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Weight loss plan lacks body

Jillian Michaels Slim-Down Solution - Diet, Fitness, Exercise Advice US$1.99 Rating 5/10

Jillian Michaels has been a powerful presence on the United States reality television show The Biggest Loser. With her mix of tough love and grit, she has successfully driven the black team to win more often than not at the weekly weigh-ins. Now you can buy the app and see if the Michaels' magic works for you.

At US$1.99 you might consider this a good deal, but after logging in, you'll realise that to truly get whatever benefit there may be, you'll need to sign up for a weekly US$3.99 subscription plan. With this, you are promised personalised fitness with exercises and workouts based on your body type, a customised meal plan, membership to JillianMichaels.com, plus other things.

So you sign up and follow the five steps to customise your plan, where you select your fitness level, basic personal statistics and weight goal. Then you choose which two days you will take off, your metabolic type - I randomly selected 'fast oxidiser', whatever that is - and daily calorie goal from a choice of three bands.

You then have access on your iPhone to a daily fitness and meal plan. The meals are creative but probably not practical for those whose families are not on the same diet or who don't have the advantage of a private chef.

Similarly, the exercise plan looks good, with individual videos for each exercise, and Michaels does a good job of explaining how to get the most out of a particular routine. But the videos do not run as a single sequence.

As a subscriber, I also have access to the online community, where many of my reservations about the app are voiced by others. Why is there no meal or exercise tracking function on the app itself? Can I just eat the same food for a whole week for convenience and economy? Perhaps the answer is that flexibility is not allowed.

I do agree with Michaels' weight-loss philosophy: there is no magic involved; it's just a sum of calories; you must burn more than you consume. But the app is disappointing. Try any of the free weight-loss communities first.

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