V Shred Review » Most Comprehensive (NOT an Affiliate) | Weight Loss Review
– By the end of this video, you'll not only know the
pros and cons of V Shred, but you'll also know number one, if it's for you because
a lot of the reviews seem to be about mismanaged expectations. And number two, we will
separate the science from the marketing
jargon on their website, so you know exactly what you're getting and if you can get it elsewhere. Hi, Viva fam, this is Richa
from Coach Viva, let's go. – So first, what is a V Shred? V Shred is a collection of
programs to help you lose fat or gain muscle. These programs consist
of guides for nutrition and exercise and tips
for staying on track. Plus, you get to choose
from a custom nutrition and workout plan for you. Now they do have quite a lot
of programs that they offer. Depending on what program you select, you get everything or
some of the following.
A new workout plan every week, based on your body type and fitness goals. So, for women, they allow you to select from categories like skinny fat, fat and just skinny. For men the categories
are bulking, skinny fat, losing the last layer
of fat, and just fat. They provide an access
to exercise libraries with details on each exercise,
custom exercise plan, custom nutrition plan,
a supplements guide, access to a private Facebook
community where Vince the founder and his team of
trainers answer your questions.
Weekly check-ins with a trainer and daily emails to help motivate you. Most popular programs
are the 30-day challenge, the custom diet, the fat loss extreme and the ripped and toned
in 90 days program. So, we're primarily
going to focus on those. The 30-day challenge and custom diet and training consists of
pretty much all the stuff I've said before. While the fat loss extreme
has all of the above, except the weekly check-in. – Before we dive into the pros and cons, I want to make a note that V Shred does have a lot of positive
testimonials to show, but I'm not listing them as a pro because pretty much any program out there, no matter if it's crazy or great or whatever kind has a lot of
positive testimonials to show. My focus is to evaluate on the methods that V Shred uses to deliver your results.
And number one, how well those
methods deliver your results. And number two, how well are those methods implemented for you to use. – All right, first V Shred
offers a lot of foundational information. The course on macros is really helpful and helping you understand how to eat well and be satisfied even
while eating less calories. Besides the nutrition course, V Shred also has an exercise library, as well as mindset practices
to help you stay on track. And as you know, Richa
and I also deeply agree that foundational information is key to helping clients
set the right expectations for their journey. When results match expectations, people are going to stick
to their plan longer. And I'm really glad that V
Shred really pays attention to this teaching people to fish instead of just giving them the fish. So, besides setting expectation, V Shred's also help people
like independently understand the tools to figure out and
manage their own lifestyle, such that eventually they
know how to you know, keep up the progress on their own, and they don't need V Shred any more.
– Pro number two, easy to
follow at home exercises. Lots of reviews mentioned
the at-home exercises to be especially helpful. Each exercise has very specific how to instructions and
they're also in a progression, so that you can match your fitness level to the variation of that exercise that you're able to do right now. Note that while most of
the reviews mentioned the at-home exercises, V
Shred does have the gym version of those exercises as well.
– The third good thing about V Shred is that there is a trainer available to answer all of your questions. Now, this is mainly the option given to those who are on 30-day challenge or the custom diet and training program. So what you get is
basically unlimited access over email to your trainer
and weekly check-ins that have kept many people on track. You can ask them questions
and even ask for changes or substitutions to your
diet or workout plans. And the turnaround time is fairly fast according to most people. – Pro number four, quick customer service. Lots of people said in the review that the customer
service was very friendly and very prompt in taking
care of any cancellations or refunds for stuff that
they had inadvertently signed up for.
– And finally, V Shred
has a Facebook group where a lot of members can join and help support each other. One of the things that people really like about this Facebook group is
seeing other people's progress. Seeing other people's progress
can be really motivating. And of course, they also really like that they get to ask
questions and get answers from trainers and the community as well.
– Con number one, hard
to know where to start. Some of the reviews have talked about even before signing
up they didn't exactly know what they were paying for. I suggest that you read very carefully what they say that
you're paying for and use their customer service,
which as we learned from the pros is very prompt and friendly and I'm guessing they
would be even more friendly if you were a prospective customer. Some people also talk about being confused that they were only given
a link to the private Facebook group, but not
the program itself of all the workouts and the nutrition (mumbles). It's possible that they missed the email with their signup information because you need to go
to V Shred's website and sign-in, in order to be
able to see your program. So, a heads up on that if you signed up. Once you sign up there
does not seem to be a step by step outline of start here,
then do this, then do this and so on. All of the foundational information is available to you at once, which some people find overwhelming.
So, unless you bought their
custom workout or diet add-on, it seems you just have
to dive into the material and put things together yourself. – The next con is that there
is a lot of information and it can be not only overwhelm, but also a little bit
inconsistent and incomplete. I'll tell you what I mean. One of the pros that we mentioned earlier was that V Shred teaches
you a lot of foundational information. But there are two cons to
this, V Shred's YouTube channel for instance, has been
called out multiple times for providing information
without enough context. So, what happens is
this can sometimes lead to exercise injury. For instance they can tell you
how to do kettlebell cleans without really going in
detail into proper technique and like what are the corner cases you have to watch out for. Anybody who's done kettlebell cleans know that it's very
easy to injure yourself if you're not doing it
with the correct form.
Another example is giving tips that don't really have very high returns and aren't really necessary for people just starting out. For instance, increasing
your protein consumption around your workouts. Well, this is a great thing to do to kind of like, you
know, take it to the next level. Most people don't need to
do this at the very start and it can be really irritating to have to like, eat so much protein you know, when you're
not hungry, for instance. – Con number, three
limits to customization. For example, V Shred does not
account for your schedule. Like do you work night shifts, are you doing intermittent fasting that you're pretty
passionate about continuing. Your culture, so for example
all of the meal recommendations are US-specific and all of their tips on how to stick to the nutrition guideline are all to US
culture-specific, for example, in some cultures, it's rude
that if you go to a restaurant you pack half of the food.
