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Slim4Life Diet
The Slim4Life program is a holistic approach to weight loss and weight management, available at a chain of weight loss clinics in Denver and Minneapolis/St. Paul.
Slim4Life has been enabling people to lose weight and learn new eating habits for over 25 years.
Note: The Slim4Life diet program is not the same as the UK-based The Juice Master’s Slim 4 Life books, health & fitness program – see comment below. Also, Slim4life May be out of business since their website has been down for sometime now.
Background
Slim4Life offer comprehensive weight reduction programs for men, women and children from age 10. The programs are professionally supervised and nutritionally designed to develop proper eating habits for long term success. The Slim4Life Weight Loss Center with which you enroll provides a program which is individualized, monitored and supervised with one-on-one counseling. Existing medical conditions are taken into account when developing your personal weight loss program. The diet employs a
well-balanced food program (based on regular food from the supermarket), supplemented with proprietary weight loss aids.
Slim4Life Diet Program
Weight loss plan
The Slim4Life program provides up to 1,500 calories daily (depending on the degree with which you are overweight or obese, your health profile, and age) in a
carefully balanced nutritional diet rich in vitamins and minerals and low in refined carbohydrates, fats, and sodium. The diet consists of fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs, starches, dairy and fats, plus a range of supplements, and there is a vegetarian program for those who do not eat meat. Some foods and beverages are restricted during the weight loss period,
and gradually added back once the goal for
weight loss is achieved. The nutritional plan is individualized for you, and is completely flexible with room for individual choices of food selection.
Exercise
Slim4Life program participants are strongly encouraged to increase their physical activity level as part of leading (or gaining) a healthy
lifestyle. Slim4Life claims that you can lose 3-5 pounds/1.3-2.3 kg per week (on average 3.3 pounds/1.5kg), eating grocery-store food and without pre-packaged meals.
Weight maintenance
On successful completion of the Slim4Life weight loss program, there is a post-reduction maintenance program to reinforce the learned behavioral changes. Overall, with Slim4Life you may expect to have developed ‘the tools, knowledge and the efficient metabolism to manage your new healthy body weight for a lifetime!’
Cost
It appears to cost over $600 to start the Slim4Life program, although if you don’t meet your goal as initially expected, there are further costs in order to continue. Also, the programmed supplements, vitamins, snacks, etc are an additional cost to you.
Some perceptions of the Slim4Life diet program
These are some of the reactions of Slim4Life participants
- My personal Slim4Life plan tells me what to eat and when, which helps tremendously with meal planning. For example, I eat 3 meals a day plus 2 ‘nutrients’ (a shake and a candy bar). Each meal includes a protein, a starch and fruit. For breakfast add milk, and for lunch/dinner add 2 vegetables. The plan is easy but also requires me to prepare the ‘limited food’ items which I’m allowed.
- 5th day on Slim4Life, and now off the ‘preparation’ stage. Today’s menu: breakfast 2 eggs and an orange, lunch a cup of raw cauliflower (dipped in fat free ranch dressing) and an orange, supper 4oz grilled chicken, shredded, in a 6″ corn tortilla with ½ cup lettuce and some fat free ranch dressing – actually pretty good.
- Finally at the end (11 weeks on) and am very excited. My Slim4Life diet consists of a strict food regime, only eating a certain amount of vegetables, lean proteins, fruit, and 80oz of water a day, combined with vitamins, herb supplements and essential fatty acid pills. I was not allowed to drink alcohol, eat sugar, dairy, oils, or preservatives. I’ve officially lost the 20lbs I set out to (I lost 11¾in. in my waist alone!), and have now begun the ‘stabilization’ phase. Slowly, over a 6 week period, they begin to reintroduce food into my diet. My weight will be monitored for one full year.
- I signed up for Slim4Life, and paid $800 for personal counseling 3 times a week for 34 weeks. It’s really a very restrictive, prescribed diet, designed for fast weight loss. I still don’t know if fast weight loss is really the healthiest solution, but considering that I have yo-yo’d the same 50 lbs 5 times in eight years, I think it’s the only thing that’s going to keep me going.
- This is what my diet consists of each day:
a TON of supplements: vitamins, metabolizing herbs, essential fatty acids, carb blockers
I can eat 2 servings of protein a day: lean meat (limited red), chicken, turkey, fish, limited eggs
2 servings of starch a day: diet bread, brown rice, or 2 tbsp bran flakes
2 small fruits
basically unlimited green veggies, ½ raw, ½ cooked
2 tbsp of fat free salad dressing
1 serving of “lite” fat: mayo or margarine
herbal tea
diet seven up
80 oz of water per day
2 specials made from the program supplement foods: one is sweet, the other a soup or juice
2 cups coffee, with just skim milk and nutrasweet (only 2 pkts of that per day)
½ tsp low sodium salt (nothing else can have salt in it)
unlimited apple cider vinegar (salad dressing)
the juice of 1 lemon
Is Slim4Life Successful?
