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Is 30/10 Weight Loss for Life Worth a Try?
Read more to find out why we believe it is Risky (high risk).
back to menu ↑30/10 Weight Loss For Life Claims
The way it’s explained on their website, the 30/10 Weight Loss for Life program is all about accountability, diet, behavior modification, and education. And the “food” you pay for when you join the program, described on the website only as being designed with client needs in mind. Nothing specific; are they pre-made and packaged actual foods? Very vague:
We provide a wide variety of flavors and allergen-sensitive products all of which are sourced from high-quality proteins that are easy to digest. [3]
I did find a list—on an unrelated fitness website—of 30/10 Weight Loss for Life “food” products including shakes, snacks, bars, a “cheesesteak pasta” dish, Sloppy Joe, soups, pot pies, and breakfast foods like blueberry pancakes, oatmeal, omelets, and a slew of cereals. [4] What 30/10 Weight Loss for Life says:
For dinner we have you eating fresh, delicious, and easy-to-make recipes that the whole family will enjoy. From marinades to stir-frys, you won’t feel like you’re dieting and you’ll never be hungry. [3]
30/10 says it provides clients with delicious, protein-rich foods to help you lose weight. They say the only thing you’ll have to do is prepare your dinner meal. Aha! Now I’ve got it: You eat one meal and replace the others with their stuff. Speaking of the 30/10 Weight Loss for Life program “food,” the costs for these “meals” is unclear, as is the 30/10 Weight Loss for Life cost—which you won’t know until you go in for a consultation. [3] (For me that’d be a cross-country trip.) But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Because this diet is not a diet, per se; it’s a combination of nutritional coaching, education, and enlightenment, with behavior modification—helped along with “certified consultants” and nutritionists—to rewire yourself to eat differently through diet, lifestyle changes, and behavior modification, relaxation, and a type of meditation called self-mastery. The idea with 30/10 is mind over matter, almost literally. 30/10 Weight Loss for Life claims it has helped 20,000 people lose hundreds of thousands of pounds. Interestingly, among the testimonials called “Success Stories” on the (threadbare) 30/10 website are those from Seattle-area and regional radio and TV hosts, anchors, and DJs. It’s weird. I assume they were paid for their endorsements. But each claims to have lost weight and seen their lives changed. So, good for them, right? [1] [5] The 30/10 Weight Loss for Life whole approach to helping you lose weight, slim down, tone—and then stay there—is an integrated one, where mind and body meet. The way it works: first is the initial consultation where a staffer, called a “caring consultant,” does a sort of intake; an “in depth health profile and your results from our medical-grade body composition scale.” [6] They say this is where they get to know you by delving into lifestyle, medical history, and eating habits to figure out why you’re overweight. Then, they say, they’ll design a plan just for you. And this is the point where they sell you your personal program.
30/10 Weight Loss Cost
30/10 Weight Loss Cost depend’s upon each individual:
- Initial Consultation– anywhere from $25 (if you were referred by a friend) to $160.
- Length of program varies from person to person. The average client wants to be on the program for at least more than 15 weeks, the cost for 15 weeks is $3,655.
- There are no refunds.
According to the website, 30/10 Weight Loss for Life does say cost depends upon each individual client’s stress issues, health conditions, medications, number of pounds to lose, and body composition; analysis findings determine how much you’ll pay and how long you’ll need to stay on their diet. (I picture a very high pressure sales pitch, so be cautious going in.) So let’s assume you’re sold on this just-for-you plan and signed up and paid, you then sit with “one of our certified coaches or on-staff nutritionists” who tell you what to do. 30/10 says the coach (I’d prefer the nutritionist, to be honest) will help you incorporate your new way of eating—with their “food” supplements, too, don’t forget—into your everyday life. [6] So you leave with your meal 30/10 products, start eating the way they taught you, and every week go to the center for a weigh-in to track your progress on their body comp scale. They say your results will be analyzed, they’ll check out your food journal (yes, you write down everything you eat), and that’s when the schooling begins; they educate you on nutrition and behavior modification techniques. Afterward, you listen to some relaxation tapes—the self mastery meditation they say will help you to ignore food cravings, and “help with anything that you might have struggled with that week.” [6] You also get to jump on a whole body vibration machine, which I’ll get to shortly. 