Le-Vel Thrive turned the health and wellness industry on its head, but what exactly is it all about?
I’ll admit it: Diets really don’t work for me.
Let me explain. I’ve never been huge. In fact, at 5”2’, you could call me petite. And throughout most of my formative years and into early adulthood, I had the kind of waistline you might expect from someone who has to grab a step stool to reach the really good snacks on the pantry top shelf. I still enjoyed those snacks. Frequently. Along with my Chick-Fil-A nuggets and Starbucks caramel frappuccinos. In other words, I ate what I wanted to, and never really had to worry about the consequences.
Until I had my first baby.
I’m not sure what it was, but something about the miracle of creating a new human being threw my body out of whack. My trim waist turned into a muffin top and my neck started doing its best impression of Jabba the Hutt. So, I embraced dieting. And then I embraced it again. And again. And again…
Long story short, whether I was eating like a stone-age hunter or a greek fisherman, the pounds I lost never seemed to take the hint. They’d come back, I’d get discouraged and give up, and a few months later I’d try the next new thing. And then I stumbled onto Le-Vel Thrive.
What is ‘Thrive’?
I said that diets don’t work for me, and I stand by that. In fact, what first got me interested in Le-Vel was that it really wasn’t a diet at all. Let me explain:
Le-Vel is a health-and-wellness company that got its start back in 2012. The fact that we’re even bothering to talk about it nine years later should tell you something about how successful it was, but it’s probably worth mentioning that they managed to generate 2 billion dollars in sales by 2019. That’s a lot of sales, so what exactly are they selling?
Le-Vel’s product focus is primarily on their Le-Vel Thrive Experience. What’s Thrive? Well, as I said, it’s not really a diet; it’s more of a lifestyle plan that includes nutritional supplements. These supplements are designed to fill in the nutritional gaps most of us aren’t even aware that we’re missing out on — vitamins, amino acids, probiotics, and other things we need, but probably aren’t getting enough of.
But what really sets Le-Vel Thrive apart is the form these nutrients take.
Thriving in Three Steps
The Thrive Experience is broken down into three steps:
- Premium Lifestyle Capsules
- Ultramicronised Shake Mix
- Lifestyle DFT with Fusion 2.0 Technology
Those names are kind of a mouthful, but basically the idea is that you take a couple of Thrive capsules first thing in the morning and then chase them with a Thrive Shake. Later in the day, you place the DFT on a clean, lean area of skin. The DFT remains effective for about 24 hours, so the next morning you start the routine again.
What is Thrive DFT? In case the term ‘Lifestyle DFT with Fusion 2.0 Technology’ has you scratching your head, I’ll explain a little bit more about this particular advancement. DFT stands for Derma Fusion Technology. It’s designed to infuse the skin with a unique formula over an extended period of time. This allows users to enjoy improved bioavailability, absorption, and nutritional support throughout the day.
Also, it’s worth noting that the ingredients in the three products are completely natural; there’s no chemical cocktail in the Thrive experience doing strange things to your body, and there are no documented negative side effects.
Working in tandem, these three products help ensure that you have what you need to get through your day. In terms of what I could and couldn’t eat, Le-Vel pretty much left all of that up to me. Instead of providing a list of dos and don’ts, it simply supplied the essential nutrients and let my body figure out the rest. Does that mean I could take Thrive products and then go binge on fast food? No, what it means is that with the right nutrition in my system, I had no desire to binge fast food. And by supplementing those products with a custom fitness plan, I found that all of that essential nutrition was exactly what I needed to not only lose some weight, but also improve my health.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I ever slapped on my first DFT, I wanted to see what actual people were saying.
Le-Vel Thrive reviews
Of course, when I was first researching Le-Vel Thrive, reviews were where I focused most of my efforts. What did users have to say? What kind of experience could I expect?
Interestingly enough, most of the reviews I found were extremely positive. Of course all of the testimonials featured on the Le-Vel site were absolutely glowing (no real surprise there; a business would have to be pretty clueless to include anything other than endorsements on their own site), but that positivity also endured across social media and non-Thrive review sites. Even the Better Business Bureau (BBB) – you know, the place where unhappy customers love to go to vent – showed an above-average number of positive reviews for Le-Vel, along with an A+ rating. In fact, my trip through the BBB page showed me two things: First, most of the Le-Vel Thrive complaints had to do with little mix-ups associated with ordering, rather than actual issues with the products. And second, Le-Vel goes out of it’s way to identify and resolve these problems.
So, everything looked pretty good. I had found a diet that wasn’t really a diet, and I was ready to put my money (and some capsules and shakes) where my mouth is. And let me tell you about how it went down.
My Thrive experience
Le-Vel Thrive offers a two-week, four-week, and eight-week experience. I wanted to get a feel for what I was getting into, so I started small. And I flubbed it.
My first week of Thrive was really hit and miss. I’d forget to take my capsules in the morning or I’d end up leaving the DFT on too long. I wasn’t exactly following Le-Vel best practices, and I felt a little guilty knowing that I wasn’t giving the experience a fair chance. But you know what? I started seeing results anyway.
Let me be clear: I didn’t wake up after a week looking like my old high-school self. But I did start feeling like my old high-school self; I was energised, my head was clearer, and I discovered that some of the aches and pains that I’d just sort of learned to live with were starting to fade. I felt good. In fact, I felt better than I had in a really long time.
I redoubled my determination. I started keeping the capsule on my nightstand next to a bottle of water (I originally went with a glass of water, but one badly aimed jab at the alarm clock made me rethink that strategy). I made DFT application as much a part of my daily routine as brushing my teeth. I set aside time to walk every morning, and then transitioned that into a brisk daily jog. And yes, after two weeks, I had not only lost a few pounds, but I had also put in my next order, upgrading to the four-week experience.
I realise that my experience isn’t going to convince everyone. And honestly, there’s no guarantee that others would see the same results – we’ve all got different body chemistry, after all. I just wanted to let you know that, as someone who’s never really been able to make diets work, Thrive managed to get me feeling and looking better than I have in years. And in the end, that’s really the most important thing to know about the Thrive Lifestyle.
James Wallace has been an advocate for mental health awareness for years. He holds a master’s degree in counselling from the University of Edinburgh.
