If you’ve seen the name Trilivy pop up on social media lately, don’t worry. You’re not missing out on anything new. Trilivy is just a rebranded version of the Optavia program reviewed here.
Before Optavia, the company was Medifast. Both brands were focused on one thing: rapid and significant weight loss due to a dramatic (for the majority of people) unsustainable calorie deficit. I have had quite a few former Optavia users come to me for weight loss, and I can confidently say that the negative physical and mental effects of this program have affected each and every one of them.
You can’t base your diet on eating small amounts of unpalatable, nonperishable foods and expect to learn and maintain healthy habits over the long term. Optavia also utilized “coaches” to guide users through the program. The coaches were simply people who went through the program. Because they lacked training in basic physiology, nutrition, and behavior modification, they were completely unqualified to help anyone with nutrition.
But is Trilivy actually a new program or just another version of Optavia with new marketing included? Let’s take a look.
What is Trilivi?
Unlike Optavia, which was a full-fledged weight loss program, Trilivy is marketed as a “metabolic health” program. Marketing abounds with vague wellness buzzwords like reversing metabolic dysfunction, resetting your metabolism, increasing metabolic flexibility, and extending your healthy lifespan.
Trilivy is a three-step commercial nutrition program. In the first two steps, Trilivy is primarily based on packaged, pre-portioned meals called “refuels.” Each refueling has a calorie range of 100-110. How much fuel you can fuel in a day depends on what step you are on and your calorie needs as determined by Trilivy.
Trilivy offers plans similar to Optavia, including 5 & 1 and 4 & 2. For example, 5 & 1 means 5 “Nourishing” meals and 1 “Lean Green” meal.
Trilivy’s three steps are not a new format. They adopted Optavia’s three-tiered structure and rebranded it.
Step 1 is a reset. This is the same as Optavia’s 5 and 1 programs. It’s based on 5 Reset Fuelings and 1 “Lean Green” meal, delivering 800-1000 calories per day. The client continues this step until they reach their goal weight, which may take a long time. This is a red flag. Literally fasting to lose weight doesn’t work in the long run. It can lead to a variety of problems, including nutritional deficiencies, gallstones, low mood, and lack of sleep. While there are certainly people who go on these types of diets, they are short-term for a specific purpose and require close monitoring by a doctor. This is not the case.
The second step, Refine, is two refuels and two Lean and Green+ meals, which are less restrictive than regular Lean and Green meals. Calorie budgets vary, but keep in mind that half of your intake in this step is based on prepackaged foods. Refine was similar to the transition phase of Optavia, lasting three weeks and gradually increasing calories from about 900 kcal to 1,200 kcal per day. Trilivy’s Refine phase appears to serve the same purpose, although the company no longer publicly specifies a fixed three-week period or standard calorie targets, instead stating that intake will be individualized according to total energy expenditure.
“Renewal” is similar to a maintenance step and is mostly whole foods focused on behavioral change. Again, everyone’s calorie budget is different. You will be using Renew forever.
Trilivi refueling.
Trilivy/Optavia fuel is notorious for being small, expensive, and tasteless. The only thing that has changed between programs is that Trilivy’s fuel contains the proprietary “MetaVantage Technology,” a combination of postbiotics, chromium, and choline. The company claims that these ingredients support metabolism and insulin function, but there is no actual research on the product to back that up. Many weight loss supplements contain these ingredients, but when it comes to their role in health and weight loss, the evidence is unremarkable at best. And no matter how you slice it, fuel is ultra-processed food. Even if you are “allowed” to refuel 5 times a day, that’s only about 500 calories.
Trilivi research?
The research Trilivy uses to support its claims is exactly the same as a 2018 paper used by Optavia for the same purpose. (PMID: 30820327). This is a 16-week trial comparing Optavia nutritional supplementation and telephone-based nutritional coaching to the low-calorie Medifast diet and a voluntary low-calorie diet. The voluntary group was considered the control group. A total of 198 participants, 80% of whom were female, had an average BMI of 34.