30/10 says its goal is to not just get you to your goal weight, but help you stay there for life. The easiest way to “maintain your weight loss is by reaching your ideal body composition—or the muscle mass and fat percentage that decreases your risk for disease and allows your metabolism to function efficiently and effectively. When you get there it is easy to maintain your weight and health.” [6] They also vow to never ever leave you—once you’re at your goal, they claim, you can join their free maintenance plan. (I’m dubious, but will play along.) Included in the free plan are individualized nutritional guidelines and sample meal plans that will teach you how to maintain your weight, your muscle mass, and your body fat percentage. You can use their body composition scale and their coaches while you are transitioning and working on how to control your weight, they say. Free. Okay, if you say so. About the “food.” 30/10 Weight Loss for Life says their nutritional “food” products—“a wide variety of food options that satisfy the palate”—provide you with enough healthy protein and nutrition you’ll need to burn fat. They claim clients “love our large variety of choices, all with different tastes and texture.” You get your “food” for the following week after each weigh-in. [3] Let’s stop for a moment. I have been using quotes around the word “food” for a reason. They are, in fact, mostly powders to be mixed as a whole food drink. Yes. Imagine a cheese-steak powder shake. Yum. That’s what they mean by different “textures” I suppose. These powders are your primary food source and send your body into ketosis. We have talked about ketosis and nausea in these reviews, but essentially it’s when you go very low carb, stuff with protein only, and your energy comes from the proteins that put ketones in your blood as opposed to carbs, our usual primary energy source. Bottom line: When your body doesn’t have enough sugars from carbs to fuel itself, it starts chomping away at the stored fat. So you’ll have meal replacement powders (a bacon omelet powder? I’m confused), another powdered drink or 30/10 bar for a snack, and then a few more powders at lunch with some good old food—fresh veggies, only though—and you may eat an actual dinner consisting of a few ounces of a very lean protein and some low-starch vegetables. That’s it. Save 30/10 vitamin supplements to keep you alive. (That was hyperbole.) Moving on to the behavior modification, which they say begins the moment you walk through one of their Washington-based centers. The 30/10 Weight Loss for Life is about a lot more than what you eat. They claim it’s about how you think and about how you feel inside and how you think and feel about food. 30/10 says their coaches are trained to facilitate behavior change (how they’re trained and by whom is unclear) and—this is the important part—you must listen to “introspective and meditative audio recordings that guide you through behavioral modification tactics and practices that subsides cravings, stress-eating, negative sleep patterns, and more.” [3] So while their coaches are trained to help you modify your eating habits and change your life, it’s really about these tapes, called Behavior Modification Sessions, to help “refocus/re-pattern how you think and feel about food, diet, exercise, and weight loss for life. Weekly weigh-ins, coaching and support help create a positive environment to keep you excited and enthusiastic about your progress and direction.” [3] Yup. And, 30/10 is really into the coaching component and claims you’ll be excited to see yours each week, the person who is an essential guide in your weight loss journey. A 30/10 coach’s job is to:
…hold you accountable, answer any questions you might have, educate you on nutrition, and give you helpful tips and tricks on losing weight through your vacations, holidays, special events, and any sticky situations you might have to face. In addition, each location has a health provider or a nutritionist on staff, to ensure your success and to work one-on-one with you for any special dietary needs you might have. [3]
The Whole Body Vibration thing supposedly “accelerates your weight loss and health by increasing your flexibility, improving balance, reducing arthritic pain, improving vascular and lymphatic flow, decreasing stress hormones, and so much more.” [3] This is a whopping amount of claim, and I could find nothing on their website to explain any of this. Nothing. Now, about maintenance. 30/10 says losing weight will be a simple plan you can maintain for life. Not the first time we’ve heard about a diet that promotes itself as being one you can adopt for life. It’s taken a lifetime to get where we are, and another to get back to where we’d like to be, apparently. In any event, 30/10 Weight Loss for Life claims that once you reach your ideal body fat percentage you get the maintenance plan free, as I’ve already mentioned. It’s free so I suspect there’s not much to it—if in fact it is really free. Or maybe it is free, but you have to purchase their powders and vitamins. I don’t know.
back to menu ↑30/10 Weight Loss for Life Ingredients
The powdered foods? It was nearly impossible to locate any details about the ingredients in these powders. I am fairly certain that at least one site I visited infected my computer.
back to menu ↑The Science (or Lack Thereof) Behind 30/10 Weight Loss for Life
So we know this is a very low calorie diet (VLCD), low-carb and high-protein. But that’s all we know. Here’s what an article published in the 2014 Nutrition & Metabolism (London) says about high-protein, low-carb diets:
Diets high in protein have been shown to be a potential tool for weight loss …Whereas diets high in protein have considerable beneficial effects on satiety and weight control, which is of great interest to e.g. obese individuals, there are some caveats to high protein diets such as increased acid load to the kidneys or high fat content of animal proteins. Awareness of these caveats enables individuals choosing to consume a high-protein diet to get the most benefit from it.
