South Beach Diet

What a rip off. Food is okay, but they demand a minimum of two orders after you pay a ridiculous $450+ for the initial order. Not worth it. Shakes and bars taste like sawdust. Stay away.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

Please be sure you are aware that if you try the SBD on auto delivery and accept the $50 reduced cost, you will have to pay a cancelation fee of $125 if you cancel after the first month. I did not like the food, and most of the package was shakes and bars. I could purchase much better shakes and bars at GNC for less cost. I did not enjoy the majority of the food.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

Do not use this product. All it is boxed food like Atkins. You might as well go to the store and purchase any of the frozen foods, that is what it is. I thought it would be fresh food like a Home Chef, where they send you ingredients, instructions, you cook yourself. I was wrong, it is just a big box of boxed food. They are very expensive, and if you have a question, they are very unresponsive. I tried three times to cancel my auto-ship delivery and had no response, until finally five days later someone canceled it. Then they tell me we are going to charge you even more money to cancel your auto delivery. Needless to say, I had to pay an additional $125.00 to cancel my order. Do not use this product. I warned you.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I am extremely upset by their cancellation policy. I canceled on Sunday, and I have a confirmation number, and yet I received an email saying my order has shipped. I called into their customer service and they said that I should have called on top of canceling online, but nowhere in the email did it say I needed to do that, I sent them a screenshot of said email. It said it was canceled. So I expected it to be canceled. Now I am out money that I didn’t have to pay for the food that I didn’t want! They need to fix the cancellation policy or at least let your customers know that canceling online isn’t good enough and they should call in as well.

I will not recommend anyone to use this service, I’d much rather point them in the direction of any other company that won’t screw them over and then blame the customer for a company screw up.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

This plan is beyond a rip-off. I ordered it online and received the reduced price for the first month. I tried to keep an open mind but the food is terrible and all the frozen meals taste the same. In addition, they were tiny. No wonder you lose weight, you don't eat.

I immediately called to cancel only to find out there is a $125 cancellation if you order it online and you don't complete two months. I have never done one of these and thought it would be a good way to not have to prepare food and maintain my weight, BIG MISTAKE! Now I have a freezer full of high sodium food that tastes awful!

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

When I say that I ordered only two months worth of food, I specifically stated I only wanted two months. The service representative heard me as I repeated that I only wanted two months; that I could only afford two months. She never once stated that this would be an "auto-refill" order or I would have not ordered at all or told her right then and there to cancel any additional deliveries beyond the second month.

Be aware that there are rewards that are given to representatives based on their sales record. PLEASE make sure you understand what the representative is ordering in your name - and wallet - as it could enhance the "green" in their wallet and diminish yours drastically! I not only had to place a dispute with my card company, but I contacted FedEx to have an additional "refill" returned to sender after I was told the shipment was non-refundable!

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I tried about 10 different items on South Beach Diet. I found them to be pretty low quality. To be honest, I’ve never eaten frozen TV dinners, so maybe that is part of the issue. However, between the artificial taste and the fact that you have to go out and buy and prep 90% of the fruits and veggies to meet the plan menu, I really wonder how this program continues to exist.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

If I could given the South Beach Diet a zero-star rating, I definitely would.

I have always been overweight (even when I was a competitive swimmer). I made it part of my New Year's resolution to try and lose weight and get to a healthy BMI. I researched a lot and found that the South Beach Diet had good reviews and seemed relatively easy to follow (especially with the food delivery as I work usually over 50 hours a weeks, which makes cooking hard). I was excited to get started although I wasn't thrilled with the price. It is about $375 per month and you still have to make six meals on your own so you are essentially spending over 400 a month on food (over $100 a week, which seems absurd).

I tried the food for two weeks, and found it be super processed and tasted unnatural. It was like eating plastic. The portion sizes are extremely small (especially compared to Jenny Craig or Nutrisystem, which are both handsomely larger). And they don't taste good. Nothing tasted good; not the shakes, snacks, meals, NOTHING. Which is one thing if you are seeing a result and losing weight, which I did not. I was extremely upset about this since I was following the diet religiously for a month and saw no progress on the scale. So, I was eating awful food and not seeing any results; not a great combo when paying an arm and a leg for it with guarantees that it will work (and quickly).

I decided that the South Beach Diet wasn't for me (obviously given the results). When I called to cancel (since you cannot do it online), the customer service agent kept asking why I wanted to cancel or what could be done to keep me. At this point, I wanted the South Beach Diet chapter of my life to close, with as little pain and annoyance as possible. I made it crystal clear that I just wanted to cancel my account and then the customer service agent informs me that he has to charge me an ADDITIONAL $125 to cancel my account. So, for a crappy month of meals, I got no weight change and an additional $125 out the door.

When I expressed my frustration and confusion over why they would be charging again (since they did not clearly state that was the cancellation policy), I was given an unsatisfactory response (it's Company Policy). I have never encountered such poor customer service. They do not care about their customers. The South Beach Diet company is a scam artist trying to suck all the money they can out of you! I felt like I was totally taken advantage of and like a schmuck, which is an awful feeling. I have no problem paying for something if I feel that it has that value. I do not like paying for something and feel that I am getting the rug pulled out from under me. I expressed those concerns to the agent as well as contacted the helpline hoping that they would have the decency to refund the cancellation fee (but to no avail). This is a horrible company with awful customer service. I cannot say it enough, it is a TOTAL SCAM!