The Slim4Life diet program appears to be a sensible plan with plenty of personal support and encouragement, and has brought successful weight loss for many overweight people, although the cost needs to be evaluated before enrolling.
The Juice Master’s Slim 4 Life book, health & fitness program
Slim4Life is not to be confused with The Juice Master’s Slim 4 Life book, Freedom from the Food Trap, and other related publications. This book promotes the program in the UK to ‘get slim, get fit, and get energised – or “juiced” ‘ by Jason Vale (the Juice Master), a successful health and lifestyle coach. The Slim 4 Life book is not about dieting, juicing, or about what’s good and bad for you. Rather, it helps to change the way you see food. Slim 4 Life majors on these points:
- Quit so-called “drug foods” – nutritionally worthless addictive substances (eg sugar and caffeine) – and return to a fresh diet
- Eat the freshest plant ingredients and feel the health benefit of raw juice which is full of healthy enzymes
- Reject the food industry’s ‘brainwashing advertising’
- Use food combining to help your digestion
Resources
Home of the Slim4Life Diet Program
The book – The Juice Master’s Slim 4 Life: Freedom from the Food Trap
I joined SFL and paid the $556.00 charge for the program and supplements. After 4 days on the vitamin/herbs/etc. I began to feel sick. I have had a Bone Marrow Transplant and see an oncologist every six months. When I went in to see her she did some laboratory work and many of my values were elevated. She felt this was due to the ingredients in the herbs/etc. and wrote me a note to discontinue them. I asked if I could have a refund of the $290.00 for the supplements and was told I could not. Absolutely NO REFUNDS under any conditions. I had planned to stay on the diet portion of the plan but not take the supplements. Due to my complicated medical history my doctor was very disappointed that they didn’t require a medical release for me to start the program. I would recommend that everyone take the free consultation information home and read it carefully as this is a very expensive program and they use “hard-sale” tactics so BEWARE!
I had my consultation yesterday, July 23rd. After explaining the program to me, the S4L rep jotted down some numbers that started REALLY high throws in the “BUT WITH TODAYS SPECIAL”…final cost was $556. TODAY ONLY!! I told her I was going to think about it and discuss with my husband. She then offers another pay option, $299 now $299 in 6 weeks. However that price didnt include all my supplements,I would have to buy them separate. Again I said I have to think about it.Her whole ‘cheerful’ attitude went south! She said you are gonna leave and not come back, thats what they all do that say they are going to think about it. She kept on and on as to why I should do it, sign up today, 30 minutes later I finally just got up,grabbed my purse and walked out! I DID NOT APPRECIATE all that pressure into signing up the same day. I could tell the lady was super angry she didnt make the sale. As I walked out she said WELL GOOD LUCK TO YOU! In a very snobby voice.
I joined S4L today and my husband is wanting to do it with me and I was just wondering what the male diet plan consisted of?
I joined with my husband 8 weeks ago and have lost almost 18 pounds and reached my goal weight of 135 – he has lost about 28 pounds – his goal weight was 20 pounds.
I was very disappointed to learn that exercise is not advocated with this diet AFTER I was pinned into a contract. I wasn’t happy about the “bait & switch” and high pressure selling they presented us – that was the biggest downer – I felt like I HAD to continue with the program because they tricked me into the contract with one fee and then presented additional fees 3 times the initial amount. Beware of the ALL SALES FINAL contract – they have you come back for a “class” after the 3rd business day so you can’t legally get your money back. The class is where they use high pressure “savings” to buy their supplements. They spent about 5 minutes educating us on the plan and 40 minutes talking about product. You HAVE TO READ their poorly written and difficult-to-follow Blue Diet booklet to understand the program thoroughly. THEY DON’T SPOON FEED any information about the program to you. I always feel like they offer the information on “need to know” basis ONLY after I ask questions. This diet is probably good for someone who cannot go to the gym easily and wants to take a SERIOUS LIFE STYLE change in their eating habits and doesn’t mind feeling starved. I am tired of feeling hungry or edgy. I need balance. This is a drastic diet (less than 900 calories a day on plan 1). They also offer a pill for everything. I don’t like taking the metabolizers, which are some form of legal speed. I feel very edgy and cussing comes easily when I take them. Do you have cravings? There’s a pill you can buy for cravings. Do you have water retention? There is a pill for that. There is even a pill to block Carb absorbtion, so if you take this pill 10 minutes prior to eating and block up to 350 calories. It make my stomach hurt a little. Their pills are very expensive and the counselors are trained to push them and supplements at every visit. I am convinced this program is ALL ABOUT making money on Food Addicts at their last resort. This program is not personable. There are only 2 counselors at my location that seem to always be there and and the others who are in training or say they have been with the company for 3 to 15 years. They all run through the routine. They don’t CARE about you only about your money. Bottom line is eat healthy and small portions, drink 10 glasses of water per day, exercise and you’ll lose/maintain your weight.
