Why I Quit Being A Beachbody Coach

I’ve got some surprising news – I’ve quit being a Beachbody Coach! Here are my reasons why.

You may be reading this post and thinking “why is she quitting coaching?”

Maybe it comes as a surprise, or maybe it doesn’t.

You may have noticed my blog taking a different direction lately. A direction towards self care, body love, and intuitive eating.

In order for you to understand why, let me start from the beginning.

The Beginnings of My Coaching Career

After having my third child, I was extremely overweight. I was tired, depressed, stayed out of family photos, and just felt very unhealthy. I used pregnancy as an excuse to stop exercising and eat everything under the sun!

I grew up in a health-conscious home, so I knew what being healthy meant. However, being a mom to 3 boys under the age of 2-1/2 meant I couldn’t go to a gym to exercise. Instead, I bought my first at-home workout through Beachbody and started exercising in the comfort of my home.

Things went really well. I had tremendous success. I lost all the weight using ChaLEAN Extreme and fell in love with weight training and what it could do for my body. The program didn’t come with a meal plan. Instead, it came with a few recipes to try. I already loved to cook healthy foods, so I just continued to do that and make better choices in terms of what I ate. I cut out most of the processed foods, exercised five days a week, and after a year, I had lost the weight!

I had Beachbody coaches contacting me all the time about signing up as a coach since I had such great success with the products. However, coaching wasn’t available to Canadians at that time.

Fast forward three years and finally, Beachbody coaching became available to Canadians in 2012.

I was so excited, I signed up the very first day.

I had no idea who to sign up with, so I just picked one of the top coaches in the organization (I didn’t do any research about the person first. I figured if they were a top coach, they must be the best.)

I jumped in with both feet. I was a very dedicated coach. I enjoyed the self-directed learning style my coach had since I love to learn things on my own and go at my own oace. I could go as fast or as slow as I wanted.

At first, I was very successful. I mean, I lost 90 pounds using the products, so it was easy at first getting people to try the products.

I started running monthly challenge groups where my customers would purchase a program with Shakeology and we would work together for a month. I gave them my tips on how I lost my weight. We motivated each other, shared recipes, and at the end, I gave out a prize to whomever lost the most weight in the 30 days.

This went on for five years! Challenge after challenge, month after month. I never stopped. I never took a month off. I kept learning, growing my business, and selling products. I eventually hit the Diamond rank, which is a very good rank in Beachbody. It proves that you are a leader.

However, something just wasn’t clicking with me anymore.

My Fall From Diamond

After I reached Diamond, I was pretty happy. I earned more money, I secured my place in some exclusive coach training groups, and I felt like I had earned my coach’s respect.

I kept using the workouts, following the meal plans, selling more product, and signing up more and more coaches. But as time went on, I realized that I had to work my A** off in order to maintain this diamond rank.

Coaches in my organization were quitting left, right, and center. Most of them thought Beachbody coaching would be easier. They were lead to believe you could make big money quickly and when people kept saying “no” to their invites, they gave up.

I also had a lot of “discount” coaches (coaches who sign up exclusively for the 25% discount on all products.) But eventually, a lot of them started dropping out too. I can totally understand this. If you’re not drinking Shakeology all the time, being a discount coach is quite pricy. There is the initial enrolment fee (ranges from $40 to $250) plus a monthly fee of $15.95. This is probably one of the most expensive network marketing fees I’ve seen. So if you’re not using the nutritionals on a daily basis, it’s a waste of money.

Eventually, I fell from Diamond rank and went back to Emerald rank. This transition got me kicked out of those exclusive coaching groups and basically, my coach doesn’t help people who are below Diamond. That was the first thing that just didn’t sit well with me.

Why I Hate The 21 Day Fix

About two years in my coaching, the 21 Day Fix program was released! This program sold like hot cakes! I literally couldn’t keep up with the demand. All of my customers wanted this program. It became so popular.

I was constantly recommending this program to everyone. I thought it was the answer to everyone’s weight loss struggles. We were finally told WHAT to eat, WHEN to eat, HOW MUCH to eat, etc. It was simple, right?

At first, the program worked great. My customers loved it too! I even started making my recipes on this blog “21 Day Fix approved!” (this makes me cringe now.)

Then the 21 Day Fix Extreme came out, with an even more extreme meal plan.

And later, Beachbody changed ALL of their meal plans to follow this portion “fix” system. Every program came with those little containers (you should see how many I used to have!) Every program told you WHAT to eat, WHEN to eat, and HOW MUCH to eat.

About two years after the program came out, I had had enough.

I was trying so hard to fit in my daily allowed containers. This meant I had to eat 6 servings of protein. Do you know how hard it is to choke back 6 servings of protein in a day?! I was literally gagging. Plus, I had to have 6 servings of veggies and 4 servings of fruit…notice I didn’t mention healthy fats? More about that HERE. I was becoming miserable eating this way.

Eventually, I quit following that system and turned to lower carb, higher fat. I absolutely LOVED eating this way. I loved adding more healthy fats to my diet. I had never felt better. I had less cravings, I didn’t have to eat every 2 – 3 hours, my hormones got back in balance, and I felt so much happier.

