Jenny's Juice Plus Journey Comes to an End

It's been a long, long time since my last post and for good reason: I had simply lost interest in Jenny's inane advertising with JP. The same false promises, uneducated claims, attempts to con more people into joining this blatant pyramid scheme, etc, etc.

In fact, I got so fed up with Jenny's crap that one day I just lost it and posted this in response to one of her ads where she claimed JP is not a pyramid scheme:

Within minutes Jenny blocked me.

Fast forward to today. While procrastinating at work, I thought I'd see if her JP group page was still active - no results. Tried Googling, in depth Facebook searches - no results - it has simply vanished.

Jenny has officially packed in with Juice Plus.

14 months of spamming adverts, 14 months of motivation to make it big in "network marketing" and to make a six figure income to buy a big house, flashy cars and luxury holidays, 14 months to go on her own weight loss journey and get that killer beach body.

14 months of life, gone to waste.

In those 14 months I have gone from strength to strength. I have now got a cut diet in full swing, taking into account my daily macros, and I am happy with the progress to date. I've learned valuable lessons such as not overhyping calories, although important, and not overhyping protein (and I am pleased to note that the "protein farts" have disappeared!). Gym work is continuing fine and I am committing to adding in one, two or three new exercises each week to make sure I'm not sticking to the same rigid work-outs.

All of that without wasting money on JP capsules and shakes.

I'd like to think that it finally dawned on Jenny that Juice Plus does not change lives, because it doesn't. Unless you're high up the pyramid in the early days of the company, it's not something that's going to make you rich. But most importantly, I hope it at least makes Jenny consider that maybe the products are nowhere near as magical as other distributors claim they are. Taking capsules and shakes don't make you lose weight. All you need to do is eat less. I sadly don't think Jenny will ever lose weight, I believe she is simply used to looking for quick-fix solutions without ever committing to long-term health goals.

14 months later, she's still obese, I doubt she made any proper money off the scheme.

Here's hoping her next 14 months will be more fruitful through proper hard work, dedication and motivation.

Jenny's £50 Bargain

Do you want my honest opinion, Jenny? Well obviously you don't but I'm going to give it here anyway:

I would say that you are full of absolute crap. For context, the £50 Jenny is alluding to is the £50 joining fee it costs to become a distributor of Juice Plus. Distributors market this as buying your own "business" that can grow into making, as Jenny has claimed in a previous advert, as much as a six figure sum within two years of joining. She then posts to success stories of a number of distributors for proof of the scheme's success.

Here's the problem: Juice Plus is already wholly saturated by distributors.

I don't have figures to hand but already the market is saturated with numerous distributors. In my city alone I have no doubt that Jenny is competing with her own friends in trying to sell products to the same catchment area of people. So before you even think about making big money you have to consider who on earth you have left to sell to.

To compensate, JP incentivises distributors by giving them bonuses for each new distributor they sign up. So, Jenny stands to make a bit of money for every new person she signs up to the company; I assume she would also get a slice of each profit each of her down lines make. So rather than try to limit the number of distributors in her area, Jenny is encouraged to sign up even more. So, instead of competing against ten distributors, for instance, she'll be competing with 11, 12, 13 and so on - and that's without taking into account all the other new distributors being signed up by competitors!

This means that for each distributor signed up to the company, that's one less customer to sell to and one more competitor to compete with.

Jenny wants you to think that signing up for JP for a meager sum of £50 will lead to riches, but doesn't actually explain this business model - and now you can see why. It is an awful model to work with. It will get to the stage where new distributors will have nobody left to sell to. And what does that remind you of? Of course - a pyramid scheme.

Tell us, Jenny: other than your complete failure to lose weight thanks to these miracle products, can you tell us how much money you have actually made since joining back in May? Spare people the smoke and mirrors of fast cars and big houses and show us the balance sheet - YOUR balance sheet.

Funnily enough, I don't think she ever will.

Separating Fact from Reality...

