If you’ve seen the name Trilivy pop up on social media recently, don’t worry – you haven’t missed anything new. Trilivy is just a rebrand of the Optavia program, which I reviewed here.
Before Optavia, the company was Medifast. Both brands focused on one thing: rapid, significant weight loss through a dramatic, unsustainable (for the majority of people) calorie deficit. I have had a number of former Optavia users come to me for weight loss and I can say with certainty that the negative effects of this program – physically and emotionally – touched each and every one of them.
You can’t base your diet on tiny portions of bland, shelf-stable food and expect to learn and maintain healthy habits long term. Optavia also used “coaches” to guide users through the program. The coaches were just people who had gone through the program. They had insufficient training in basic physiology, nutrition and behavior change, so they could not help anyone with their diet.
But is Trilivy actually a new program, or is it just another version of Optavia, complete with new marketing? Let’s take a look.
What is Trilivy?
Unlike Optavia, which was a hardcore weight loss program, Trilivy is marketed as a “metabolic health” program. The marketing spouts a lot of vague wellness buzzwords about reversing metabolic dysfunction, resetting your metabolism, improving metabolic flexibility, and improving longevity.
Trilivy is a commercial 3-step diet plan. In its first two steps, Trilivy relies primarily on packaged, pre-portioned meals called “fuelings.” Each serving ranges in calories from 100-110. How much fuel you get per day depends on your step and your caloric needs as determined by Trilivy.
Trilivy offers most of the same plans that Optavia had, including 5 & 1 and 4 & 2. For example, for 5 & 1, that means, 5 “feeds” and a “lean and green” meal.
Trilivy’s 3 steps is not a new format. They’ve taken Optavia’s three-step structure and rebranded it:
The first step is Reset, which is the same as Optavia’s 5 and 1 program. It is based on 5 refuels and a “lean and green” meal and works out to 800-1000 calories a day. Clients are in this step until they reach their goal weight, which can be a long time. This is a red flag. Losing weight by literally starving yourself never works in the long term and can lead to nutrient deficiencies, gallstones, bad mood, poor sleep and many other problems. People do these types of diets, but they are meant to be short-term, for a specific purpose, and closely monitored by a doctor. This is it not that.
The second step, Refine, is 2 fuel feeds and 2 lean and green meals, which are less restrictive than regular lean and green meals. Your calorie budget varies, but note that half of your intake in this step is based on prepackaged foods. Refine is similar to Optavia’s transition phase, which lasted three weeks and gradually increased calories from about 900 to 1,200 kcal/day. Trilivy’s Refine phase appears to serve the same purpose, but the company no longer publicly sets a fixed three-week duration or standard calorie goal, instead stating that intake is individualized according to total energy expenditure.
Renew is like a maintenance step, which is mostly whole foods with an emphasis on behavior change. Again, the calorie budget is individual. You’re supposed to be on Renew forever.
Trilivy Fuels.
Trilivy/Optavia fuels are notoriously tiny, expensive and unpleasant. The only thing that has changed between the programs is that Trilivy fuels contain the exclusive “MetaVantage technology”: a combination of metabiotics, chromium and choline. The company claims that these ingredients support metabolism and insulin function, although there is no real research on the product to support this. Many weight loss supplements contain these ingredients, but when it comes to their role in health and weight loss, the evidence is sketchy at best. Also: fuel is highly processed food, no matter how you slice it. And even if you’re “allowed” 5 fuelings a day, that’s only about 500 calories.
Trilivy research?
The research study that Trilivy uses to support its claims is the exact same 2018 paper used by Optavia for the same purpose. (PMID: 30820327). It’s a 16-week trial that used Optavia nutrition and telephone nutritional guidance versus the Medifast low-calorie diet, versus a self-directed low-calorie diet. The self-directed group was considered to be the control group. 198 people participated, 80% women and an average BMI of 34.
