Former clients of ex-‘Real Housewives’ star Teddi Mellencamp’s extreme diet program say they were limited to 700 calories, ate mostly soup for dinner, and had to do an hour of cardio each day
- In September, anonymous allegations surfaced online that All In, the diet and "accountability" program created by the former Bravo star Teddi Mellencamp, encouraged unhealthy eating, with coaches who weren't certified.
- Three different women who signed up for the program told Insider about their experiences with All In, which they said encouraged them to eat fewer than 700 calories a day, and do an hour of cardio each day.
- One registered dietician characterized a program that is highly restrictive of calories as a "crash diet," noting that such diets can lead to bone loss, mood disruptions, hormonal suppression, and gallstones.
- "All In has always made the safety and wellbeing of our clients our top priority, and while we certainly encourage feedback as part of our efforts to constantly improve, we strongly object to these claims that our methods and practices were the cause of any of these alleged issues," a representative for All In wrote in an email.
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It's hard to say whether the events of the past month would have happened had Stephanie Langlitz not gotten an alert this summer that her messages were almost full.
It was her first indication that the text messages, which she thought she deleted in 2017 after quitting the All In By Teddi Mellencamp diet program, weren't actually gone forever. When she logged in to her iMessage account to check, there they were: the photos of her body and her weight on the scale, tearful texts, and admissions of bulimia, encased in the amber of a gigabyte of iCloud storage.
Langlitz told Insider that she originally deleted all her messages from her time in All In "because I was like, 'I just want this toxicity out of my life.'"
"It's something that has been weighing heavily for the last three years, because it has affected me so negatively with my body image, and with my mental health, and with my physical health. It's affected me in every way," Langlitz said. "I wanted to speak out about it for the last three years, but if I had said anything without proof, it's basically my word against hers, and we all know how that goes."
When she realized she still had the conversations with Mellencamp, the former "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" cast member and the daughter of the singer John Cougar Mellencamp, Langlitz took a few screenshots. Then she sent them to Deuxmoi, an anonymous celebrity gossip Instagram account that had recently sparked accusations of a scandal involving the influencer Tanya Zuckerbrot. Langlitz hoped it would start a public conversation about what exactly the Bravo network was selling impressionable viewers.
Her story caught fire. It spawned allegations of disordered eating and uncertified diet coaches, and the press coverage splashed all over the internet. Not too long after, Mellencamp confirmed that her contract was not renewed for the Bravo show that had given her — and her "accountability" program — a major platform.
Some former clients say All In took a one-size-fits-all approach to weight loss
All In evolved after the birth of Mellencamp's second child, Cruz. She gained a reported 80 pounds and then struggled to shed them.
As she lost weight, she blogged on a site called "LA Workout Junkie" about the fitness classes she was taking. She also posted her before-and-after baby-weight photos on her public Instagram page, drawing the attention of other wealthy women in her circle. The family-and-friends experiment morphed into All In's present-day form, and according to the program's website more than 15,000 people have turned to it for help.
On TV, the program, which received significant publicity during Mellencamp's three-year run on "Real Housewives," was framed as a way to hold people accountable for their goals, whatever they may be. It was cross-promoted on various Bravo platforms, including "Flipping Out" with Jeff Lewis and the official Bravo website.
Celebrity followers, including the "Saturday Night Live" cast member Chloe Fineman, also promoted the program on Instagram. "Teddi's on the 'Housewives of Beverly Hills,' I know. But she changed my life! She changed my life," Fineman said in a 2018 video filmed in the front seat of her car, adding, "This is not sponsored. There's no money." (In a follow-up post, she described the program as one of the more permissive diets in Los Angeles because "on Teddi's program you're allowed to eat carbs," in the form of oatmeal and lentil soup. Fineman did not respond to Insider's request for comment.)
In reality, some practitioners say, there appeared to be only one goal — weight loss — and only one way of achieving it.
The program and menu are the same for everyone who signs up: a strict meal plan that several past clients and registered dietitians told Insider clocked in at under 700 calories, and an hour of cardio required each day. (All In followers are discouraged from heavy weight-lifting during the program.) With a few exceptions, the only thing clients are allowed to eat for dinner is soup.
"All In has always made the safety and wellbeing of our clients our top priority, and while we certainly encourage feedback as part of our efforts to constantly improve, we strongly object to these claims that our methods and practices were the cause of any of these alleged issues," a representative for All In wrote in an email.
