This week, social media has been abuzz about Teddi Mellencamp’s extreme diet program, which has been called dangerous, a starvation plan, and has been compared to a cult.
Now, the embattled RHOBH star is clapping back — insisting that her clients knew exactly what they were signing up for.
After an outcry from former clients, from influencers, and from doctors, All In By Teddi is being compared to the abusive cult, NXIVM.
“For one, I wanted to say I love All In,” Teddi, who created the weight loss brand, begins.
Ominously, she gushes: “I am so incredibly proud of the over 15,000 lives we have helped change.”
To recap as briefly as possible, the idea behind All In By Teddi is that people hoping to lose weight can shell out hundreds of dollars a month.
They get assigned accountability coaches. Each day, they must photograph what their scale says. They have to send in body photos. They send in pictures of their food.
According to former clients and to screenshots, any “slip-ups” are chastised, and the dangerously reduced food intake is coupled with demands for exercise.
“I am so proud of all of our clients,” Teddi announces.
Though some had wondered if she would try to save herself by throwing others under the bess, she emphasizes: “I love our coaches.”
Notably, these are the same “accountability coaches” accused of pushing women on Teddi’s plan to consume as little as 500 calories in a single day.
“I love that I can wake up every single day and feel good about what I do,” Teddi beams.
When it comes to her extreme weight loss brand, she expresses: “I live and breathe it.”
As many have pointed out, having dangerously unhealthy habits yourself does not make you above criticism for encouraging those habits in others.
“I 100 percent feel confident in the fact that we let you know before signing up exactly what the program entails,” Teddi declares.
Despite her smile, this is a clear message to her detractors — but “enter at your own risk” only goes so far, you know what we mean?
In Teddi’s mind, however, once you sign up, you no longer have any right to complain … or raise the alarm.
“If it’s something that you want to do and you want us to hold you accountable to your goals,” Teddi insists, “we are there to do that for you.”
“If it’s not something you want to sign up for, you don’t,” she adds.
Teddi’s words imply that she thinks that no one has ever signed up for anything that they come to regret — or without understanding the dangers involved.
“That’s why I love that we are very transparent from the beginning,” Teddi declares.
“We believe in you,” she claims.
“We will fight for you,” Teddi concludes, “and we know that the best is yet to come.”
Teddi’s other defensive statements about All In show what some describe as tell-tale signs of disordered eating.
For example, the “focus” being on “clean whole foods” is almost textbook disordered eating behavior — the obsession with perceived food purity is linked to a fixation on caloric intake.
And Teddi is right that no one has ever accused her of specifically saying “you may only eat 500 calories a day.” That figure comes from calculations based upon alleged food instructions from “coaches.”
In other words, someone looked at what meals All In With Teddi was telling people that they could and could not eat in a day.
They then added up the estimated figures and came up with the dismal results.
If you lead an entire sedentary life, avoiding even pacing around your home, you should still get more than three times that 500 calorie figure every single day in order to remain healthy.
We have to emphasize that we do not have any special, personal knowledge of what All In With Teddi is really like. We are not clients or victims. We are also not doctors.
We should also note that no one is accusing Teddi of acting with malice. If anything, the belief seems to be that she is a victim of disordered eating, and thinks that the allegedly dangerous, abusive starvation diet is healthy.
If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) at 1-800-931-2237 or go to NationalEatingDisorders.org.