Another cut 'n' paste job from Jenny. Let's start with "myths" which seem to have been made out of thin air:

"We don't eat... WRONG"; "We just drink juice all day"

Who has ever claimed that people who take JP don't eat and just drink juice?

"JP is just another shakes diet"

I agree, that's a myth. It's also a capsules and gummies scheme.

"You pile all the weight back on as soon as you stop"

First of all that's pretty disingenuous; it makes people assume off the bat that taking JP products make you lose weight. That is not the case. You will only lose weight if you eat less food that you currently take in, whether or not you use JP.

"The capsules are slimming tablets"

See my previous post. Jenny outright implied in the advert that JP capsules are slimming tablets.

"It's really bad for you"

Not the issue. The point of contention is that JP products are not the wonderful miracle products you claim they are.

"It hasn't got as much protein as whey protein"

How can you even make this claim when you don't tell us the specific whey protein product you are comparing JP to? Is it the brand of protein powder I use? You have no idea.

"They are vitamins"

The JP capsules are indeed multi-vitamins. Very piss poor multi-vitamins.

And now, the "facts". Oh goodie:

"✅ We eat lots of gorgeous food, it is not a starvation plan and recipes are provided for shakes, meals and snacks"

You can find any good recipe on the internet. JP is not needed to find recipes.

"✅ The shakes are not fruit juice, they contain the essence of 17 portions of fruit and veg in high nutritional powder form but are chocolate or vanilla flavour"

Here are the ingredients for the chocolate shake. I see barely any fruit in the ingredients nor can I even find a fruit-flavoured shake - only chocolate and vanilla.

"✅ JP is not just a diet, we have lots of products for the whole family which have very versatile uses, but they all boost your daily nutritional intake with massive benefits to your body"

They are mediocre multi-vitamins. I get 20 more vitamins in my cheap ass tablets than people get in JP products.

"✅ JP teaches you how to eat and live healthily with a clean eating plan, it is a change of lifestyle and very sustainable"

JP doesn't, the distributors do. Obese distributors like Jenny who know nothing about health and fitness.

"✅ The capsules contain the essence of 30 portions of fruit, veg and berries and they again massively boost your system through good nutrition, resulting in many benefits to the body"

We have already established that this is bunk. JP capsules have four - 4 - vitamins, that's it.

"✅ Erm... How can consuming more fruit and vegetables be bad for you???"

It isn't. That's why people, you know, should eat more fruit and vegetables. Not your overpriced substitute, but real, proper food.

"✅ JP is a whole food plant based supplement which is bioavailable it goes straight into your blood stream and is used efficiently by the body, unlike whey proteins."

I am not even going to pretend I can address this. I would gladly love to see a source for this from any distributor.

"If you want to feel amazing, get healthy and lose weight in the process...

Yal no what to doooooo "

Precisely: eat better, eat less and hit the gym - NOT consult copy-n-paste crap from distributors who know nothing about health and fitness.

Jenny's latest Facebook page number is at 507. Eight more people need to leave the group to each the sub-500 number. I reckon it'll be past that stage by Easter.

Yeah. Really.

Jenny seriously wants you to believe that this lady lost weight by doing nothing but taking premium capsules every morning. In other words, to lose weight, all you need to do is take those capsules and BOOM, you become thin.

Of course, the red flags are:

1) JP themselves do not market their products as weight loss aids. These claims are made up out of thin air by the distributors.

2) Jenny does not explain the content of the capsules and how this works. As already discovered, these capsules contain four vitamins. That's it. I take multi-vitamins with 24 vitamins so by Jenny's logic alone I stand to lose weight by just taking them.

3) No statistics are given for this woman. No weight, no information about her diet, no information about her lifestyle.

4) Without the above information the likelihood of this claim being true is simply non-existent. It is impossible to lose weight if you do not change your diet; if this lady continued to eat the same diet as she had in the first photo then she would stay the exact same weight. This is called calories-in-calories-out (CICO). A magic pill that allows you to lose weight and continue to eat the same diet defies the laws of physics.

5) That lady isn't Jenny.

Jenny is quick to use before and after photos of random strangers but is yet to show us anything from her own weight loss journey. She has been selling these products since May 2015, 9 months ago. That is more than enough time to see a substantial change in your weight, yet funnily enough, in Jenny's recent pictures she is still as obese as ever. So, why is that? How can JP products work so amazingly for some people, but not for others?

Hint: maybe it's because there's more to this lady's weight loss story than taking a second rate multi-vitamin every morning.

Latest Facebook tally: 509. It's still dropping.

So today I went shopping...

And I got myself this container of multi-vitamin capsules from Costco. Not a special brand, not a marketed wonder product, just a bog-standard "does what it says on the tin" multi-vitamin.

You may recall a post I made last month assessing the value of JP's fruit and vegetable capsules. You know, the products Jenny and other distributors market as being wonder products capable of helping people lose weight, fight diseases and have bags of energy.

In this post I am going to compare three different criteria between my multi-vitamins and JP's fruit and veg capsules. They will be price, quantity and quality.

1) Price

Jenny charges a combination of fruit and veg capsules for £37.75 per month for a total of four months. This amounts to £151. The product I bought cost £14.14.

That is a colossal difference of £136.86. Multi-vitamin wins this round in a similar way to Floyd Mayweather winning a boxing match by just breathing on his opponent - it's that embarrassing.

2) Quantity.

So, the pressure's on JP. They have to justify a huge financial gulf with quality and quantity. Quantity is up next.

Jenny's fruit and veg combo deal: 240 capsules. The recommended dosage can be one of the following: two of each a day, as the product labels recommend, or one of each a day. Depending on which method you pick these capsules either run out in 60 days or 120 days. I am going to be nice and assume that this deal is meant to  last customers the whole four months with one of each capsule a day.

Now the multi-vitamin. How many tablets do I get? 500. Recommended dose? One a day. This means, obviously, that I will not need to buy another container for well over a year. If I were to stick with a strict one-a-day routine then I won't need to purchase another container until May 2017.

That is a substantial gap of 260 capsules. By the time a JP customer finishes taking their 240 capsules in 120 days, I'll still have 380 of mine remaining.

So far, my multi-vitamins are 2-0 up. Can JP dramatically come back with product quality?

JP capsules, as I discussed in my post, contain only four vitamins: A, E, C and folic acid. It doesn't matter whether you take the fruit or veg capsules - that's all they contain. The only difference is the level of each vitamin you receive from them.

Compare this to the contents of my bog-standard multi-vitamin:

First, apologies for the quality - my phone camera is cracked, so I have to take funky pictures using the selfie lense.

To make the contents clearer these tablets contain:

Vitamins A, D, E, C, B1, B2, Niacin, B6, folic acid, B12, biotin, pantothenic acid, K, calcium, phosphorus, iron, magnesium, zinc, iodine, chromium, copper, manganese, molybdenum and selenium. Yes, I haven't heard of half of those either.

JP capsules contain four vitamins. That's it. My bog-standard cheap ass tablets contain 24. 

And I don't want to stop there. I want to compare the volumes of the vitamins in the respective products too.

In a daily one-veg-one-fruit capsule dose, a customer of Jenny's receives 30.5% of the daily recommended intake (DRI) for vitamin A.

For vitamin E, they receive 50% DRI.

Vitamin C, 79% DRI.

Folic acid, 94%.

Only folic acid gives the customer anywhere near the max needed in a daily dose. Vitamins A and E don't even give more than half.

Compared to a one-a-day tablet of mine I get 84% of my RDI for vitamin A, 83% for vitamin E, 75% for vitamin C and bang on 100% RDI for folic acid.

Again, my cheap, bog-standard, average supermarket multi-vitamin mops the floor with JP capsules.

In every assessment I just made, my multi-vitamin outshone JP at embarrassing levels. It demonstrates that JP's capsules are vastly overpriced and vastly overrated. Why spend £151 for a four months supply of four vitamins when you can get way more for just over 9% of the cost by just buying multi-vitamins? The mind wonders.