Can someone explain how the maintenance phase is different than the loss phase? How does it work? I started the program, but was unable to continue after being sent to a town without slim4life for work. I’d really appreciate some general guidelines so I will know what to do upon completion. Thanks!
The first 3 days I lost 6 pounds during the prep stage. After that I’ve followed the diet to a “T”, I’ve taken the pills, had the snacks and now at the end of week 1 after gaining two of the pounds back I am wondering if this has happened to anyone other than me?
Slim4Life will make the owners Rich4Life. They have my $600, and I have nothing. My doctor pulled me out of the program after two weeks because of the supplements. Also, I unexpectedly had to have surgery. So I had two medical problems to interfere. They refused to refund any money at all for unused services. I’m sure they had me legally, but circumstances sometimes call for compassion. They offered to put me “on hold,” but I am not permitted to use the supplements which are key to the program. My doctor’s note meant nothing. I no longer have respect for the organization.
I joined Slim4Life just one week ago and have already lost 11 lbs! I look forward to continued success!
The plan requires you to purchase 2 boxes of Thermosnacks each week. Full cost of 1 box is $16.99 however they offer various discounts each week. Do not buy during the hard sell at the beginning. The discounted price is not better than the offers/coupons that you get throughout the plan. All of the snacks are available at proteinshop.com at a MUCH CHEAPER cost (like $7.99 a box!!)! Protein shop allows you to view each nutrition label. The Wonderslim and protidiet brands on protein shop are the same as what slimgenics sells. The worst part is slimgenics doesn’t even display boxes of what they sell. You are supposed to magicly know if you might want to buy something off the order form. Then if you spend the $16.99 and it tastes like sh** (the oatmeal), you are stuck with it. I do LOVE this program because it works. It is learning a new lifestyle and a new relationship with food. If you accept that and do it, you will have success.
I’m coming into week 3 of this program and have seen results. My goal was to lose 13 pounds and I have about 5 lbs. to go with my goal being 4 weeks total, so I’m right on track. There are good things and bad things about this diet.
Good: You eat food that you bought at the store, not food from boxes and not unbalanced in types of food, as you still eat meat, veggies, starches, and snacks. You eat at least 5 times a day so it helps get your metabolism back up. I would also recommend their cookbook as some of the recipes are really good regardless if you’re on a diet or not, and it’s generally pretty easy to find recipes that work fine for this diet.
Bad: When you start, you receive a starter pack of supplements and also buy a ton of snacks. The snacks are tagged as Thermogenic, but I’m not sure they are much better than some other lowfat/lowcal/low sodium snack you might buy from a store. It’s difficult for me to keep up with the supplements, as some are before meals and some are during meals, and there are a total of 19 pills/day. So if you have an aversion to taking pills, you should look at a similar diet without the pills and just focus on portion-size and limiting Sodium/Sugar/Starches. The pills are optional to continue taking, but you get some included when you first sign up.
The really good takeaway from this diet is you learn alot about what you should and shouldn’t eat just by repitition. So you become very good at recognizing options similar to the Eat This, not That books. I’d recommend this for anyone willing to stick to the plan very closely to burn the weight off as quickly as possible and get into the maintenance phase of the diet.
I have done the S4L plan two times now. I lost 60 pounds in 5 months the first time and 56 pounds in 5 1/2 month the second time.
If you stick to the diet and learn how to eat during the maintenance phase, it’s an easy plan to follow. (The first 14-21 days it’s hard because you’re learning new habit’s and letting go of the old ones that made you fat!)
Anyway, I’m a few days into the diet again. I bought my supplements from the center–but I’m not re-joining. Just doing it on my own this time.
It does work–but it takes a lot of self discipline to keep it off.
Maybe I’ll develop that self discipline this time around.
Slim 4 Life, or Slimgenics, absolutely works. I did the program 4 years ago and lost 60 pounds. I won’t say it was easy, but it works if you do the program as they say. Over the last 4 years I have gained nearly all of it back, but only because I got comfortable in my new body and starting eating and not exercising like I had a super fast metabolism or something! If I had that luxury, I wouldn’t have needed to diet in the first place! So I am about to begin again…I’m so excited because I know it works. I do plan to try and save a little money and buy the snacks online and skip out on some of the supplements. Hopefully I will have the same results. Bottom line, I very much recommend this program.
would like to lose 20-25 pounds
I joined S4L back in 2006 and lost 68 pounds in 6 months. I have since gained some (20 lbs) of the weight back because I don’t always follow what I was taught. I became comfortable with my new size and started back eating unhealthy, some days are better than others. All in all I think the program is good and it works if you stick with it. Although I have gain some of the weight back I am confident I can lose it again because of the knowledge I gained from being on the program.