The representative also disputed the calorie requirement. "Our approach involves around a daily intake of 1100-1200 calories, similar to many other popular (and safe) wellness programs, to help our clients jumpstart a pattern of cleaner eating and more exercise," the representative said. "It has been especially upsetting to hear of recent complaints, many which directly contradict the gratitude, appreciation and enthusiasm expressed during their time with us, but we will continue moving forward focusing on how we can best serve our clients."
Failure to adhere to the plan, which also requires daily weigh-ins and photos of every meal, results in immediate dismissal from the program without the chance of a refund. So does evidence of weight gain. (A source close to the company said that clients experiencing family or medical emergencies were refunded, but that those who exhibited "negligence" were terminated for being the wrong fit. According to All In's website, those rare refunds are still assessed a $75 administration fee.)
Experts say All In's calorie requirements and lack of medical supervision are problematic
Lisa Moskovitz, a registered dietician and CEO of the New York Nutrition Group, said that even if All In's daily calorie count were as high as it suggested, it still wouldn't be safe for someone to try without first consulting a doctor.
"Nobody should be eating less than 1,200 calories a day without medical supervision unless you're 2 years old or younger. It's such an inappropriate, insufficient amount of calories and nourishment," Moskovitz told Insider. "I think it would have been much more acceptable if somebody had come to her with a plan and she helped them stay on track with that plan they received from a medical professional. But for her to be the one doling out the diet advice and creating the plans for people is what is problematic."
Mellencamp and the "accountability coaches" who oversee her program's clients are not registered dieticians, and despite the purportedly large customer base, payment is accepted almost exclusively through PayPal and Affirm.
All of Mellencamp's coaches have completed the All In program, and while there have been allegations from some corners of the internet that the program is a multi-level marketing scheme, Mellencamp said in an Instagram story that all her coaches were W-2 employees. (MLMs typically classify their workers as self-employed 1099 contractors.)
Not all former clients were unhappy with All In. "I liked the program. I wanted to lose weight, and I did. I lost 30 pounds and have kept it off ever since," said Ingrid Hass, adding that she was kicked out on the last day of the program for having a cocktail. "Anyone dragging the program now probably shouldn't have signed up for it."
Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal/Getty
A representative for All In said the company surveyed 783 clients in June and recorded a 93% satisfaction rate but was unable to provide the names of any additional women willing to speak positively about their experience on the record, citing their fear of social-media reprisals.
'It was definitely bullying'
Ericka Houlihan knew Mellencamp from the Los Angeles equestrian circuit and had been impressed by her post-natal transformation. Houlihan, who is 5-foot-2 and weighed 125 pounds, had been trying unsuccessfully to drop a few more pounds. She thought Mellencamp's program might be the way to do it.
"I already followed [Mellencamp] on Instagram, and she had had a baby and had lost all this weight, and I was not feeling great about myself and wanted to lose a few pounds just to feel better about myself in general," Houlihan told Insider.
In 2017, she Venmoed Mellencamp $255 for the introductory two-week program. (The price has since jumped to $599.) She began sending the requisite photos to a group chat that included Mellencamp and an accountability coach. As promised, the weight began to melt off. But she felt unhappier than ever. Her husband said he'd never seen her so mean.
"I didn't think twice about the diet, and I didn't think twice about anything until maybe the second week, when I realized I felt scared. Like, I was scared to be kicked out of a program," Houlihan said. "I'm not sure why, because I feel like I'm a strong woman, but to be threatened to be kicked out of a program, bothered me. I didn't want to feel defeated, so I just complied."
Houlihan said that for the two weeks she was on the diet, she was consumed with making sure she didn't get kicked out. She submitted an ingredient list to prove to Mellencamp that there was no forbidden cream in her roasted cauliflower soup, and she attended a wedding at which the only thing Mellencamp allowed her to eat was a few pieces of broccoli, she said.
Throughout the wedding, Houlihan said, Mellencamp texted her incessantly, asking for photos of her meals and checking to make sure she was getting up at 5 a.m. to run and do cardio before the main event.
"All kinds of crazy stuff," Houlihan said. "I'm not sure what was more stressful, the part about being hungry, or the feeling like I had to please her. It wasn't just holding accountable — it was more than that. It was definitely bullying." Houlihan said she remembered running through the airport after the wedding, "freaking out that there was no soup that I could have for dinner."
Stephanie Langlitz, who also signed up in 2017, said she had been inspired by a mutual friend who "had lost a lot of weight in a very quick amount of time" doing All In. She assumed the program would be tailored to her health and fitness goals, and said she was disappointed with what she characterized as the one-size-fits-all regime and the way Mellencamp and her coach communicated with her about her weight.
Stephanie Langlitz
"The thing that got me is you have to send a photo of your weight every single morning. If your weight goes up even a couple of ounces, they are going to berate you and belittle you and ask you why, and cut out a meal or cut out a snack from the already calorically scarce plan that day," Langlitz said. (According to a source close to the program, "bullying goes against our philosophy and would be counterproductive.")
She said she decided to quit midway through the program after making herself throw up for fear of getting caught binging on a single piece of grilled chicken.
"I was so hungry, because all I had had was a 15-calorie salad for lunch, and I ate a plain piece of chicken with some green beans. As I was sitting there, I was like, 'The scale's going to go up tomorrow. They're going to have a comment about it. They're going to belittle me. They're going to make me feel like shit,'" Langlitz said. "I felt so insanely guilty."
She texted as much to Mellencamp, who responded with a single objection, to Langlitz's use of the word "chastised."
The reliance on soup for dinner eventually sent one former client over the edge
Nicole, who asked that Insider not use her last name because she knows Mellencamp socially, signed up for the program in April, hoping to get in shape while stuck at home during the coronavirus outbreak, and lost 35 pounds. But she said she didn't find out exactly what she was going to be held accountable for — or how few calories she'd be allowed to eat — until after she'd wired the money.
"When you first reach out to them, you don't know what the meal plan is," Nicole said. "And then once you pay and you're committed, then they send you the meal plan, so then you can see exactly what you're eating." (A source close to the program disputed this, noting that they inform potential clients about the parameters of the program.)
She made it through the two-week "jumpstart" program and signed up for the monthly program open to All In clients who complete the first portion. She thought that since she had lost a significant amount of weight during the initial two weeks, the monthly program would be less restrictive and focused on maintaining her new body.
"I committed to doing the monthly because I kind of was like, surely I'm not going to be eating soup again for dinner, that was just the detox thing, and now it'll be incorporating some real food," Nicole said. "And then I got the meal plan after I paid, and I was like, oh my gosh, it's more soup for dinner."
Nicole said the only difference between the jumpstart program and the monthly program was the introduction of egg whites and Dave's Killer Bread for breakfast and 4 ounces of lean protein with lunch. But when her weight loss tapered off, her coach suggested she switch to broth.
It was the nonstop stream of soup that ultimately sent her over the edge, and after three months in the program, she quit for good.
"I have a 2-1/2-year-old son, and while I was doing this he was even catching on that I was eating soup for dinner every night. And before I even would make my dinner, he'd be like, 'Are you having soup again?'" Nicole said. "I was like, 'I can't eat this way. I need to eat a real meal with my son so he sees eating normal food is OK.'"
Moskovitz, the registered dietitian, said she thought All In's successes and failures could both be explained by Mellencamp's celebrity status.
"There's this allure of when you see things in the media, especially when you see things that are advertised and proselytized by these celebrities, there's that perception that it could provide you with a life or a lifestyle that is similar to this public figure," she said.
"They feel like they know them on some level, especially these reality-TV stars. We've watched them on TV, and you're in their personal lives — they let you into their lives," Moskovitz said. "And I do think that they take advantage of that in a way. And it really affects people's mental health when they feel kind of taken advantage of or something doesn't work out by these celebrities."
The problem with restrictive, one-size-fits-all diets like All In, Moskovitz said, is the serious ramifications of the lack of nutrients — damage that can be compounded by strict exercise requirements.
"There could be bone loss. There could be mood disruptions. There could be hormonal suppression. Gallstones can also occur from crash diets, which is definitely what I would consider this," she said, adding that the amount of exercise promoted with the program could also cause muscle-mass depletion.
"From the combination of calorie restriction and overexercising, your metabolism can truly suffer," she said, which can make it much easier to "gain that weight back, plus some."
Houlihan said she saw changes in her metabolism after she quit the program.
"I started seeing a nutritionist a couple months ago, and my metabolism was so ruined from the diet and the cardio," she said. Her resting metabolic rate, which measures how many calories you burn while at rest, was 1,000; most people come in at 1,500 to 2,000 calories per day.
Moskovitz described a "weight-loss trap" that could come with a calorie-restricted diet.
"When you're on a calorie-restricted diet, your metabolism will adapt to that new calorie intake, or adaptive thermogenesis, and it will decrease your resting energy expenditure or your basal metabolic rate, because it's trying to protect yourself," she said. "Restrictive weight-loss diets fail because it sets you up to do so. It puts you in a position to do so."
Enter Emily Gellis, the Instagram blogger who went viral in August over a different diet program
In September, the Deuxmoi account posted anonymous screenshots of Langlitz's messages with Mellencamp. They were picked up by Emily Gellis, an Instagram blogger who had gone viral in August with allegations against a diet program called F-Factor. (Tanya Zuckerbrot, F-Factor's founder, sued Gellis in October, accusing her of publishing "false, defamatory and harassing statements.") Gellis then posted additional anonymous accounts from Mellencamp's clients. But it soon spiraled into doxxing, allegations of publicity stunts, and general internet mayhem.
As Gellis shared the anonymous All In accounts on Instagram, she publicly argued with the writer Tracie Egan Morrissey* over proper credit for research into the story, and later accused Morrissey of leaking her phone number on Reddit.
(Morrissey denied the allegations, saying she'd never even used Reddit. Gellis, who initially directed Insider to her archived posts in response to a request for comment, later said the leak was engineered by an enemy of hers looking to frame Morrissey.)
The next day, Gellis posted a story accusing Mellencamp's husband, Edwin Arroyave, of doxxing her by publishing her phone number. Then she posted a video of herself calling him on speaker phone, with his phone number visible on the screen. Reached at the same number, Arroyave said anonymous calls had been steadily rolling in since Gellis posted her Instagram story.
"People don't say much. They literally just call, hang up, call, hang up," Arroyave told Insider. He also denied doxxing Gellis and said he thought someone might have gotten his number from his Facebook profile, where he had accidentally listed it publicly.
"The last thing I'm going to do is go out of my way to go find a girl that I don't even know and then give her number away," Arroyave told Insider. "There's no benefit for me to do that."
In late September, word came down from Bravo that Mellencamp would not be returning to "Real Housewives." Mellencamp confirmed the news on Instagram, saying she hadn't been asked back to the show.
"Of course, I could give you the standard response of, 'Oh, we both came to the decision that it would be best.' Nah, I'm not going to do that. That's not who I am," Mellencamp said, comparing the experience to a breakup.
Reps for both Mellencamp and Bravo said her dismissal from the show had nothing to do with the internet campaign against All In. But on September 23, the Bravo host Andy Cohen said he would have preferred to see her respond to the allegations on air.
"I will say that Jeff Lewis and team — I was tuning in the other day, and they were talking about it. I remember them saying this. They went through the All In program, and they did not have bad things to say about it. I think they said they were hungry, but he said that that program taught him how to order food in restaurants," Cohen said, referring to a 2018 episode of Lewis' now canceled show. (It's not clear when "Flipping Out" last aired, but TV listings show that it wasn't in the two weeks leading up to Cohen's statement.) Lewis and Gellis are now in contact and have declared themselves friends.
Bravo's relationship with Mellencamp's program appears to be murky
A source familiar with the network said that "Housewives" contracts typically require cast members to give up a piece of any business started on the show. (The practice is so common that stipulations preventing such a deal are referred to as the "Bethenny" clause, named after Bethany Frankel, the "Real Housewives of New York" star who sold her beverage company after building and promoting it on the show.)
But while the show has promoted the program, a Bravo representative said the network had no such financial relationship with Mellencamp. Evolution Media, the production company behind many of the "Housewives" shows, including "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," did not return a similar request for comment.
Still, some of Mellencamp's former clients said the network should bear some of the blame for giving her a platform.
"I think they do have some responsibility to say something, because they're kind of in business with her," Nicole said. "But, I mean, they cast people to cause drama, and what's happening? There's drama, and people are talking about it."
"I think it would just be nice if Teddi would speak out," Houlihan said. "I think just as much as she preaches transparency on the show, she should be transparent in her business and at least acknowledge that there are some people that she might have hurt, or acknowledge that maybe she wasn't qualified to be offering nutritional plans to the masses."
*Morrissey and the author are both former Gawker Media and Vice colleagues.
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