Is Isagenix Legit or A Fat Scam?

So I think I've figured out the big, elusive secret to weight loss. Ready for it? Don't eat so much junk food and work out, damn it! Or be blessed or cursed with a fast metabolism like your boy was afflicted with. Who would have known it could be that easy to shed some weight? But alas everyone wants to take short cuts.

But why would I be surprised? People try taking shortcuts when it comes to making money online by signing up for programs claiming you will make tons of money by pushing a button or little work. Short cuts hardly ever work; not the ‘made for you get rich schemes' to make a bundle of money online, nor the miracle powders and elixirs pushed on you by the weight loss industry.

Americans spend a whopping 60 Billion dollars per year on weight loss products. Companies like Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, QVC and many others raking in huge profits from the sale of their products. A new company on the scene is ISAGENIX, which is the subject of my Isagenix International review today.

What Is Isagenix International?

Isagenix offers health and wellness product solutions for weight loss, energy and performance, and healthy aging. They boast that their products are ‘the highest quality, always natural, with no-compromise ingredients'.

“With the help of Isagenix ?, Associates have experienced life-changing weight loss, increased health and improved athletic performance”;

The company was founded in 2002 by “A Master Formulator in the nutritional industry and two experienced Network Marketers who became Millionaires”. The have a positive rating and accreditation with the BBB and are a member of DSA.

But the concoction of products to make millions of people slimmer, healthier and feeling better for themselves is not the only purpose of Isagenix.

Obviously there is money making angle here as well otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it. Here's what they say about their income opportunity:

“Our solutions are not only for health, but wealth creation too. As a direct sales company, we provide the framework for our Associates to supplement their income, or replace it entirely. Isagenix Co-Founder and Executive Vice-President Kathy Coover's goal is to create more six- and seven-figure income earners than any other company in the industry-and we're well on our way!

These two exciting systems create a powerful formula for unlimited success. The quality and effectiveness of our products ensures long-term use; while the compensation plan makes recruiting and enrolling new Associates easy“

Isagenix Products and How Much They Cost?

Isagenix carries about 140 products you can order individually. The suggested retail prices range from $10 to about $70. There are 4 categories for the typical use of the products

• Weight Loss

• Energy & Performance

• Skin Care

• Healthy Aging

Isagenic PAKs include supplies for a specific time period. Very popular are the 9 or 30 day Cleansing & Fat Burning Systems. These PAKs contain meal shakes, snack bars, slim cakes and whey thins.

PAKs in the Healthy Aging category contain Skin creams & lotions and body washes.

You can choose from about 35 different PAKs in the retail price range from $214 to $1,300. This may all change by the time you read this so feel free to look it up.

Product Specifics

The Ingredients Factor: Isagenix uses ingredients that in my opinion are questionable. In particular rancid vegetable oils, additives, synthetic vitamins and minerals, low fat dry milk and a ton of isolated fructose. Like alcohol, fructose is only metabolized by the liver and increases the fat production.

If you have any whey, dairy or gluten allergies, or lactose intolerance, you better study the ingredients listings very carefully!

The Nutrients Factor: It is beyond my ability to offer you any opinion and refer you to the ratings from an independent and unbiased reviewer with the proper qualifications.

The Detox Factor: Isagenix emphasizes the importance of ‘detoxifying & cleansing‘ the body. Our body is a storage unit for accumulated toxins and is indeed important to get rid of these excess pounds. But you can do this relatively inexpensive by flushing your body with lots of alkaline liquids, like water with lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, green juices, super greens and lots of salads and sprouts.

The Taste Factor: I didn't actually try the products, so I can only refer to what others are saying. The positive customer comments on Amazon outweigh the negative ones by a ratio of 7:3. This review from Meal Replacement Shake Reviews also rates the product as “tasting good”

Do Isagenix Products Really Work?

It's not a secret that you can lose weight by cutting down on your food intake and raise your physical activity level. That's the basic concept of dieting. However, the question remains if you need any dietary supplements to shed your unwanted pounds as they want to make you believe.

You could do like Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, who lost 27 pounds in 2 month by eating ONE TWINKIE every 3 hours instead of his usual meals (Mark Haub – Twinkie Diet)

For good measure, he threw in some Doritos, chips, sugary cereals and Oreos. In doing so, he reduced his calorie intake from 2,800 to 1,800 per day, and lost the “pouch”.

Bottom Line: If you have the willpower to eat 30% less, you will lose weight. Companies like Isagenix try to convince you that their product will take away your craving for “real food“. Personally, I do not believe that. Otherwise people would not be “yo-yo dieting“. That said folks have claimed to get results with this product. So that can't be denied.