It is expensive but I still think it was worth it.
slim4life is now under the name slimgenics in Colorado and Minnesota which is why the website is now under this name
Does anyone have the program lit. that I could use?
I live in the farm country where slim 4 life is not available.
I truly need to lose 120 lbs. Please someone help.
You would make my Christmas and New Year! Also add 10 years to my life.
I have lost 33.6 pounds in 16 weeks on the S4L program. It costs a lot more than I thought it would. The radio commercial says the cost is $6 per week, but for me that includes 30 weeks of maintenance with once per week visits to the Center after I have lost the 48 pounds I contracted to lose. I spend about $300-$400 per month on S4L supplements in addition to my grocery store food. You can’t argue with results, however. I wish I had done something like this years ago when I had a lot less to lose.
Slim4Life worked well for my husband and I. We didn’t both go in and pay all the money, he just went in and paid and got all of the literature and I followed along. Neither of us can have caffeine and the ladies didn’t pressure him to buy the supplements – we ended up getting vitamins and fish oils at target, and we didn’t take any boosters or carb blockers. Also, the thermosnacks they sell can be found on diet direct .com for a little less money, and they are the exact same things. My husband bought aabout $300 worth of snacks from them, and after that we just ordered everything on that website.
As others have said, if you go back to your normal eating patterns, you will gain your weight back. If you want to be 130 pounds, you need to eat like someone who weighs 130 pounds. That being said, as a junk food addict, this diet is hard to maintain after the weight loss occurs. Even during stabilization, its hard not to overindulge.
We didn’t excersize much, we took 40 minute walks a few times a week and we both lost an average of 3 lbs a week.
I have been with Slim4Life for 10 weeks and have lost 22 pounds. I have tried losing weight on my own, but never could get past 10 pounds. Then I would gain it back after a year or two. I like the fact that I am not hungry. It’s not hard at all to resist the carbs and sugar that I used to eat. I have found that my main reasons for not losing weight before were 1) not enough water, 2) not enough protein, and 3) too many carbs. The cost is a lot more than I realized; they do not make the cost of the program clear in their sales pitch at the free consultation. My goal is to get off of oral diabetes drugs. I already am off of one of my three diabetes drugs, and I am off of the cholesterol drug. The money saved in medical costs is worth the cost of the program.
Can someone please explain to me what the Thermo-Boost pills do? …Are there other products out there that are comparible?
I’ve lost 17 pounds in 6 weeks. I am eating foods I normally eat, just reduced in the amount and drinking a lot more water 80 to 90 ounces per day. I was working out at a gym 3 to 6 days per week for 3 months and not losing any weight until I started Slim4Life. The cost is really high for my pocket book and they charge way too much for the thermal snacks. The good thing is my cholesterol is 189 down from 269, my blood pressure is 122/84 down from 159/94. To me that’s great! I do not like the thermo boost way too sweet, the thermol snacks have a lot of sodium in them and I had cut out a lot of salt from my diet previous to this so I continually have a salty taste in my mouth. I don’t handle the ginseng in the products well, they give me a back ache. I also don’t handle the herbs with the cayenne pepper in them they make my stomach hurt and sometimes burn. The are several types of the herbs so a different product might work better. I don’t take the Carb blocker since it doesn’t work well with the herb. I don’t have hunger pains but I didn’t have hunger pains before I started either. I was on a see food diet then. Only time will tell if this really does work, I’m a yo yo dieter and I’ve been on several plans before. If you are trying to stay off of Doctor prescibed drugs like me then this is your diet plan. Just don’t plan on ever stopping this plan or you lab tests will go right back to where they were before. Also I don’t like the Maplewood people much they act like they don’t really want to wait on you. It’s like you take her, no I had her last time you take her, or it’s your turn. This is poor customer service, the customer shouldn’t feel like no one wants to wait on them. I felt so sorry for the women they were doing this to. Very unprofessional. Try a different location.
This is my 7th week with slim4Life and Ive lost 18 pounds even though I occasionally have a beer or two when I’m not supposed to. The program is designed for people who are at the end of their rope and want to make a life change for good. I would not recommend this weight loss program for people who just want to lose the weight and NOT learn to adapt a new lifestyle. There is no magic pill or secret for a perfect body. With Slim4Life the pounds come off quickly but not surprisingly the weight will come back if you don’t continue to eat healthy.
I am a week into the Slim4Life program. It’s hard but I’m trying to stick to it. I have 80lbs to lose. I was going to get the LapBand but my insurance wouldn’t cover it. So I firgure shelling out $500+ a year is a lot cheaper than going under the knife and risking my life for $11,000++