Your preferences, so
in the workout program, the cardio portion
especially focuses on high intensity interval training or HIIT. Now let's say you don't
actually enjoy HIIT and instead, let's say
you enjoy pole dancing. How does that fit? And just constraints that you might have, like, let's say physical disability to be able to do some exercises. Now you can ask the
trainers to make tweaks to your programs, like making substitutes or changing it entirely, but quite a few reviews have complained that they have slow turnaround time. My guess is that the easy
substitutes or replacements get done very quickly, but
then the more intense ones, like, for example, you
want meal recommendations for someone in Singapore, that
may take a really long time.
And as a result, you may be
blocked on actually applying your program until they give you that new meal recommendation. To be fair, though, these
limits to customization apply to pretty much any program out there unless number one, you
get a one-on-one trainer or nutritionist who's working with you. is actually very limited. So, you get a meal plan that
lasts you the first month, which is four weeks. And a lot of the foods
get repeated day to day. So, people generally get tired
of eating the same things. A couple of people have brought up that they
actually got some food suggestions that they said that they didn't want. So, you do have to be a little pro-active and ask your trainer to
tweak your meal plan. That can be a little
inconvenient or time consuming. – Con number five,
complaints about honoring their 30-day money back guarantee. The signup process
seems to be set in a way that you may accidentally
check a lot of boxes that you didn't intend to
check, so read carefully, there's no phone number
for the customer service so you have to keep emailing them.
Also there's a fine print, which says that if you do the custom diet and workout add-on, then the
30-day money back guarantee does not apply. So now, you know. – And lastly, people
complain that they send just a bit too much emails. However, it's not just
sending too many emails it's that most of the
emails are trying to sell supplements to you. So, some people just
wire all of their emails into their junk folder, just
so you know, they don't see it. And so, it doesn't bother them anymore. Of course, most people don't
really want to do that. – Some negative reviews mention two things that I don't think are cons,
but rather a misunderstanding of how any fitness coaching program works. Number one, coach not hounding you enough. There are reviews which
say that they never started the program after buying
it and no one reached out to check with them on
what's going on, or they started the program, but then they stopped it.
And after a few times of the trainer reaching out, like no
one reached out again. Bottom line, a coaching relationship is not a babysitting relationship. You need to show up, you
need to ask questions, you need to actively own your
progress towards your goals. While you work hard, the
coach adds the work smart bit. The coach is responsible for making sure that all of your hard
work is being channeled into the most effective path for you.
And the coach is
responsible for making sure, that the hurdles in that
path are as easy as possible for you to overcome and
they do this by leveraging their knowledge and experience
to give you the tools and resources so that you can overcome them as quickly and easily as possible. This is not to say that the coaches shouldn't check in with you.
Of course, any good
coach is going to reach out to you to make sure that everything is going all right. But after five to 10 reach
outs and you ignore them, the ball is in your court. This is true of not just
V Shred, but any coaching relationship that you have, whether it be in person, with
a trainer or a nutritionist or an online coach. – The second thing is getting bored with your workouts or with a diet plan. This usually happens to people
after a couple of months on the program. Oh, wait, two things about this. One, V Shred in any program really are about giving you
a quick start for your diets and workouts with the custom
plan that you get to choose. And then you are meant to use
the foundational information you get to graduate
beyond the starter custom plan that you are provided with.
That way you can figure
out and customize your own diet and workouts going forward. After all that's what you want, right? Most people don't want
to track meticulously against a program for their entire life. Most people want eventually
to be able to eat and work out in a way that
deeply satisfies them. And that evolves with them as their tastes and interests evolve. And two, while yes,
you can have a new diet and workout plan every
week and make progress. Note that every time
you start something new, there is a cost to starting it. You don't know exactly
how the new stuff works. So, it takes you more time and effort to figure it out at the very beginning. This is an overhead that
can add up a lot over time and actually slow down your progress. If you're changing things
too often, you're gonna spend more time like figuring
out how things work than actually making progress. Thus, I really want to
warn you against a novelty driven mindset. – So, who is it for? If you want a custom done for
you diet and exercise program and access to a professional
trainer and you enjoy group accountability like in a Facebook group.
Also, if you're someone who loves participating in challenges,
then that's a great way to kick start your journey. I recommend going for their custom diet and workout plan and using
the trainer and weekly check-ins pro-actively. – Who is it not for? V Shred is not for the DIY
person who is interested in learning the fundamentals of nutrition and exercise and then wanting
to carve their own path. While V Shred does have a
lot of educational material, there are cheaper ways
to get that information. For instance, you can buy a
lot of books on the subject. One of my favorites is Burn
the Fat Feed the Muscle by Tom Venuto, and you can
get it for around 12 bucks on Amazon. Another really good one for women is Thinner Leaner
Stronger by Mike Matthews and it's around $15 on Amazon. And then of course, there's our book that Richa and I wrote Lose Fat and Gain Muscle on your Terms. And it is free. All you have to do is pay for shipping.
So, I'll link all of the books out in our description below. Second, V Shred may
not be the best program for you if you want customization
beyond just your body stats. So, for instance, if you
already have a program that you were looking
into doing, or really want to try it, like intermittent fasting, or you eat a lot of foods
from a different culture, or you don't enjoy HIIT, but rather you like to do
something more non-traditional like pole dancing, right? You may find it hard to get a
plan that's exactly customized to your goals and what you
prefer doing and eating. – There you have it, a
comprehensive review of V Shred. We're going to be doing more
reviews of health and fitness products and services. If there's one that you want us to review, go ahead and leave that
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