The Isagenix International Business Opportunity

The Isagenix Wealthy Opportunity seems like a typical MLM with a rather standard, and convoluted, compensation plan.

They claim that you will be making $5,000 in the next 3 to 6 month and become a millionaire eventually. The steps to achieve this are as follows:.

• Enroll as Associate: Purchase ONE President PAK at $559 (over $800 retail value) – recommended. There are 3 Business Starter PAKs: $269, $559 and $1,099 you can choose from

• Place monthly Autoship Order: $269 & $29 per year to keep your position active

• Enroll Two People: These will be your “2 legs”; they purchase One President PAK and do what you did

• Help them to enroll Two People: Everyone Duplicates what you did

• Enroll Two People: Place one on each leg

They duplicate what you did…………and so on, and on, and on………

In order for you to make $5,000 within the first 6 months, you need to PERSONALLY enroll 2 people within the first 30 days, 6 people within 90 days and 10 folks within 6 months. Of course, all the people you personally enrolled, and all the folks recruited by those that weighing heavily on your legs, must exactly duplicate what you did.

And as your team grows, they say “to unlimited levels deep“, the more bonuses you will get. And this is how they plan to create more millionaires than any other MLM ever”!

Of course, this is just the theory behind an MLM scheme. Isagenix shows you on one of their websites how you can make over $12,000 per month “with just TEN Levels of active, qualified team members“.

At Level 10, you would have 1.024 active and qualified associates which have an autoship order at the President Level ($559) AND still doing the recruiting thing, just like you do.

This works just fine……. but only in theory. I'll bet you my grandma's Antique China that this BS is not working like that for most people that join. By the way if you still didn't understand the compensation plan, don't feel bad. I need my team to help me decipher it which is another reason I dislike MLMs. You need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the compensation scheme.

Isagenix Complaints

As with any company I review you're going to find complaints. No company is without them. And if a rep tries to claim they don't have them then run for the hills because they're lying to you and will probably try to rob you blind. Ultimately you're not going to make everyone happy. But aside from personal feelings some complaints are truly valid and may concern you. So we've dug past all the one sided positive Isagenix Reviews to find some of the dirty secrets that you should be aware of to make an informed decision.

Unhealthy Additives

The products, although made with natural ingredients, contain additives that are unhealthy. In particular, soybean oil, gluten, fructose, nonfat dry milk, corn bran, synthetic vitamins, Tricalcium Phosphate, Maltodextrin, Fractionated Palm Kernel Oil, Canola Oil and Low Heat Nonfat Dry Milk. In short, if something is made in a lab and has a name you cannot spell, DON'T EAT IT! Unfortunately you find many of these additives in many of the foods we eat so it's not just isolated to this product.

The Price

Isagenix seems to offer much less compared to similar meal plans on the market. Nutrisystem, for example, delivers 3 weeks of complete meals to your door for about $260. With the Isagenix 30-day plan, you will get some powdered shake mixes, 14 snack bars and cleansing pills. And that's for the cheapest of their PAKs; the others cost $559 and $1099 for one month of supplies. But the pricing can be debated since there are other systems that may cost more or about the same. But seems to me the cheaper alternative is to change your eating habits and maybe even a gym membership.

The Product Does NOT Solve The Problem Longterm!

Now I said it, and I can hear the angry outcries from Isagenix associates. Sure, anyone trying to lose weight and uses ‘dietary supplements' will have some success due to the fact that skipping a meal or two and drinking a filling shake instead, reduces the calorie intake.

However, it is a well known fact that about 95% of all dieters fail because the “supplements will not take away the craving for real food” and they fall back into their old eating habits after a short while. So like most diets or diet supplements I don't think it's a long term solution.

The Business Opportunity

Isagenix Is Product MLM, plain and simple! The reps may vehemently deny this fact, calling themselves “Direct Sellers” or “Network Marketers“. But given the way their business opportunity is structured, it just seems like your typical MLM to me. Just take a look at their ‘Power Your Freedom: How The Money Flows‘ webpage.

They explain how the whole thing should work and even go so far to show you the POWER OF DUPLICATION with the ‘2 people become 4, then 8, 16……4096 etc‘ bit.

This set up would border a pyramid scheme if they didn't actually have real products to push. And yes if you've worked in corporate america you're pretty much dealing with a pyramid structure as well. Well I'm not big on that either and why I'd prefer to be my own business owner and not an MLM rep or corporate employee. But you may be fine with that structure. But most people are turned off by MLMs because of their convoluted pay structure and the type of reps I discuss here. So that alone may turn you off from Isagenix.

