Inside Teddi Mellencamp’s Controversial Diet Program: A Cup Of Soup & 60 Minutes Of Cardio A Day

Throughout her time on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Teddi Mellencamp Arroyave has shared info about her personal journey with disordered eating and her accountability diet program, All In By Teddi. She's credited the program with her healthy lifestyle today. But now, some troubling issues regarding All In By Teddi have come to light.

All In By Teddi clients are coming forward anonymously, saying that the program and the coaching methods are triggering to those who experience disordered eating, and promote an unhealthy relationship with food and weight. These reports surfaced relatively recently. Here's everything we know so far.

Teddi Mellencamp rose to fame on Bravo's The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. She joined the cast in season 8, which aired in 2018. The 39-year-old is known as an accountability coach and fitness influencer, and her Instagram bio claims that she is a certified nutrition/wellness coach and trainer. Mellencamp also hosts the Teddi Tea Podcast.

The Real Housewives star is currently under fire because her diet program, All In By Teddi, is allegedly giving unethical and unsafe recommendations, according to anecdotal evidence.

All In By Teddi, which Bravo calls a multi-million dollar company, is Mellencamp's coaching and wellness business. According to their website, All In By Teddi is a three-part program. Each one provides "clean menus" for members to follow and a personal accountability coach who will communicate with you via text — in part to ensure members are sticking to the required 60 minutes of activity a day.

The first phase of All In By Teddi is a two-week jumpstart "designed to detoxify your body and reset your habits to a path of health and wellness." Next, a user graduates from the two-week jumpstart to the monthly program, which is "designed to continue the full accountability you crave but with a slightly more relaxed menu." The third step is to maintain accountability. "This step in the program is designed to solidify your commitment to health and wellness," the website reads. "With a simple daily check-in of weight and cardio, your coach is there for high-fives and helpful hands with a little daily accountability push, while you maintain the flexibility and freedom you’ve earned."

The program is not cheap. The two-week jumpstart costs $599, the monthly program comes to $399 per month, the weight and workout plan is $165 per month, and the maintenance plan totals $95 per month. They also offer a postpartum program that costs $525 per month. They do not offer refunds, and they "feel this policy gives clients a true level of accountability and motivation to go ALL IN."

All In By Teddi also has a workout video you can follow along with as well as a cookbook, journal, and in-person retreat opportunities — all available at an additional cost.

Emily Gellis — the same influencer who first aired out complaints about Tanya Zuckerbrot's company F-Factor — started getting DMs about Mellencamp's program and shared a 2019 article from Thought Catalog to her Instagram. It was titled, "For $600, Teddi Mellencamp Will Teach You How To Starve Yourself." The article was based on an anonymous account that was posted to Reddit about the diet. It claimed that the All In By Teddi user was consuming less than 500 calories per day.

Shortly after, Gellis began receiving more messages from people who'd paid for the diet plan. And she started sharing them, anonymously, on her own Instagram.

"I did this program and it was a nightmare," one anonymous person revealed to Gellis. "You have to send photos of your weight and each meal and proof of your 60 minute cardio workout everyday. You cannot drink alcohol or you are immediately dropped from the program with no refund. I calculated the calories to be 400-500 per day... I would text my accountability coaches that I was starving and they would just tell me to drink more water."

They also reveal that the program requires sharing pictures of all the food you eat and your scale each morning with your accountability coach, which could be triggering to someone who has experienced disordered eating. This was acknowledged by All In in a screenshotted email. One of the alleged "staples" of the program is having a cup of soup for dinner, containing little more than broth and veggies.

Another anonymous account revealed screenshots between the user and the accountability coach where they sent in a scale photo saying, "I didn't get around to cardio last night, I'm sorry, I had a paper due..." The coach replied, "You owe me the extra and if it happens again I have to let you go rules are rules."

According to Gellis and a few anonymous accounts, All In By Teddi users have to sign an NDA before starting the program. Both Gellis and the anonymous users have raised concerns about the credibility of Mellencamp and the All In By Teddi coaches. Currently, the website reads: "Our coaches do not carry any fitness, medical or health certifications. Each coach has completed the accountability program and lives this lifestyle." Mellencamp is allegedly an AFPA certified nutrition and wellness consultant along and an AFPA certified personal trainer, according to a reply she left on her own Instagram account.

It's not exactly clear, but the amount of calories you're allegedly restricted to eating is pretty alarming. Jessie Hoffman, PhD, RD, tweeted: "How about let’s NOT take diet advice from Real Housewives. A diet that prescribes <1000 calories, requires you to send updates after every meal, and encourages only broth soup for dinner everyday is probably the biggest red flag I’ve ever seen. Recipe for EDs."

Alexis Moore, MS, RD, echoed: "Let’s also not take ANY advice from Real Housewives."

MLM stand for multi-level marketing, and it's a business strategy some businesses implement "to encourage existing distributors to recruit new distributors who are paid a percentage of their recruits' sales," according to Investopedia. Many consider MLMs to be legal pyramid schemes.

The reason people are concerned about All In By Teddi being an MLM is because only those who have gone through the program themselves can be accountability coaches or trainers, which means they'd have to spend hundreds of dollars to receive this opportunity.

Mellencamp appears to have indirectly responded in a post on her personal Instagram page in a post from the afternoon of September 15, saying that she was proud of All In and her team. "I 100 percent feel confident in the fact that we let you know before signing up exactly what the program entails," she says "If it’s something that you want to do and you want us to hold you accountable to your goals, we are there to do that for you. If it’s not something you want to sign up for, you don’t."

She does not specifically address Gellis or the allegations, but she says she’s been transparent from the beginning. She doesn’t seem worried about the damage the current controversy might be doing to the program’s reputation: She ends the video by saying, "We know the best is yet to come."

In a statement to Today, Mellencamp said: "Our meal plan has evolved and our focus has always been clean whole foods. There are a variety of nutritional food options on our menu. Nowhere in our suggested meal plan does it mention a specific calorie count."

She also responded to the claims about only allowing clients to eat soup for dinner. "We have found soup to be easy to digest in the evenings, which is why a lighter meal such as soup, salads or veggie-prominent dinners are encouraged while on the program."