And as it relates to the ketosis idea behind this and similar high-protein, VLCD and low carb diets, with increased gluconeogenesis in response to a high-protein diet …(your body is in) a state of low energy demand, these metabolites will be stored as glycogen and fat, which is undesirable if weight loss is the goal. Along these lines, weight loss can only be achieved by establishing a negative calorie balance, though this may be more tenable on a high-protein diet: this may also explain the increased gluconeogenesis in response to a high-protein diet, as described above.” [7] (emphasis added)
back to menu ↑Word on the Street about 30/10 Weight Loss for Life
So while there’s very little detailed information on the 30/10 website, it was on Google, Yelp!, blogs and other sites. I found reviews, and some nitty gritty info. For example, it’s $25 for a consultation if you drop someone’s name; otherwise it’s more than $150. That’s nuts. The program can cost thousands of dollars—I repeat, thousands and thousands of dollars. But apparently, if these reviews are accurate, there are devotees who say it’s a great program at any cost. “Carolyn K.,” who was reviewing on behalf of her spouse, says,
I’m reviewing for my husband. He has been doing the program for 22 weeks and lost 90 pounds. He looks amazing! We didn’t spend a terrible amount, I think we spent around 3k for this including food.
He basically tried a variety of their suggested food and settled on handful he likes, shakes, oatmeal and soup. Then he eats chicken and broccoli or brussel sprouts every night for dinner (I wish I had his willpower!) This program is for people who are seriously dedicated to losing weight. [8] “Julie J” says it worked wonders for her daughter.
My daughter lost 36 lbs in two months and has reached her goal, she looks amazing. I want to do but center is too far. She followed the diet exactly. [8]
Reviewer and 30/10 dieter “Stac S,” writes a curious review. Not sure what to make of it. She says the program is not cheap, which we know, and adds that it’s only effective if you are on your “A” game. After your assessment and pictures taken, you will of course get a water bottle-only water related fluids from now on basically, you can have your morning coffee but cream and stevia only. If you were in love with carbs before you might feel hungry. You also can’t buy their products and do the rest yourself, if you get tired of ready to eat type of food, then you are also out of luck. They do ask about any allergens such as dairy, gluten and such. I noticed it says if you have bipolar you can’t do this program. I guess they figure you will go off the bandwagon right away. They will go over all of your medications so if there are things they have never heard of-be aware, you might need an ok from your friend the doctor. It can cost up to $12,000 so if it’s not for you, maybe buy a used car and just push it for weight training! [8] About that reference to bi-polar; I did find an interesting thread where folks with various mental illnesses discuss weight gain because of medication and there’s a comment about trying this diet. It’s a deep dig so may not be worth the long thread read, but I wasn’t able to find any other references to back up her claim. [9] The 30/10 Weight Loss for Life diet also has a pretty vibrant Facebook page and there’s lots of commentary here to check out before deciding to give this diet a go. [10]
back to menu ↑The Bottom Line: Is 30/10 Weight Loss for Life Worth a Try?
Risky (high risk). For two reasons: One, it’s a lot of money to spend for a program and unless you’re 100 percent committed to it, you could potentially be throwing away thousands of dollars.
Secondly, while there’s lots of science about low-carb, high-protein diets that are at once supportive and encouraging, these diets are not for everyone. They are very restrictive and prohibit many foods that a lot of us would be hard-pressed to live without—in my case, whole grains and olive oil. With the 30/10 Weight Loss for Life diet, the hook is two-fold: you must buy into the meal replacement powders and use them every day, and, you must be willing to get a little brainwashing—but in a good way, I suppose. I did though find similar tapes, audio books, and videos; motivational affirmations and subliminal, hypnotic messaging that may help you lose weight, even free apps. So you could do a healthy low-ish carb diet, drink lots of water, and listen to motivational tapes on your iPhone while working out. Could work. [11] [12]
Diet food is full of sucrolose and other non real food items. Most of the food was too sweet for me to eat. I did like the pancakes, the just pancakes, kind. Other pancakes were awful: like chocolate chip :goopancakes. So many of their foods were also so full of salt.
I found these products not very “good nutritionally.” Also, I found the products I did like to fix and eat were often on BO. This was a bummer, especially I was paying more than $335 per week. What this site says about the cost is very true. I decided during the first week of being on this program all the people on Radio, which I had listened to for over 3 years were obviously paid to go on this diet.
In four weeks I did lose 11+ pounds. I followed the rules fairly well. They do not want you to eat any fruit, but I think some fruit is good for me. I did eat applesauce on top of my pancakes and ate 1/2 of an apple or a small orange every other day.