I've only attended my introductory meeting, so time will tell if I give this place an additional star. With all of the five star reviews, I felt this place needed a bit of a reality check.
The good:
- Really Friendly Staff
- Focus on realistic, healthy goals.
- a Program based in High Protein / Low Carb focused on real foods that is the ideal way to lose weight and sustain it
- Focus on your body fat % vs weight
- Weekly individual check in appointments
- If you follow the program, you will lose weight. There is no way you cannot lose weight on this program. Because you're eating about 800 calories per day and going into ketosis. It's like Atkins but a healthier version since you're supposed to eat lean meat and can have a reasonable amount of veggies/fruits (carbs) for the antioxidants. Still, on 800 calories per day, if you can maintain this for months, you will lose weight. Unlike other diets, you're given appetite suppressants, so this should be achievable, at least for a while.
- The focus on diet changes first, then slow introduction of exercise is good for someone who isn't healthy
- They are a medical institution so they can give you FDA approved drugs, which might help.
- They don't push their own food/products on you, even though they are displayed prominently around the office.
- Flexible hours (you can have a meeting on 7am on Saturday if you'd like.)
- No fees for missed weekly meetings, but you don't get your money back if you miss them.
The bad:
- The program is extremely expensive. for my budget, it's not sustainable after a few months. so I'm hoping just a few months gets me on the right track.
- The diet portion seems to not be customized for your gender, weight or height. This concerns me as I know a lot about low carb diets, and it's still important to eat the right amount of calories per day, and that is different for men and women, or people of different heights. Even if women are ok on 800 calories per day, I'd guess that men would need a few hundred more for the same effect.
- Even though this program is created by Stanford-trained doctors, there's various trains of thought on whether 500-800 calorie diets are good for you, even if they help with rapid weightloss. Ketosis has some nasty side effects, so says the internet. I guess I'll find out soon enough.
- There are no recipes provided, just a list of foods you can and cannot eat, along with shopping guides. Recipes would be greatly helpful. Ie, you are allowed jam/jelly but not bread - what do I use this jam/jelly with? My greek yogurt allowance? They need to write a Jumpstart MD recipe book, and then they can sell it and make additional profits globally all while also selling it to their customers so we know what to make for dinner.
- After the initial appointment, you pay nearly $400 a month for 15 minute check in appointments once a week. For $400 a month, I want a counselor I can email daily when I'm being tempted to eat.
- They talk the talk of having all these different medical trained professionals on staff available for meeting, but I didn't get a full picture of this at the initial visit. They should have a psychologist on staff to help regarding food issues.
- For $400 a month, I expect an iPhone app where I can track my food (or usage of an existing one) - instead, I have a paper flip book that is tiny and easy to forget or lose. They should take some of their profits and make a mobile tracker app.
As I said, time will tell whether this program gets the extra star. I'm confident IF I can stick to the program I will lose weight, the question is whether or not I can. Overall, this is important to me in my life right now that I'm making an investment in myself to get healthy. I hope I can update this review and give this program five stars in 3 months. read more