Jillian Michaels Diet Plan Review

If you've ever watched the hit TV show "The Biggest Loser", you will know only too well that dramatic weight loss is absolutely possible when you put in enough time, dedication and get the right guidance from trainers, healthy food chefs and nutritionists.

Contestants on that show have collectively lost thousands of pounds each season and they continue to be successful reaching their weight loss goals today.

Many Americans, however, do not enjoy the opportunity to train and work out for hours each day. Nor are they able to receive personal diet coaching and top fitness training. People watch the show and think to themselves, "Of course I could lose weight too if I was at the 'The Biggest Loser' Ranch with all the best help from nutritionists, trainers and physicians."

The real test of success comes when those contestants go back home and then have to lose more weight or at the very least maintain the weight loss they achieved during filming. It might interest you to know that has recently gotten a bit easier thanks to the help of one of the show's trainers, Jillian Michaels.

Jillian has created her own weight loss program that's intended to help individuals that do not get the opportunity that "Biggest Loser" contestants enjoy. Now you can lose weight at home with a little help from Jillian herself plus an internet connection.

Introduction

The Jillian Michaels Weight Loss Program was of course created by Jillian Michaels, the best-selling author, Emmy nominated TV personality and without doubt one of the country's top health and fitness experts. jillian michaels dietBy appearing on "The Biggest Loser" and rapidly becoming a firm favorite of viewers and contestants alike, Jillian created a brand for herself. She has continued to motivate people to lose weight and get themselves in shape through her website, her books and her television appearances.

Jillian has now enjoyed expert status in her field for well over 20 years. She holds numerous training certificates, plus a black belt in Muay Thai and Akarui-Do.

In addition to her online weight loss program, Jillian has published several books and fitness DVD series. These include Jillian Michaels Bodyshred Slim For Life: My Insider Secrets to Simple and Fast and Lasting Weight Loss.

Here's a Little Background

Jillian has been a successful trainer since she was 17. She soon opened up her own sports medicine facility, soon following that by eventually finding her way onto the hit TV show, "The Biggest Loser."

While on the TV show, Jillian soon earned the reputation of being the show's meanest, toughest, no holds barred trainer. She never accepted anything less than 110% effort from her team. She put every second of her time and every ounce of her effort into making them succeed at their task.

Jillian has always had a passion for fitness. She truly believes that anyone has the ability to change their life as well as their destiny through adopting healthy eating habits and doing a proper fitness routine.

After being on the show and coming to the realization just how many viewers really wanted her help in achieving their own fitness and weight loss targets, Jillian decided to create her own branded weight loss program. Her idea was to create a plan that could be easily customized to meet any person's needs and be available for them 24/7 to help them succeed.

Weight Loss Program

Jillian's diet, weight loss and fitness program is available to buy online via her website. It is not the kind of program that requires you to buy specific Jillian Michaels brand meals at a grocery store or sign up for any meal replacement diet food delivery program at home like the Nutrisystem diet or Medifast for example.

To begin the program, visit her website and complete a short questionnaire including your current weight, your future goal weight, your height, age and email address. You will receive a follow up email containing information regarding a customized plan that's designed just for you. The email will also feature the opportunity to proceed with the program if you want to and sign up.

In order to sign up, you'll need to provide a credit card number and keep it on file for future billing. The program will charge your card on a weekly basis. By making your initial and weekly payments, you will have access to the many features available to dieters on the website.

Some of the tools you will have access to after joining will be a meal planner, fitness planner, mobile app, food and fitness journal, an opportunity to ask Jillian advice, a weight tracker, shopping list, eating out guide, recipes, playlists, daily emails and an online journal.

The Plan Meals

The food you will be eating while on the Jillian Michaels Weight Loss Plan will be food that you purchase at the grocery store and prepare yourself. You will not be counting points, such as with Weight Watchers, and you will not be receiving meals delivered to your door step.

Jillian will teach you how to eat healthy, nutritionally balanced food through resources on her website. Jillian will provide you with a detailed meal planner that will give you personalized daily meal suggestions. In addition to the meal planner, Jillian's plan will also provide you with a personal shopping list. This list will be quickly generated online and will provide you with quick and easy grocery store lists to match meals on your meal planner.

