Castle Personal Training
Castle Personal Training is a Corstorphine, Edinburgh based company who specialise in weightloss/toning and Pre and Post Natal exercise.
Blog 07-06-13 Snakeoil productions brings you “Team Beachbody Clowns”
Hi guys,
Sorry it’s been a while but I have just been crazy busy and, amateurish they may be, these blogs take a long time to write and get up.
I will be more active going forward though as I really have to focus a bit more on this.
I am really starting to get a bit fed up with the amount of fake coaches and trainers out there who are nothing but sales-reps for companies such as Beachbody and Herbalife.
It seems like there is this little cult amongst the salesreps of these companies that will just not allow them to admit that the supplements they are selling are nothing more than placebos and expensive substitutes for healthy eating.
I had a “discussion” with a guy called Jeffrey Armbruster recently who, apparently, is some sort of Beachbody guru and who has all the answers, according the followers in his little cult.
This came after one of the Beachbody Salesreps (I refuse to call them coaches as they definitely are not that) asked the following on Facebook;
“Let’s say you had health issues and needed to take medication. What if you had a choice to either take your medication no matter what the side effects were. Or a healthy meal-replacement drink. Which would be your choice?”
My response was a straightforward;
“lolz what? Take medication or have a shake? Is that honestly a straight option now?”
And, if you forgive the juvenile “lolz”, I think you’ll find it was a fairly moderate statement in response to a very very stupid statement.
And then the BS started; The response from the original poster was “Depends. Some people don’t have to take their cholesterol medications anymore after 2-3 months of drinking Shakeology. My mom was drinking it for a month and her Dr. said her A1C levels dropped. Some are off their blood pressure pills too . There is even a Coach that has MS that her symptoms are less and same with Fibromyalgia. All with their Doctor’s approval. Some have probably got their doctors drinking it too.”
Note that all of the above are anecdotal stories..no proof. I obviously referred to the Beachbody study (which I already discussed here) and just asked them the same questions as I asked in that piece. Basically it boiled down to “show me the proof!”.
Jeffrey, Beachbody’s knight in shining armour, jumped in “Pete ill read your disertation this weekend and reply my Friend… But ya know it really must suck to br such a pesimistic soul and Go thru life this way without trying things Brother… Doesnt it just suck?“.
So now everyone who asks questions about the effectiveness of a product they are charging you $200 for is a pessimistic soul and their life must “really suck”. Fair enough.
But Jeff was going to respond to the questions little ol’ me had asked…awesome!
A week and a bit later I chased, my now good friend, Jeff up as I hadn’t seen a response yet.
He, immediately, responded “Peter…My number is in my profile…lets talk on this live..Just returned home from Vacation and would welcome a call from ya....”
Don’t you just love my timing? Just as Jeff returned home I happened to chase him up! Amazing!
Obviously I didn’t phone Jeff. (His nr is in his profile though so feel free to call him if you want).
I told him I preferred to keep these things online as that way everybody can see the links to the studies and evidence that he has, thousands will flock to buy his product…I will immediately invest my entire life-savings, approx £2 worth, into Beachbody products and shares. This is going to be the big boom! I was all ready to smash up my piggy bank!
That’s right! Bring me the big hammer! I is gonna be rich!
My quote; “Hi Jeff, I am not a big fan of talking live when links to studies are so much easier to post online. Just post your reply online..that makes it easier for everybody to read it as well.I am sure there are a lot of people out there who would love to see the evidence posted online as I’m sure they’d be queuing up to use, and distribute, the products when they see it for themselves (Obv not just anecdotal stuff but the actual evidence). I am sure you must have been asked about this sort of thing before so must have the info stored somewhere”
Unfortunately Jeff “didn’t understand what I was looking for“.
Shame he didn’t get it because I thought I was being quite clear. I, again, told him that I just wanted to proof..just a little link to a study that answers my questions.
His response then was the classic “Just try it! live on the edge! But if you like studies so much here’s one“.(Slightly paraphrased it TBH)
It’s a classic response. Going from “I can answer all your questions” to “try it and you’ll see..just buy the product first”. Essentially saying “I have no proof that I can show you”
BTW; the study he linked to was the Beachbody study that I actually asked the questions about so it shows Jeff doesn’t really know how to read a study report, or has in fact not really read/comprehended my original post..but that’s OK because we’re not done yet.
He then goes to claim that “YES IT DETOXIFIES THE BODY!” and when I finally point out that “actually, it really, really doesn’t according to the guys at Harvard” he responds with the classic;
“Your Missing the Point Peter of Beachbody..your so caught up in bean counting and stats you really can’t see that Were about getting people off the couch and into making Health and fitness a daily part of their life..Thats our Mission as Coaches…To help people live happier healthier more fullfilling lives..I suggest you try the same Brother! Like I said earlier its got to suck to live the way you do! God Bless……and Release!“
So, in short, the guy who’s “going to give me all the answers” doesn’t give me any and I’m “missing the point” about what his company does. Beachbody is not about selling products that work, it’s about getting people off the couch! And here I cynically thought it was all about making loads of money.
I’ll grant you that getting people off the couch and have them live more fulfilling lives is a noble pursuit. Though I’m not quite evangelical enough to go so far as to call it my “mission” I believe that that’s roughly similar to what most qualified and certified Personal Trainers do. Jeff obviously disagrees and suggests that I “try the same”.
Now, my life might suck (it really doesn’t ) and I might be a pessimist (I really am not) but at least I haven’t wasted $200+ on a Bullshit product and neither has anyone of my clients.
In short it’s very simple;
Beachbody supplements are NOT more effective than normal healthy eating. They DO NOT “detoxify” your body…and most Beachbody salesreps are at best misguided fools and at worst ordinary crooks.
As soon as someone tells you they are a Beachbody coach ask yourself the following “What would Jesus do?” and I think you would come up with this;
Take care of yourself, the old fashioned way; Move well, eat well and be well.
Your friend,
Peter
BTW; I did paraphrase some of the discussion as it was even worse than I posted above. If you’d like to read the whole discussion, and can be bothered, on Facebook..it’s here (and yes, that is his spelling)
Castle Personal Training 
My best friend’s wife weighs so much (just under 370 pounds) that she can’t be weighed on a normal doctor’s office scale. But guess what company she is now a fitness and wellness “coach” for? That’s right…Beachbody. She actually thinks she will succeed in selling products to people whose main goal in life is NOT looking like her! I consider it incredibly unethical to recruit totally unsuitable people like this to make sales and team quotas. Furthermore I know for a fact that she doesn’t follow the WOWY SuperGym workout schedule posted on every coach’s profile. If she had tried to make it even halfway through one Les Mills Pump DVD, she would have ended up in the hospital by now. She and her husband have been guilt tripping family, coworkers, and friends to buy her products. I’m not spending $135 on disgusting protein shakes!! It would be like buying Mary Kay makeup from The Joker!
Yeah I’m not surprised. Beachbody don’t care who sells their stuff, as long as someone’s selling it.
Wow, that’s what I was exploring for, what a data!
present here at this web site, thanks admin of this web
site.
Just want to chime in here. I’m a BB “coach” – and i WHOLE-HEARTEDLY agree we should not be called coaches or anything that confuses others into thinking we know something about health and fitness. 98% (i’m making this figure up) don’t.
The entire MLM thing disgusts me – especially the whole “cult” mentality. Some of these “coaches” are flat out nut-jobs that’ll slit the throat of another “coach” the second the opportunity arises.
Majority of these people have been hood-winked into joining, are forced to pay a monthly premiums in order for them to receive the full benefits of their hard work, which pretty much eliminates any profit they mustered up for the month.
They’ll teach you to talk to your friends and family about the “opportunity.” They won’t tell you you’ll drive your friends away and your family will disown you. BB is your new family and friends.
It’s irresponsible for this guy to recommend supplements in place of real natural foods and doctor prescribed medications and I’m positive the claims he’s making will get him in hot water with the FTC and BB will ban him indefinitely.
And about Shakeology, it’s a convenience and that’s it. It’s not a replacement for eating fruits & veggies and it’s a perversion that it’s been marketed as such.
Great article, I too share the same skepticism about beach body coaches. My wife and her friends wanted to ‘get in shape’ while we were on deployment and one of my wife’s friends was a beach body coach. She was nice enough to lead the girls in workouts 3 times a week, for a price. She also tried to get them all to do ‘snakeology’ (haha). I was incredibly pissed when I found out that she was trying this pyramid scheme on her friends. Would it have been so bad for her to simply want to help out her friends without making sales pitches? Its the same crap I have heard from a multitude of sales reps from every corner of the commercial world.