If you want to spend a small fortune on crappy food with wishy-washy results and have to pay more when you want to leave and have to deal with a company that does not care about its customers at all, then this is for you.

Again, I cannot say it enough - DO NOT do the South Beach Diet, you will lose your money and reget it! I know if do.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I went on the book version of the South Beach Diet seven years ago. It worked very very well. Recommended to many. I purchased the prepared ship to your home version several months ago. They did not ship 60 items upon the original order. After contacting them about the shortage, they did ship them eventually. The meals and desserts were marginally eatable. I realize that diet programs might not be 5-star restaurant quality, but it should at least be as good as "healthy choice" and others for the price. The book diet recipes are very good.

The coup de gras was the $125 cancellation fee. If you thought the food left a bad taste in your mouth...the fee put it over the top. Unfortunately, some marketing genius has destroyed the reputation of a great diet. Buy the book and make it at home, it really works and is far cheaper.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I am so glad I found some similar reviews to mine and hope if anyone is considering doing this they will think twice.

I’ve done the original South Beach Diet twice and the process works well for my body type. However, being in a busy season I thought we would do the pre-prepared meals to save money and time. They advertise "4 weeks plan with pre-prepared meals," so I thought this meant three meals a day, 7 days a week, 4 weeks.

When it arrived there was only one bit of information as to how to start and minimal information in the website. As it turns out the "plan" is only preprepared for you for the very first week. After that a booklet is provided (not included in mine but I found it online later), that is basically blank and you have to plan your meals yourself. I didn’t want to do this because of time. The ease of a pre-prepared plan and meals as advertised was why I purchased in the first place.

I was also startled because the first week is basically a lot of shakes and bars and tiny meals. We were soooo hungry the whole time. My husband noticed the amount of sugar in the bars and shakes too - quite a bit more than any Atkins or low carb, low sugar shake/bar. Meals were pretty small and disgusting - I had to throw it in a pan and season to make it edible.

Throughout the first week we lost about 3-5 lbs of water weight but our clothes fit tighter and our faces puffed up. This is when I took a serious look at the amount of sodium in the food - off the charts for anyone who doesn’t already eat a full diet of junk food. So while we lost a few pounds, I believe due to the 64 ounces of water per day, we both looked fatter. We both only needed to lose about 10 lbs each. We also were both bloated and constipated the whole time.

But I figured they had just updated the original plan and we stuck with it as we’d paid for it. But we ran out of food after 2 weeks. Then I noticed through website we were supposed to be doing a couple do it yourself meals - didn’t realize this and hasn’t budgeted for it. But this was all in the fine print and while it’s misleading, I wasn’t going to complain. I hadn’t ordered a second box and was just planning to do the rest independently.

Once we stopped eating the pre-packaged meals and started doing the diet independently according to the original south beach diet, we started to lose real weight. I had learned a lesson but wasn’t going to complain - I’m usually an avoider in customer service situations. But then I see a pending charge on our statement for a second box. I called in and told them we only wanted one box. They said the fine print stated I was signing up for 2 and I’d agreed to it. I felt that the fine print was different from the advertised print. I also mentioned that you see "keto friendly" everywhere on the website. This in combination with fact that the original South Beach Diet is truly low carb and low sugar, even no sugar the first two weeks, seems to be false advertising because the items in the box contain more sugar than either of the other two diets.

Like other reviewers have said, they told me there was a $125 cancellation fee. This would be $300 for two of us. I’ve never heard of a diet plan that didn’t offer money back guarantee. Or at the least free cancellation. The agent kept asking me how much weight I'd lost and after telling her a number of times that I didn’t want to discuss my weight, I just wanted to cancel, and she repeatedly asked me that, I told her it was none of her business. She then went in a tirade of shouting, I tried to intermittently interrupt to ask, "Are you seriously working in customer service?" She refused to transfer me to a manager but seemed to be putting me on hold to speak to one. I called back to try to speak to someone else because she had told me my account was "marked" as a combative customer. I said, "You mean like Elaine on Seinfeld?"

I did after an hour get to talk to someone else, kinder but still wouldn’t let me cancel, only said he could defer my payment a couple of months before the next shipment. But that was only on one box, the other had already shipped and they still want us to pay for it. This guy said why don’t you talk to customer service? I thought I was talking to customer service, but I agreed still trying to get through to a manager somehow. But the next customer service lady was as worse as the first. No matter what question I asked, she cut in and have robotic answers. The answers did not match the questions I’d asked and I wasn’t able to get through one sentence.

Hung up, called back in, waited almost two hours, got through to a kinder gentleman who essentially gave me the same information. He said at the end though, "Between you and me you are not the only customer who has had this complaint. My hands are tied, I literally can’t transfer you to a manager without losing my job, but I do know that some people have contested this with their credit card company." So that’s what we are doing.

Please note, this new South Beach Diet is not the South Beach Diet! It will pump you full of sugar and carbs. I’m convinced that those who lose weight on it have come from a diet of fast food and processed food. Don’t try it. I still stand by the diet from the original book. It still works!

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

The South Beach Diet plan is too restrictive in Pase 1, and the food tastes HORRIBLE. I had a significant headache when I followed the program according to their instructions and knew I was hypoglycemic. I contacted the company requesting them not to send the next month's delivery and ended up arguing with the customer service rep who attempted to change my mind which further aggravated my headache. They have a hidden $125.00 charge for canceling your order, so it cost me $425.00 for a terrible experience, and I have a freezer filled with food that I'm going to trash. Stay away from this program!

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend