285-SYNCPodcast_DemiseOfBodiFINAL

[00:00:00] Jenny Swisher: Welcome friends to this episode of the Sync Your Life podcast. Today, we’re diving into what I believe to be the demise of body as a network marketing company. I debated whether or not I wanted to go here, but the reality is I’m getting questions every day about this. And this will now become a resource that I can share out to people who are interested in this information.

[00:01:19] Jenny Swisher: Let me start by saying this. If it hadn’t been for Body, which was then Team Beachbody, entering my life in 2010, I never would have been introduced to fitness and nutrition. It truly was my kickstart and what led me to so many good things. I got my personal training license and my nutrition license thanks to my love for fitness and food.

[00:01:38] Jenny Swisher: I met incredible people and some of my very best friends through this business. And most importantly, it introduced me to personal growth, which I am forever grateful for. But I will say this, over time, especially heading into 2020, I started to change. And truth be told, in my opinion, the company started to change.

[00:01:58] Jenny Swisher: I started to see a difference in culture when Tony Horton and Chalene Johnson stepped away. And soon after, when one trainer in particular started to be the face of multiple programs. When I started with Body in 2010 and I did P90X, the nutrition plan was very much about fueling properly for your expenditure, which, along with the focus on progressive overload, is why the results were incredible for so many.

[00:02:21] Jenny Swisher: It followed the true science done in the fitness space, with progressive overload, proper fueling, and deload weeks built into the plan for proper recovery. When the one trainer started to dominate the product catalog, and when the company shifted from program specific nutrition as it should be, To following portion fix for every single workout program in the catalog.

[00:02:42] Jenny Swisher: It started to feel to me like we weren’t following the science anymore. Instead, we were more so fixated on diet culture, eating less and following moves and workouts that weren’t functional movements. Women do not need to be doing half Turkish getups with a twist punch kick, burning 600 calories in back to back cardio days, it leads to adrenal burnout and menstrual cycle dysfunction, as it did for me and for hundreds of other women.

[00:03:07] Jenny Swisher: Fellow coaches, in fact, who came into my course in 2022. I’ll just pause here and say that the same trainer is the face for both a country music line dancing program and their upcoming hormone health program launching later this year. After taking just one course. So for me personally, after following these programs in nutrition, I fell into metabolic dysfunction.

[00:03:32] Jenny Swisher: Blood sugar instability, low ferritin, hormone imbalance, you name it. When I informed my functional doctor about the eating plan, she was mortified. When I started to dig into female specific nutrition, I realized why. The limited number of fats and protein allowed on the plan was ridiculously insane. It was less than half of what women truly need.

[00:03:53] Jenny Swisher: Diet culture. Feeding the problem. I dove deep into the science done on women by taking Dr. Stacey Sims two courses and completing my level two integrative health practitioner license. As we speak, I’m actually finishing my level three. I sat in on close to 200 consults alongside a hormone health informed menopause certified doctor, Dr.

[00:04:12] Jenny Swisher: Page, who we now have as part of our SYNC program. I realized quickly that the nutrition was backward at body. And the workouts were too. So much zone three cardio, not enough rest, so much burnout, so much about the calorie burn and not about building muscle. So in 2022, I went to my corporate mentor at body because when you’re a five star coach or above, you get assigned a mentor.

[00:04:35] Jenny Swisher: I asked her if I could get an email to the CEO, or if I could meet with marketing or research and development, I pushed and pushed. And I even created a podcast directed at the company because I cared that much. I’ll actually link it for you in the show notes. I am loyal to the hilt, and I wanted to help turn the company around with the science done on women.

[00:04:54] Jenny Swisher: I scored a call with Research and Development, but the day before the call, I was told that they had just decided on a hormone health program with, you guessed it, the same trainer. And that coaches couldn’t be part of their R& D process. Interesting, since so many coaches are now part of casts and processes for so many other products.

[00:05:12] Jenny Swisher: I even asked if I could cancel my coach account to consult with the company. To be completely honest, and I debated sharing this, the legal team at Body even asked me to share my course information to see what I had, because so many top Body leaders were learning from me.

[00:05:27] Jenny Swisher: I knew better than to give my proprietary information away, but I did screenshot my module names to show them that I was in compliance with the company. Oddly enough, the promo video for their upcoming hormone health program identically copycats my fundamentals of hormone balance that I had shared with them through those screenshots.

[00:05:45] Jenny Swisher: Yeah. I also asked my corporate mentor what percentage of body customers and coaches were female. I was told 97 to 99%. Yet none of the programming was catered to the science done on women. It was all marketing, all diet culture. And what I had come into the company for, which was true results and true health and wellness.

[00:06:07] Jenny Swisher: had completely changed. It was now more harmful than good. Anyway, it was at this point that I felt like my 14 year loyalty and my desire to spark change was falling on deaf ears. I even ran into one of the doctors on staff at Body that I had connected with. I ran into her at Summit in San Antonio, and she actually said the words to me, Jenny, I’ve been trying to get the company to go this direction for years, and it’s falling on deaf ears.

[00:06:32] Jenny Swisher: It was then that I knew I had to go. There’s no way I can make a square peg fit into a round hole anymore. I needed to step out on my own, create fitness that works for women, and make the integrous move needed. When I started to hear other rumors from highly credible sources, when I saw the recognition team laid off, when I saw top leaders go to LA and sign an NDA, And when I started to see the blind loyalty of so many coaches, I couldn’t unsee it.

[00:07:00] Jenny Swisher: I started to see it for the unhealthy thing that it was and I needed to run far from it. So a year ago I left, I decided a long time ago I would never lead with network marketing again, but I have found a company that aligns with my mission that I like to use as a tool in my toolbox to truly serve women on a deeper level.

