Shakeology, What are your thoughts?

Thank you for asking this question as I was wondering about it myself.

I hate that it's part of an MLM scheme. I wish a person could just buy some of these products (that are actually good) and not be pressured every 5 minutes to sell it.

The reason I am curious is that sometimes mornings are so hectic for me, that I'd love a meal replacement shake. I wouldn't be using them as the basis for my weight loss - just for a healthy meal replacement.

I am not a fan of the price either but I don't really know what I could do with a "real" food equivalent - where I live, the produce is absolutely terrible.

If you wouldn't mind posting an update if you decide to use them, that would be great!

Do not want.
I'll just be over here nomming on the banana I bought.

All your vitamins in one serving? Ok, so it's a crappy quality overpriced multivitamin. Got it.

Seriously, Beachbody uses incredibly low quality ingredients, the cheapest they can source, and then out in just enough to be able to list it on the ingredients list, but not enough to actually be an effective dose for whatever the ingredient claims to do.

If you want details, look at any breakdown of Shakeology from an independent source (meaning not associated with Beachbody.) I believe Acg on this site did a very comprehensive breakdown in the past.

Thank you for asking this question as I was wondering about it myself.

I hate that it's part of an MLM scheme. I wish a person could just buy some of these products (that are actually good) and not be pressured every 5 minutes to sell it.

The reason I am curious is that sometimes mornings are so hectic for me, that I'd love a meal replacement shake. I wouldn't be using them as the basis for my weight loss - just for a healthy meal replacement.

I am not a fan of the price either but I don't really know what I could do with a "real" food equivalent - where I live, the produce is absolutely terrible.

If you wouldn't mind posting an update if you decide to use them, that would be great!

Shakeology certainly isn't for everyone, but don't confuse MLM with anything illicit.

Like everything, there are bad businesses and good business out there. In my opinion the compensation structure of Beachbody is one of the good ones. No one is required to carry product stock, or handle their own fulfillment. Many MLM companies actually make most of their money not because anyone buys or uses their products but because their reps have to do huge buy-ins to stock up on product that they then have to manage the fulfillment for.

And MLM companies are not illegal. Again, there are a few that have ripped people off, but BB isn't one of those. I was a customer who used the products and liked them enough and got the results I wanted using them to help support other customers to have the same kind of success that I've had. And yeah, there are some sleazy creeps out there working BB. In my experience these are not fitness or health enthusiasts, but rather chronic MLM folks who move from one business to another. Most of us are in this because we, as I said, love the products and want to help other people, and if we can make some extra cash, awesome.

The cost objection for Shakeology is one I had as well. But when I set it next to the protein powders, multivitamins, fish oil capsules and every other thing I was buying every month to try to fill the gaps in my daily nutrition the cost started to make more sense. The other thing that swayed me was that the ingredients are food-based and not chemical suspensions, like most supplements. Plus, as someone else mentioned - no artificial sweeteners and I really do like the taste a lot.

I think the ideal Shakeology candidate is someone who has obvious gaps in their nutrition and needs an easy way to fill them. I have one customer who adores his shakes because he hates vegetables. He grew up on Chef Boyardee and Kraft Mac & Cheese and just does not have the taste buds for salads and steamed broccoli, but he knows that means he's nutrient deprived, and he also knows if he buys a bunch of pills he won't take them consistently. But he faithfully mixes his shake every morning and is feeling better and losing excess weight because he found something he likes as much as a bowl of Capt. Crunch for breakfast. And if you've seen the price of a box of cereal these days... well, he's also spending less money.

Inversely, if you're someone who is really into food and cooking your own meals and is getting a well-balanced nutrient-rich diet, Shakeology is probably a waste of money for you. There is no one-size-fits-all answer here. Anyone who says there is has an agenda of some kind.

-Tex

KPP

I've never had banana Reese's.

OMG!! They should make that!!!

I regularly get questions about this or that MLM product, whether it be Advocare, Herbalife, Visalus, Isagenix, or Whateverthehell. I am yet to come across a health/nutrition-related MLM company that doesn't economize production costs with sub-par nutritional formulations, especially the protein-containing products (for example, MLMs love to use soy as the first ingredient or fructose as the second ingredient). Adding insult to injury, these protein-based products cost at least double that of the leading non-MLM brands that actually use higher-quality protein formulations. To top it all off, these mediocre MLM products are hyped as the best things on the market, and of course they rely on the emotional triggers of zealous testimonials rather than the weight of the scientific evidence. So yeah, my opinion of MLM-based nutritional products is LOL (yes, let the hurt flow through your butt over that).

Not everyone pushes people to buy. I drink shakeology regularly, I became a coach so I could get the discount for myself. I help everyone I can with my free fitness accountability group on Facebook, but there are some good people that aren't all about money. Since my husband is in the military, I don't pay anything to be a coach, even if I never sell anything. It's a good product, I really ok enjoy the flavor, and the way I feel.

You have 3 posts here and all of them are about Shakeology.

I'm going to concur with everything Sheltol said and add my own two cents...

I am a Team Beachbody Coach. I've been a customer since 2010. I love working out in a gym. I also love running, cycling and playing soccer, and I do those things when I have time to do them. Having the option to do a full-body workout in my home drew me to P90X and that started me on the path to being as fit as I have ever been in my life. I did 3 rounds of P90X, a round of Asylum and a round of T25 without Shakeology. I got very good results and was pretty resistant to even try the stuff.

My logic was "I can buy ON Gold Standard Whey at GNC for $30 and make my own shakes, so why would I pay $130 for the same thing?" I made the choice to become a Coach because I enjoyed chatting with people on the BB message boards and on Facebook about what I'd done to improve my health, to help them with their own goals. I believe we have a serious health crisis in this country that's the result of overstressed people, an environment and culture that discourages activity and a food system that's profoundly broken. I have seen people utterly transform their lives over the past several years by using Beachbody programs. Could they do it at a gym or via some other avenue? Sure. Will they? Probably not. Why? Because the demands on their time and availability of options to get active have boxed them in.

Once I became a coach I needed to be familiar with more of the products, and I won't lie, if I was going to devote two or three hours of my day to doing this I needed to find a way to get compensated for that, but there was no way I was going to recommend Shakeology to someone without trying it myself. As I learned more about it I also realized I'd been looking at it wrong. I'd seen it as just a protein supplement, but it really isn't that at all. It's a meal replacement powder that is packed with food-based nutrients. So, not only was I swapping out my Whey protein, but my multivitamin and other supplements I'd been taking daily. Suddenly the cost wasn't as much of an issue. I started using Shakeology while doing P90X2, and was honestly surprised by the improvements I saw in my digestion, my energy level and other changes in my body. I kept using it while I did a round of P90X3 and dropped 3 inches from my waist and 2 full body fat percentage points.

My point is that I'm now an advocate for the stuff. Like the other coach said, it's not for everyone, and I'd never recommend something to someone that wouldn't be a good fit for them. I'm also not interested in aggressively selling products or recruiting anyone. To paint Beachbody (or any other MLM) with a broad brush stroke that says they all make lousy products and have vultures as reps is just ignorant. It's just a business model, and it's no more or less evil than any other business model. You may as well say that all CrossFit boxes are a rip off because some of them are run by clueless nitwits who don't know what they're doing and teach their customers bad lifting form, or that all traditional gyms are bad because some chains rope people into costly memberships banking on the idea that they'll pay every month but hardly ever use the facilities. Heck, if I had a dime for every time I've seen a disinterested personal trainer walk a client through a generic 1 hour program that has nothing to do with that individual's abilities or needs just to collect a fee I'd have a lot of dimes. Does that mean all personal trainers exploit their customers? No. It means that some people are jerks.

My mother sold Tupperware. My sister sold Avon. They had fun doing it and made a little extra money. The products were solid (heck, Skin So Soft lotion is still the best mosquito repellent you can get, and my parents' cupboards are full of 30 year old Tupperware that's still doing its job) and if you sold them to people who actually wanted them, why is that any different from someone buying something from a store?