Of course, the Optavia and Medifast groups lost significantly more weight over the 16 weeks because these diets are what I consider as a dietitian to be VLCDs – very low calorie diets.
The Optavia group got 800-1000 calories a day.
The Medifast group got 1100-1300 calories a day.
What did the self-directed team get? The researchers used the USDA Body Weight Calculator to give each participant a calorie budget with the goal of achieving a 7% weight loss within 16 weeks. I was curious to see how this would stack up next to the other groups, so I used the 7% target, plus the average age, height (not given but calculated from the average BMI), and starting weight (224 pounds) of all participants in the tool to see what it came up with.
2068 calories per day. This is the answer.
Who do you think will lose more weight, the groups eating under 1300 calories per day or the group eating 2068 calories per day?
You know where this is going: the study was rubbish. Yes, the company is throwing it out every chance they get, probably counting on the fact that most people won’t read it or understand how bad it is.
Is Trilivy an MLM?
Yes, Trilivy is sold with a multi-level marketing model. Just in case you’re wondering how I feel about MLMs, you can read what I wrote about them here.
Who are Trilivy’s coaches?
90% of Trilivy coaches are former Optavia/Trilivy users. I once used an attorney, does that mean I’m qualified to represent someone in court? Of course not. And simply going through a program in no way qualifies you for weight loss or health advice. In fact, managing the complexity of the physical and emotional issues that clients may face when trying to lose weight and/or change their diet is far beyond the scope of any ordinary person.
I am particularly bothered by the fact that some of the coaches call themselves “metabolic reset coaches”. What is that, even? Check out this post from a Trilivy coach:
Following the link in the person’s profile takes me to a ‘My Metabolic Scan’ test which is supposed to give you some insight into your metabolic health. Except it doesn’t at all. The test is not validated and, although not branded, is an unbranded sales and marketing tool for Trilivy intended to obtain your contact information. Sneaky.
Also: why do so many MLM nutrition coaches feel the need to be secretive about the fact that they are selling a product, at least in their social media posts? Do they think they have to trick people to engage with them? This tells us a lot about these companies, their coaches and their deceptive marketing strategies.
Coaches receive some training from Trilivy, but it does not equate to accredited healthcare training or professional licensure. All it does is prepare the coaches to deliver the program, rather than providing personalized medical nutrition therapy. But you know that clients will be looking for more than just program delivery, which puts these coaches in a very precarious position of high responsibility.
But that’s not all: the coaches also sell the product. This is a conflict of interest beyond any doubt.
Why was Optavia renamed Trilivy?
I can think of many reasons why the company would rebrand. The first is obviously that Optavia had some pretty heavy baggage of reputation. In their diet rankings, US News and World Report gave Optavia 2.8 stars out of 5. Reviews on Reddit, Trustpilot, and social media are also low, often citing cost, hunger, reliance on highly processed fuels, and the program’s unsustainability.
The nutrition landscape has also changed. With the popularity of GLP-1 drugs, commercial nutrition companies have to fight tooth and nail for every customer – especially if they don’t offer the drugs. Perhaps the rebranding is to bring in unsuspecting buyers who would otherwise dismiss the Optavia program because of its bad press.
Is Trilivy worth a try?
Absolutely not, in my opinion.
Any program that drastically cuts calories for any reason is not sustainable or evidence-based. Yes, you will lose weight and your metabolic rates will likely improve. However, this will be short-lived once you get tired of eating astronaut food or following the rules of the program, regardless of the stage.
Using the same horrible research study over and over again shows that this program and its predecessors have little to offer in the way of evidence for their effectiveness. I find it wrong that they would mislead their potential customers with this “survey”.
Eating prepackaged foods doesn’t teach you how to manage yourself. Neither do trainers who are not qualified to give nutrition advice.
Trilivy does not appear to be better than Optavia, even with the new focus on metabolic health. At its heart, Trilivy seems like yet another restrictive, expensive weight loss diet.