Forced Autoships

When you join Isagenix, you need to purchase a Starter PAK (preferably a President PAK for $559). That part is fine. Damn near any business you join will need to invest some money or time to get started. But with Isagenix you also have to place a monthly auto-ship order of about $269 to “keep your position active” aka requirement to earn money!

Why do I need to do that? In my eyes this ensures “that the money flow continues“, as they say very clearly on their ‘Power of Freedom' page. Doesn't this make obvious the fact that you make money not from selling a product, but from the monthly ‘must buy' policy?

Lets look ahead what that means. If you don't use the product yourself, you need to sell it, right? You can't sell it to a new recruit because they have to place the order with the company. This starts you out every month in the red with your business and you need to earn more than about $300 (shipping cost and other expenses to run your biz), in order to just break even.

And THE BAD doesn't stop here. What if some the folks in your team quit? And a lot will, for various reasons. It will not be as easy to build a team of 1,000 or more members as they make it out to be. You will have to do a lot of recruiting to do filling vacated spots and also to grow your team.

Over time, and this is the inherent reason for the downfall of every pyramid scheme, you will be running out of people to recruit. Think about it, you are not the only one doing this. Tens of thousands of associates trying to lure people into buying the product and enrolling them into this thing.

This brings me to the most important point about this business opportunity.

You're not likely to make a liveable income

Consider this. The Isagenix Earnings Disclosure for the year 2013 shows that 95% of people purchase their product for personal use. Only 5% enrolled in the business opportunity. Unfortunately, they don't give us the actual number of active associates in the chart provided. Here is the screenshot that shows the different earning brackets.

As you can see, LESS than 5% make a livable income, 2% of these don't even make $3,000 per month. The figures speak for themselves. At Isagenix, thousands share 50% of commissionable revenue, while just a few split the other 50%.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that almost all of the folks (just over 77), which did make in excess of 1 million dollars, joined Isagenix either in 2002 or 2003 (with the exception of 4). This is also typical for MLMs and pyramid schemes; only those in the top are able to make real money. Now with that said with any business you will find that there are far more people that fail than succeed which is why most people are employees. But I prefer to better my chances by starting a business that has better odds and their numbers don't seem to be in my favor.

So Is Isagenix International Safe?

Their products are no different than those from other diet supplement providers. Some of their shakes may taste better, but that lies in the eyes, or taste bud, of the beholder. I agree that taking supplements may help some people to change their eating habits and can jump start the effort to lose unwanted pounds.

However, I disagree that Isagenix is the Magic Diet necessary to lose weight, and more importantly, to keep it off for good. I am also concerned by some of the ingredients used in their products. But ultimately people seem to be experiencing weight loss.

As far as the Great Business Opportunity is concerned, I can't see any reason why anyone would join an organization that requires you to purchase a set amount of product every month AND recruit other people to earn a living. You should just need to sell the product and be able to earn income that way. MLMs like to lure people with their fancy compensation plans to make it seem like it provides you more ways to earn money. But it's usually just smoke and mirrors and convoluted to hide the nasty elements of these programs.

Like always, I would love to hear from you if you enjoyed reading my review. Before you leave, please chime in and drop a not in the comment box below.

What's The Alternative To Isagenix?

If you like the product and are convinced you can help a lot of people, go for it and concentrate on HOW to sell the product and not how to recruit people to receive ‘cycle bonuses'.

But at the same time you could easily start a diet website for Free, discuss various diet supplements on the market and promote the good ones as an affiliate for FREE without being forced into an auto shipping or expensive start up cost. This might be a better option for you if you don't like any the cons you've read above.

It's something I do in my industry and I have been making money in affiliate marketing since 1998 and if you are interested in doing the same, I can help you out. Take a look at My Top Free Work At Home Recommendation and see what I do to make money online. If I can do it, so can you and I'll be happy to show you.

I am not crazy and telling you that you will be a millionaire come next year. But if you are willing to follow instructions and to learn the business from the ground up, you will be able to make the money you want and be your own boss in time.

It's up to you to take action. Join me at WA and determine if this is the right thing for you. It's free to take a test drive, so unlike Isagenix you have nothing to really lose. But again if Isagenix does appeal to you, feel free to give it a shot. I'm just giving you another option.

That's it for today. Don't forget to leave a comment on your way out.

Thanks for stopping by

Eddy with a y