My final point - If you have used Shakeology and didn't like it, fine. That's valid. If you don't like meal replacement products because you find fault with the premise that's also valid. But don't dump on a product because someone who once tried to sell it to you was a ****. If I used that kind of reasoning in my purchasing choices I'd have never bought a Mac, tried a Latte or ever bought a record or a comic book as a kid.

-Tex

KPP

Summary of What's Wrong With Multi-Level Marketing

MLMs are "doomed by design" to recruit too many salespeople, who in turn will then attempt to recruit even more salespeople, ad infinitum.

For many, the real attraction of involvement in multi-level marketing is the thinly veiled pyramid con-scheme made quasi-legal by the presence of a product or service.

The ethical concessions necessary to be "successful" in many MLM companies are stark and difficult to deal with for most people.

Friends and family should be treated as such, and not as "marks" for exploitation.

More accurately that's a summary of what people who have no experience with MLM's or who have encountered only unethical MLM reps tend to think.

The idea that all MLMs are pyramid schemes exposes just basic ignorance in how business, all business, works. Pyramid schemes are illegal. A pyramid scheme takes money from many and gives it to a few, delivering nothing in return to the people involved at the bottom. MLM's are not pyramid schemes precisely because there is, in fact, a product for sale. Now, granted, the compensation practices of some MLM's make it very difficult for reps to make any money without becoming hyper-aggressive with their sales tactics, and many companies require their reps to purchase product, stock it and distribute it themselves, causing them to have to invest quite a bit of money before they'll ever see the light of day. This is not, I must point out, how Beachbody works at all. Coaches do not stock or distribute product. And the monthly fee to remain active is less than you'd spend to go to a movie once a month.

I don't want to get sidetracked into BB specific stuff here though. I'm taking more of an issue with the perception of all MLM's as inherently bad or crooked. That's simply not true. The notion that this is about endlessly recruiting reps is nonsense as well. The turnover rate is no different than any other sales-based business. In my 9-5 world I work in a sales organization, and we are constantly hiring and people are constantly moving on, either up or out. And all businesses are pyramid shaped, with a hierarchy where the people at the top of the structure make more money than the people at the bottom. The difference with MLM is that where you reside on that pyramid is dependent on your own effort and pretty much nothing else.

As I said before, there are jerks in this business, just like any other. There are also lousy companies and bad products, which is no different from any other more traditional business. The most successful people in MLM are not exploiting anyone, because that's not a sustainable business model. Do we see people like that? Yup. Just today the top BB coach, posted a screen capture image on her Facebook wall of some really sleazy messages that a coach in her downline was sending to people on Facebook. Why'd she post them. To send the message that this isn't the right way to act and that it's embarrassing to her, to the company and disrespectful to our customers and fellow human beings.

But again, this happens in traditional business too. Anyone remember the story in the news late last year about individuals at a major US bank who were fired for ginning up their sales numbers by opening bogus accounts on behalf of their family members? Does that make the bank evil? No. It indicates that there was a lot of pressure to perform on those individuals, and that because somewhere along the way they'd never had ethics explained to them they made poor choices.

Salespeople get blamed, in my opinion, for being salespeople. People get bent out of shape at car salespeople all the time. Why? Because they're doing their job. No one can make you buy anything. If you can't say no, that's not the fault of the salesperson. He or she is there to sell things. If you don't want to do business with MLM's, then don't. But don't pretend that there's something inherently more evil about someone who works for themselves selling stuff than someone who works for some corporation selling stuff.

-Tex

You are correct, I usually acess MFP from the app on my phone, so I have not been active on the message boards until yesterday. However when someone asks something about a topic I am familiar with, I am going to answer. Do I drink shakeology, yes, am I a coach, yes, do I try to convince people to buy it, nope. As I have said in a previous post, it is not for everyone, there are other shakes and supplements others swear by that were not for me. We make the decisions about our health and fitness that we as individuals are right for us.