Furthermore, beach body workouts are simply mediocre aerobics. I laugh at the people who swear by them and would gladly invite any beach body advocate to a contest of athletic skill. When someone asks me about beach body (to get in shape) I ask them if they think any professional athletes do a beach body routine as part of their workout routine, then i ask them if they think professional athletes do barbell lifts. The answer is naturally no and yes, respectively. (I’m more than a little biased as I do a power-lifting routine as my workout). I always tell them that ‘any reasonable’ workout routine done with discipline over time will yield results. Why pay 100s of dollars for a workout and nutrition program you put together for next to nothing with a couple good google searches (discipline don’t cost a thing)?
Beachbody has so many things in common with other MLMs. They target the uneducated, the unemployed (particularly single Mum’s) and others who are vulnerable. Any dissension in the ranks is immediately stamped out, either by being removed from a coaching FB group or just plain insulted. MLMs work because they instill fake hope and remove the desire to question. Unfortunately I’ve had experience with Beachbody (I fell into the unemployed and vulnerable groups after a redundancy) and I truly believe they could have cult-status. Also, I have no idea why anyone would spend $120 a month for a bag of powder. Jeez.
I have a friend who is heavy into BeachBody with her husband. She told me about a guy who was su successful with BeachBody that he was able to quit his union job with GM because he was making so much money. When anyone dares questions the program or heaven forbid, Shakeology, we are negative and don’t want to be “healthy”. Anyone who isn’t a vegan, using BeachBody, and drinking Shakeology isn’t doing right by their health. Thank you so much for this article. At least I know I’m not going crazy.
Whoever is telling you that crap is a brainwashed moron. And I’m speaking as a BB distributor.
The truth is, 80-90% of BB coaches, or anyone in MLM, don’t make anything, or barely break even. Very few people have the knack or resources to be a success. These success stories are of people that have great influence over others; already natural leaders with groups of followers. If you don’t have this, it’s going to be very difficult to make anything of any worth. No MLM company wants you to know this.
I’ve been doing Beachbody for a year now and yes I’ve lost almost 50 lbs now. I was doing Shakeology and then decided to stop too expensive and I wanted to test out if it really was responsible for stoping my cravings. My coach was shocked that I would stop drinking this cause she had been on her dense super food for 3 years now and would NEVER stop drinking it.
Anyhow I stopped and I still didn’t crave anything more than I did when I drank this “super food” . I love my workout and the way it has helped me learn portion control but Shakeology is a waste of money as far as I’m concerned . If you eat clean and excercise you’ll loose as much weight as if you drink this crap. You’re wallet will also thank you! Thanks for this article…true and to the point!
Indeed Molly, their exercise programs are fine (some are really good) but the shakes are a waste of money.
Well done on losing 50lbs! That’s some achievement.
I’m so happy I came across this article. One of my oldest friends has been sucked into the BeachBody abyss. Why are these salespeople allowed to be called “coaches”? If any of these so-called coaches applied for jobs with gyms or as dietitians, they would be laughed out of there. She claims she is qualified to coach for BB because she reads a lot and “knows what she is talking about”.
I agree with another poster here, I believe BeachBody preys on the most uneducated and vulnerable people, making pie-in-the-sky promises of wealth and working from home.
Bang on Molly, that’s exactly what they do.
Pingback: Here’s your Christmas’ and New Year’s reading list | Castle Personal Training
This is a good read, I find it ironic that someone with clearly no emotional intelligence, nor compromise, can assert such arrogance that they need to assume and judge u for living a miserable unfulfilling life for not buying into a product; yet they care so much for you to get off the couch and be active. Complete BS.
The first guy is just as dispicable that he can overlook people’s health and livelihood of others that he can equate someone with a medical condition to another person with a medical condition and try to convince u that it will help u too. To generalize such things is borderline evil, that he thinks it okay to diagnose and prescribe shakes to cure people’s medical conditions.
But this is not uncommon, a friend of mine reached out to 14 beachbody coaches, with an entire list of medical conditions…. and all 14 of them overlooked her conditions all in the pursuit of earning a sale.
Indeed, all to make an extra $50 or so. It’s amazing what some people will do for a bit of cash.