Jillian's goal and the purpose of her plan are to teach you how to lead a new, healthy lifestyle. If you simply order food or buy prepared foods, you will never learn how to eat healthy on your own.

Having a meal planner with a matching grocery list completely takes the guess work out of what to eat, how to make it and what to buy for it. It essentially provides everything you will need online and via your computer or tablet. Several tools on Jillian's website will also teach you how to calculate calories on foods that are not labeled and select the right foods and ingredients to meet your daily caloric needs.

Jillian also has a multitude of recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner available on her site. Recipes include lists of ingredients, prep time, cook time, detailed instructions and a nutritional label that includes calories, fat, saturated fat, sodium, carbohydrates, dietary fiber and protein per serving.

There are a variety of sample meal plans available on Jillian's site and, after you sign up for the program, a personalized meal plan will be created especially for you. It will take the guesswork out of what to eat and provide you with a list of healthy, easy to make, delicious meals that you can make and eat at home.

This is ideal for those that want to learn how to eat better, not simply lose weight. In order to maintain weight loss, it is essential to learn how to eat in every day, real life situations, not simply eating premade meals.

Jillian's meal plans include a breakfast, lunch, snack and a dinner. Below are some examples of meals suggested in her meal plans. Recipes for some of the meals below can be accessed via her website free of charge, even without a membership to her plan.

Breakfast

Lunch

Snack

Dinner

As you can see from the sample meals above, Jillian's diet plan is very comprehensive and includes every food group. She does not exclude red meat, carbohydrates, fruits or even sugars. Jillian's plan allows for everything in moderation, which is the key to learning how to eat right.

Since eating out is a reality and something most Americans do often, Jillian's Weight Loss Plan also includes an eating out guide to teach you how to eat while out at restaurants and fast food locations. Making healthy choices while eating out can be one of the most difficult tasks for dieters, but Jillian makes it easy with lists of popular food choices at some of the nation's common chains.

Jillian will even provide you with lists of what foods to avoid at your favorite restaurants.

Fitness Routines

As expected from a plan designed by one of the most intense fitness trainers in the country, exercise is a crucial component in the Jillian Michaels Weight Loss Plan. After registering and signing up for Jillian's plan, you will be given access to a weekly fitness planner online.

The planner will be customized according to your fitness level and will include exercises to perform each week. The plan will include in-depth descriptions and information regarding each exercise. This will help you understand why you are doing each one and how to do it as well.

Having access to such a tool is as close as you can get to having Jillian as your own personal trainer.

As a participant and member of Jillian's Weight Loss plan community, you will not only have a personal workout plan designed just for you, but you will also have access to watch hundreds of Jillian's exclusive exercise videos. These videos demonstrate exercises included in your plan and give you a visual, step by step explanation of how to perform them.

Some of these exercises are locked and only available to members, while others are free and available to anyone that visits the Jillian Michaels site.

Some examples of these exercises are:

In addition to providing you with video and step by step directions for each exercise, each clip will also give you a list of the muscles worked with each move and the difficulty level.

Most customized fitness plans designed by Jillian will have you working out five days a week, with two rest days in between. They will include a circuit of exercises using a combination of moves. The workouts will all include a warm up and prep for five minutes, as well as a cool down in the end.

The workouts do not give a specific length of time it will take you to complete them. Instead, each move clearly states how many reps you must perform, how many sets of each rep you must do and/or the duration for each set. The workout is complete once you have completed all sets of all exercises listed in your plan. Below is a sample plan provided online and is considered an advanced exercise plan.

Sample Fitness Plan

Online Tools and Support

In addition to the meal planner, shopping lists, recipes, eating out guide and fitness plan, the Jillian Michaels Weight Loss Plan also includes additional online tools to assist you in obtaining your goals. Jillian's website will send members a daily email that includes tips, advice, support and motivation. There is also an online journal where you can track your thoughts regarding your weight loss journey, your failures, your successes and any other milestones you wish to document.

The online journal is made especially private by being password-protected so only you can access it. If exercise motivation is what you are looking for, you can listen to upbeat music by tuning into Jillian's high-energy music playlists as well.