I even created an ebook all about it…

Women kept messaging me about how they could turn the 21 day fix system to follow my low carb way of eating. They loved eating more fat, less carbs, and less protein, but they still wanted a way to fit it into the container system.

That’s when something clicked in my head…

The Beginning of the End

At first, I told these women to stop using the 21 day fix containers and just count macros and calories. That’s what I was doing! I was aiming to eat 50% fat, 25% carbs, and 25% protein. Each day, I entered everything I ate into my calorie tracking app.

I tried so hard to stick to the number of calories it told me to eat. I tried so hard to stick to my macros.

I even tried going Keto for a while because that seemed to be what every low-carber did! However, I ended up going too far down the Keto rabbit hole and started to fear carbs. I stopped eating fruit completely. I stopped eating sweet potato (my favourite.) I focused on eating low carb veggies, protein, and TONS of fat!

I started to notice a few things.

1. My hair at the front of my head started falling out.
2. My mood swings were much more prominent.
3. I was bloated most of the time.
4. I felt tired during my workouts.
5. I was having to exercises more and more just to maintain my weight.

Then I came across a podcast about intuitive eating (I can’t remember which podcast it was.) Something about it sounded right, however, I thought I could NEVER eat that way. I could NEVER allow myself to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

I feared going back to that old person I was 10 years ago: fat, tired, lazy, depressed, can’t control herself, binges on junk food, craves sugar….

But the more I tried resisting intuitive eating, the more I knew I needed to try it.

My body was failing me. I was in a constant battle with it. I was trying to control every little thing – what I ate, when I ate, how I exercised. It started to ruin my life. Even my mom was afraid to ask me out to lunch anymore because I always said no! I was afraid to eat out. I was afraid to eat at a time I wasn’t “supposed” to eat. I was afraid I would lose control.

That was my wake up call.

There was something more for me. Something beyond dieting. Something more freeing.

My New Journey

For so long I had been focused on controlling what I eat and how I exercised. And for so long I had been teaching other women the same principles. But you know what? It never worked.

My customers kept coming back to me wanting more help. They had lost the weight initially, but kept gaining it back. And each time a new Beachbody workout was released, they were hoping this would be their magic ticket.

Finally, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the release of 80 Day Obsession.

Don’t get me wrong, I was really looking forward to this program. But…I was not going to follow the nutrition plan it came with. If the 21 day fix container system wasn’t enough, now they added in “timed nutrition.” So not only do we have to worry about how much we eat, we have to worry about WHEN we eat WHAT foods.

This is not something I can’t support anymore.

I’ve been implementing the principles of intuitive eating for the last two months, and I have to tell you, I’ve never felt better.

You see, because I had been dieting for so long, I had lost touch with my body’s natural cues. I ate when I wasn’t hungry, I didn’t eat when I was hungry. Everything I did had to follow the “plan,” because if it didn’t, that meant I was a failure.

But now, I have NO plan! My focus in on health, and making decisions that make ME feel good.

If that’s having three pieces of pizza one night with the family, then I do it.
If that’s celebrating my kid’s birthday with sugar-laden cake, then I do it.
If that’s eating a day without any meat, then I do it.
If that’s going out to lunch with my mom or husband and eating whatever the F*** I want, then I do it.
If that’s taking a day off exercise because I don’t feel like it, then I do it.

Eating lower carb and higher fat still makes me feel good, but I no longer FEAR the carbs. They are part of my eating. But the difference is, I eat them WHEN I want them! When my body craves them! Sometimes that’s everyday, sometimes it’s not.

I am now living my life how it was meant to be lived.

I am not living my life by what some “plan” tells me I should.

I never weigh myself, I deleted my calorie tracking app, I never look at calories or fat grams or carbs.

I do exercise that I enjoy.

My hormones are all in balance.

I feel like ME again.

So with all that being said, I can no longer promote diet programs. And that means giving up being an active Beachbody coach. I just can’t try to sell something I no longer believe in.

Yes, I still use their workout programs and I will remain a “discount” coach for now. I love the workouts and think they are some of the best out there. I even still use some of the nutritionals because I LIKE them.

But, I will never try to sell someone a program. I will never coach people on how to use the nutrition plans. I will never coach someone on how to “fix” themselves through weight loss.

As far as the business part, I am no longer accepting new coaches onto my team. I’m still willing to work with my current coaches should they choose to want to grow their business, but I am no longer actively trying to grow mine.

Instead, I am now doing my own thing. My passion has turned to helping other women find the same freedom with food and their body that I have. Because I don’t think life should be lived trying to follow a plan only to fail again, and again, and again.

So if you want to join me on my journey, that’s great! And I want you to know I won’t be trying to sell you a challenge pack or Shakeology to join me. I don’t believe those things can help you love and honour the body you have.

And this is why I’m hanging up my Beachbody coaching hat and moving onto things that align with my own principles, values and heart.

If you’re a Beachbody coach and struggling to grow your business or don’t like the meal plans, comment below, I would love to hear your experience too

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