On a final note, it is worth a serious reminder that some distributors, like Jenny, massively overstate the benefits of JP products. They claim the products help lose weight. They claim the products help with pregnancy/conception. They claim the products can help with diseases like Crohns and diabetes. I have even read reviews of people who attended distributor events who implied - key word, implied - that JP products help fight cancer. This is simply bunk and dangerous marketing.

The fact of the matter is if JP products really do have the power to fight these diseases and lose weight, then I should basically be Superman by just taking these tablets. But I will still get sick, I will still have ill days, I will still put on weight if I live on junk.

I cannot emphasise it enough. Before purchasing from someone like Jenny, ask them for their own, direct knowledge of the product. Check the contents of the products. Compare them to others. Quite simply, do your homework and don't be misled by salespeople who only care about making a quick buck.

Try before you Buy...

... or, buy before you try.

I don't think Jenny quite gets how trials are meant to work, or at least entice people into doing trials at all.

Jenny has this weird idea of trials being a reduced quantity of the product with a price that is still, in comparison, over-priced. I have already shown that based on Jenny's quantity and pricing structure for JP products, customers won't even receive enough capsules to last for the four months they pay for. That's already a rip-off.

Who, honestly, want to pay £20 for a trial of shakes? How much do you get? How much does it last? How long are you supposed to take these shakes before you supposedly see a difference in your weight/general health? Jenny doesn't say.

But remember: this is a "senior direct distributor" at work here. This is her business and Jenny will be motivated to reach that six figure income within two years as previously claimed. Somehow. Someday. Maybe that includes inflation? Who knows.

Paint me shocked but don't expect to see Jenny on Dragons Den any time soon.

Some Clarity on My Blog

I recently noticed someone left a comment on my post regarding Jenny's JP promotions involving other distributors. The person was concerned with my fact finding regarding Clara and warned me that this could be interpreted as slander, and therefore, unlawful.

I believe I need to clarify a few things about my blog:

1) This is my place to express my views on an issue that matters to me. I passionately believe that more needs to be done to educate people on health and diet, and believe that people like Jenny, who may have good intentions, simply do not help through promotions like JP.

My official opinion on JP is not that their products cannot help with healthy lifestyle changes, I appreciate that they potentially can. I also accept that, in the eyes of the law, their business model is legitimate.

My opinions is that their products, compared to others on the market, are overpriced and overated. This opinion is backed up by critiques of people more knowledgeable in the world of supplements than I am.   My argument is that you can get more value for money by simply buying a basic supermarket multi-vitamin or just eating fruit and vegetables.

I also dispute JP's business model and the effect it has on people like Jenny. Again, I accept that what they do is entirely legal, but that does not mean I have to agree with it. I believe their business model is highly unethical.

2)  Other than when I believe I need to provide sources for factual claims (i.e. the nutritional information in JP products or fruit and veg, or linking poor mental health to obesity), I am very mindful about making statements about Jenny or other people which may indeed be slanderous. I welcome all criticism and will willingly retract any statement that, unintentionally, is slanderous in the eyes of a qualified legal practitioner. 

Most, if not all posts, stem from Jenny's own content on her distributor page.

3) As previously mentioned, I strive to ensure that Jenny's real identity is kept confidential. I would never condone people to contact her to harass her or directly try to affect her business. That also goes for other people I have mentioned on this blog.

It is annoying that in this era people are quick to mention lawsuits if they read something they don't like the sound of. If I have made outright factual inaccuracies, I will apologise and gladly remove them from my blog. But I will not buckle down if it means silencing my right to express my own views. 

This blog is not unique; there are other blogs, far more detailed than mine, far more critical than mine, on JP, its products, its distributors and its business model. If my blog has any hint of slander, then it looks like court rooms across the West are going to be chock-a-bloc with cases.

If anybody has an issue with specific content on my blog then message me, highlighting the specific post and content, and I will happily discuss it with you.