[00:07:19] Jenny Swisher: And now after watching bodies announcement and watching coaches scramble, I just have to say. You cannot possibly say you didn’t see this coming. I’m sorry. And if you do, I worry for the people who are now following you to another MLM. The writing has been on the wall for more than two years. Corporate layoffs.

[00:07:39] Jenny Swisher: Low stock price. Taking products away versus launching new ones. Huge discounts on the bike. Sales lacking. Incomes dropping. No one sharing the business. But yet I’m in awe of these business leaders, because they’re saying that the rug was pulled out from underneath them.

[00:07:54] Jenny Swisher: Really? Then I question your business savvy. I really do. The truth is many wanted to leave a long time ago, but the income made it too hard to leave. Golden handcuffs, as you can’t represent another product unless you step away from that income or take a big old risk, but now they’re free to go elsewhere.

[00:08:14] Jenny Swisher: And right now it’s a giant recruitment party out there. We have some people blindly following an actual criminal in the network marketing space who is legitimately selling a product with zero scientific backing. And another company that’s a complete spitting image of body, with the same corporate mentors and even the same named products, throwing signing bonuses at big leaders who bring their teams over.

[00:08:35] Jenny Swisher: There is so much I could say here, but I want to take the high road. I will say this. To sign with a company with whom you’ve never even tried their products, It’s But it feels to you like you can just plug and play and fill in the gaps with this pre workout and this shake. My question to you is this, was it working before?

[00:08:54] Jenny Swisher: And have you done the research to realize that these products are actually inferior to body supplements? Have you tried them? Have you looked into the CEOs at the top of these companies enough to realize their backgrounds? Or are you once again just blindly following leaders who claim to have not seen the ship sinking I’ll share this story.

[00:09:15] Jenny Swisher: One of the top sellers at Rodin and Fields pulled her downline of 25, 000 over to one of these companies a year ago. And one year later, after signing a two year contract with them that ropes her into a non compete, she now has 200 active sellers. Why? People don’t want an inferior product. You can’t just plug and play.

[00:09:34] Jenny Swisher: People want an elevated product. People want authenticity. And they’re literally watching you jump ship to Body 2. 0. As we hit two weeks post this announcement, it’s been interesting watching the apples land where they are. Many are chasing money. Many have to give up their assets to make ends meet. But also, many are aligning with impact.

[00:09:55] Jenny Swisher: Knowing that the income will come. Which is a really beautiful thing to see. In my opinion, the demise of body started when we shifted from results focused science backed programming to all marketing and what would sell when they put a trainer on the face of almost every program and product and didn’t pay attention to the growing science and evidence on women

[00:10:15] Jenny Swisher: and what works for their dominant market. I’ll never forget watching thousands of women elbow each other to the front of the stage at summit in San Antonio for a first row chance at the two hour super workout in the heat. It was then that I realized that nervous systems and true health wasn’t the priority here.

[00:10:33] Jenny Swisher: Obsessive fitness culture and diet mentality was the reality. When I heard the CEO say in his canned video message ending the network just two weeks ago that 44 percent of distributors polled said that they didn’t feel comfortable inviting to the business and 75 percent of them said that there was nothing the company could do to change that.

[00:10:52] Jenny Swisher: The entrepreneur in me, the person who sees the needs, wanted to shout, Why haven’t they been wanting to invite people into the ecosphere? I know I had stopped building in 2019 myself, when I stopped getting results with the programs, and when I started to deal with hormone imbalance, when I felt like a fraud being a health coach who was struggling in her own health, until I found my own way through the true research, instead of the little box I’d been living in with body, trusting them with my way of eating and fitness.

[00:11:23] Jenny Swisher: Stepping outside that box was the best thing I ever did, because it led me to the true research, and to now serving thousands of women in this space. Women need a lot of unlearning. Society tells us to be smaller, to work out more and eat less, that our labs are normal and it’s all in our head, but not the pioneers in this space who are doing the work.

[00:11:43] Jenny Swisher: They’ll tell you, you’re not crazy. You’ve just got it backwards. And you’re working against your physiology. As we look ahead, I ask you this. What is the future of the Body Platform? As thousands run to enroll as affiliates with the company in November, After having their entire customer base stripped from them and income deleted, I wonder if they’ve thought of that.

[00:12:05] Jenny Swisher: But of course, many realize that they can squeeze out the last sales and earn an income from helping the company launch the hormone health program and give that trainer her golden parachute to whatever’s next that she creates in the land of diet culture as the ship slowly submerges fully underwater.

[00:12:22] Jenny Swisher: Some of my friends and I left a year ago, and honestly, I wish it had been three years ago The further I get from it, the clearer I see. And now, I’m so saddened to watch millions of women suffering from metabolic dysfunction as a result. Many of whom think that their next fix is the same company’s hormone health program.

[00:12:40] Jenny Swisher: When in fact, it’s the company’s programming that led to their health woes. It’s really hard to unsee, friends. It’s really hard to unsee. There are so many other things that I could say, but I’ll keep it high road here. I realize I can’t stop people from continuing to make poor decisions in business. But I can speak out for what I know works for women’s health.

[00:13:02] Jenny Swisher: I’ve never stopped doing that. I started in 2019 and five years in, I can’t wait to continue this mission and open the eyes of women suffering. You can’t exercise your way to hormone balance. There isn’t a one size fits all supplement. We need a bio individual approach to our health. We need doctoral guidance.

[00:13:23] Jenny Swisher: Knowledgeable doctoral guidance. We need to unlearn diet culture. We need proper fueling. We need the exact opposite of what’s been ingrained into our minds for years. So, welcome to Unlearning. Start with this podcast, and let’s embrace how good our bodies are really designed to feel. Welcome, friends.