Horrible experience and a waste of time and money…read more
I do not recommend working with Amy Shapiro. I paid her $650 for the initial consultation plus 1 follow up. I was extremely disappointed and unhappy by the experience because I did not get what I paid for:
1. She promised accountability but did not deliver.
2. She does not seem to read, remember, or bother to refer to the personal information in the forms she makes you fill out, things like your food preferences etc.
3. She does not scientifically track progress or improvement.
I was hoping for a professional nutritionist who could help me with weight management with a focus on accountability and encouragement. Instead Amy was someone who simply sent me basic diet instructions through an app, and did not bother to follow up to see how I was doing. Unlike other nutritionists that I have worked with before, she did not bother to get my weight or my measurements, which was confusing, because how then was she going to track my progress or improvement?
To me a real nutritionist is someone who cares and follows up, and does her job to help me with my weight management, makes it easy for me to follow her instructions, and encourages me.
I first contacted Amy for her free 15 minute consultation. I told her that I really needed someone who would encourage me and keep me on track. She said yes, that accountability was an important part of working with her. From our phone conversation, I felt comfortable enough that I purchased the $650 package. It is extremely ironic that on her website she writes "Through personal counseling sessions and continued support we provide accountability and get results through science and strategy." In all our interactions there was no evidence of how she would "provide accountability and get results through science and strategy."
In the initial consultation, I went to meet her in person. It was at a co-working space in Soho. Before this in-person consultation, I had to complete a lot of forms asking about my goals, the foods I liked and didn't like, and a food journal covering recent days. I was surprised that when we met, she had not looked at my forms in advance, and we essentially spent the hour walking through everything I filled out.
After the session, she gave me the following instructions:
- Breakfast: Recommendations to add protein powder or chia seeds to my smoothies, switch to Ezekiel toast.
- Lunch and Dinner: She said what I doing was fine. Just eat smaller portions.
- She asked me to keep a food journal.
- When I followed up and asked for recipe recommendations, she did not bother to refer to the information I had already provided her and she asked me again about what foods I liked. Which shows that she does not put much effort or pay attention to what you say.
For $650, those seem like VERY basic instructions and an appallingly poor level of service.
Also, she makes it difficult for you to follow her instructions. All of these instructions came in text messages through her Healthie App, which is very hard to reference since it's not a PDF or something I can easily print out. If you need to look up a recipe from her, you literally have to open up the app and look through your chat history to find it. What's the point of an app if you're just sending someone text messages?
Given the price she charges, I was honestly expecting someone a lot more professional, who would provide information and recommendations in PDFs that could be easily printed out and referred to. Other nutritionists I've worked with in the past always provided that, to make it easy for their clients to follow and stick to.
Because of all this, I told her that I did not want to schedule my follow-up appointment. I expressed my disappointment and provided all the reasons above, especially the lack of accountability and personalization. She promptly refunded me $300 for the follow-up appointment, but refused to refund me $350 for the initial consultation. I think that's extremely unfair since she promised many things in our phone consultation but did not deliver after I paid her the $650. I honestly feel misled. She said that she needed to charge me the $350 for her time. Which was the time we walked through the forms I completed. I asked that if she was going to keep the $350 for the 60 minutes, could she explain what she did with the information we discussed? Since she didn't even remember basic things like the foods I liked and didn't like?
She has ghosted me since.
If you're ever unhappy with a service because you don't get what you paid for, they always make it right, be it a restaurant, hotel, store, and especially someone who is supposed to provide a personalized service, like weight management. Instead, despite the horrible experience, Amy refuses to make it right. I had high expectations and was initially excited to work with Amy, but this was a complete waste of money and time.