Mobile App

In addition to online tools and support, the Jillian Michaels Weight Loss Plan also features a mobile app. This allows you to take the plan with your anywhere you go, even without access to a computer. The app includes exercise videos, recipes, a calorie counter, barcode scanner and other trackers to help you monitor your exercise and food intake.

The barcode scanner will allow you to quickly add foods to your daily food journal by scanning the product's barcode. That will instantly add nutritional information about the food to your daily caloric total. The app is currently available for iPhone, iPad and Android.

Cost Breakdown

When it comes to pricing, there are few plans out there that are as affordable as the Jillian Michaels Weight Loss Plan. The plan is actually very affordable and will be billed in 13 weekly cycles. You can cancel anytime, but will be charged a minimum of $20, even if you cancel prior to the fourth week on the plan.

When compared to plans such as Weight Watchers, where you buy your own food and have plenty of online tools, Jillian's plan seems very affordable and provides just as many, if not more, tools to help guide your weight loss journey.

Coupons and Discounts

Currently there are no coupons or discounts being offered for the Jillian Michaels Weight Loss Plan. The plan does, however, offer a money back guarantee. You can cancel at any time after the fourth week on the plan and receive a full refund for any fees charged thereafter.

Optional Products Available (DVDs)

In addition to the many tools available online to help you succeed with the Jillian Michaels Weight Loss Plan, you also have the option to purchase Jillian's DVDs, books and equipment. These items are not mandatory to succeed with the plan, but will help add variety to your meals, exercise and overall experience.

Her DVDs include workouts for virtually any discipline, including circuit training, strength training, yoga and martial arts.

Some of the DVDs you can purchase are Jillian Michael's:

Some of books by Jillian Michaels include:

In addition to books and DVDs, you can also purchase fitness equipment on Jillian's site. Some of these items include:

Pros vs. Cons

Most weight loss plans have plenty of perks but also plenty of drawbacks to match. They are inexpensive but they lack the variety you're looking for. They provide endless tools and support but they are more expensive than a live in chef.

The Jillian Michaels Weight Loss Plan is overall a good plan at a good plan but, weigh the pros and cons and see if it is the type of program that fits your lifestyle and weight loss goals.

Pros

Here are the main advantages of the program:

Cons

Here are the main disadvantages of the program:

Testimonials

"As a mother weighing almost 300 pounds, I knew I was not setting a good, healthy example for my son and daughter. I knew I needed to do something to change my life but I just never thought it would be possible with as much weight as I had to lose. I watched "The Biggest Loser" every season and wished so badly that I could be one of those contestants given the opportunity to live at the ranch. Knowing I could not leave my children and my whole life behind to go to the ranch, I never even applied an almost gave up hope. One day at work, a co-worker mentioned that she signed up for the Jillian Michaels Weight Loss Plan online a few weeks. She said it was less than $5 a week and she had already lost almost 4 pounds. At only $5 per week, it was a difficult option to turn down so I decided to join her. We kept each other accountable, talked about our successes and failures, did some of our workouts together at lunch and stuck to the program for over a year. After almost a year and a half on the plan, I have lost over 120 pounds and have finally reached my goal weight. I am now the same size I was in high school and could not be happier."

Melissa Levandosky

"I have been overweight as long as I can remember. I was always teased as a child and it continued all the way into college. I tried to laugh it off and be the butt of all jokes but, after a while, it took a toll. I spend countless afternoons crying in my room, not knowing what to do to change my appearance. I was almost 200 pounds and needed to do something, I just did not know what. After my first year in college, my roommate and I decided to join a local gym. We started by going only a few times a week and hope this would help. While we felt better about ourselves, we were not losing weight. I did not have the money to start a diet food delivery program but I found Jillian's plan while searching for options online and thought it was something I could manage. After all, I spent hours on the computer anyway doing schoolwork so I could spend at least a few minutes each day to help me reach my weight loss goals. The site ended up really motivating me and I started going to the gym on a regular basis. I lost 2 pounds my first week, 3 pounds the next week and, by the end of the month, I had lost almost 10 pounds. After seven months on the plan, I lost 57 pounds and finally got to my first weight loss goal. I still have another 20 or so pounds to go but the hard part is over. I know I will reach my final goal and, most importantly, I have changed my life."

Denise Cortez