
All of this can be accomplished while leaving those shitty Amway products back in their warehouse.
In case anyone is wondering Captain Fuck Up put the weight back on.