Of course, the Optavia and Medifast groups lost significantly more weight over 16 weeks. Because as a nutritionist, these meals are what I consider to be VLCDs, or very low calorie diets.
The Optavia group consumed 800 to 1000 calories per day.
The Medifast group consumed 1100-1300 calories per day.
What did the voluntary groups get? Using the USDA Body Weight Calculator, researchers gave each participant a calorie budget with the goal of achieving a 7% weight loss over 16 weeks. I wanted to see how this stacked up compared to other groups, so in addition to the 7% goal, I used the average age, height (values not given, but calculated using average BMI), and starting weight (224 pounds) of all participants in the tool to see the results.
2068 calories per day. That’s the answer.
Who do you think will lose more weight: the group that eats less than 1300 calories per day or the group that eats 2068 calories per day?
I can see where this is going. The research was garbage. Yes, the company promotes it every chance they get, but they’re probably counting on the fact that most people won’t read it or realize how bad it is.
Is Trilibee an MLM?
Yes, Trilivy is sold on a multi-level marketing model. If you’re curious about how I feel about MLMs, read what I wrote about them here.
Who is Trilivi’s coach?
90% of Trilivy coaches are former Optavia/Trilivy users. I’ve used a lawyer before, does that mean I’m qualified to represent someone in court? Of course not. And simply taking a program in no way qualifies you for weight loss or health counseling. In fact, dealing with the complex physical and emotional issues that clients may experience when trying to lose weight or change their diet is well beyond the scope of the layman.
What’s particularly frustrating is that some coaches call themselves “metabolic reset coaches.” What is it? Check out this post by coach Trilivy.
If you follow the link on that person’s profile, you’ll be taken to the “My Metabolic Scan” test, which is supposed to give you some insight into your metabolic health. Except it doesn’t do that at all. This test is unverified and unbranded, but is Trilivy’s unmarked sales and marketing tool intended to capture contact information. It’s despicable.
Also, why do so many nutrition MLM coaches feel the need to hide the fact that they are selling a product, at least in their social posts? Do they think they need to trick people into engaging 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 is not equivalent to an accredited medical education or professional license. Rather than providing personalized medical nutrition therapy, we simply prepare coaches to deliver the program. But you know that your clients are looking for more than just program delivery. As a result, coaches are placed in a highly unstable and highly responsible situation.
But that’s not all. Coach actually sells products as well. This is undoubtedly a conflict of interest.
Why did Optavia rebrand to Trilivy?
There are several possible reasons why the company might change its brand. First, it’s clear that Optavia had a lot of reputational baggage. U.S. News and World Report gave Optavia 2.8 stars out of 5 in its ranking of diets. Reviews on Reddit, Trustpilot, and across social media are also poor, with cost, hunger, reliance on ultra-processed fuels, and unsustainability of the program often cited.
The landscape of eating habits has also changed. Due to the popularity of GLP-1 drugs, commercial diet companies have to fight hard for all their customers, especially if they do not offer drugs. Perhaps the rebranding is aimed at attracting unsuspecting buyers who would otherwise reject the Optavia program due to its bad reputation.
Is Trilivi worth a try?
In my opinion, absolutely not.
Any program that cuts calories this drastically for any reason is not sustainable or evidence-based. Yes, you will lose weight and your metabolic markers will likely improve. But at any stage, if you get tired of eating astronaut food and following the rules of the program, it won’t last long.
The use of the same badly conducted research studies over and over again shows that this program and its predecessors do not have much to offer in terms of evidence of its effectiveness. I find it offensive that they mislead potential customers with this “research”.
Eating prepackaged food does not teach you how to self-care. The same goes for coaches who are completely unqualified to give nutritional advice.
Even with a new focus on metabolic health, Trilivy doesn’t seem to be better than Optavia. At its core, Trilibee seems like just another restrictive and expensive weight loss diet.
