Danielle Armstrong hit back at Lucy Mecklenburgh for criticising her weight loss products in a rant shared to Instagram on Wednesday evening.
First-time parent Lucy, 29, took to her platform earlier in the day to slam influencers for promoting restrictive diets to new mums and shared a fan’s negative experience of using Herbalife Nutrition – a brand which her former TOWIE co-star, 32, endorses.
Following her post, Danielle urged the TV personality, who owns her own fitness brand Results Wellness Lifestyle, to ‘not damage and tarnish what I represent because you might have lose a few customers’.
The exercise enthusiast fought back tears as she defended her ‘community’ and explained that Danni’s Body Goals sells nutritional plans featuring shakes, live workouts, cook-alongs and motivational talks.
Danielle and Lucy have both been passionate about encouraging healthy lifestyles to fellow mothers on social media, after welcoming daughter Orla, nine months, and son Roman, 12 months, respectively.
‘It’s damaging!’ Danielle Armstrong hit back at Lucy Mecklenburgh for criticising her weight loss products in a rant shared to Instagram on Wednesday evening
In her original upload, the ‘upset’ model said: ‘Little morning rant here. It’s just quite worrying actually. I keep seeing on Instagram new mums promoting extreme restrictive diets.
‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand who’s advising them, suggesting this is a good idea? It really upsets me.
‘When you’ve just had a baby especially, you just grab whatever you can. For me, it was tea, toast and coffee. You know, Ryan [Thomas] was amazing, he’d make me some nice meals, but other days, it’s tea and toast, and that’s fine.’
The Tumble star went on to ask her followers about their experiences of taking diet products, with a social media user claiming Herbalife gave them ‘sore kidneys, shakes and tremors’, and left them ‘looking like s**t.’
Directly addressing Lucy’s posts, Danielle defiantly detailed the facts behind the weight management corporation.
The TV star said: ‘I just wanted to get on here to talk about something, it feels really weird doing this as I’ve never gotten into social media or Twitter war, but it’s just been brought to my attention.
‘I don’t actually follow Lucy Muck… but someone has contacted my agent asking for comment on Lucy Meck’s story where she is slamming ‘influencers’ for promoting shake diets to new mums.
‘Instead of going back to them, I thought I’d like to keep it real and say it here. Firstly I wanna say, I respect her opinion, but one thing I will say is that Lucy has a subscription to a fitness and meal plan.
Highlighting that their brands are similar, the blonde added: ‘A lot of the times when I see people ‘slam’ those meal shake products, the majority of the time, they are PTs or people that have subscriptions for online fitness platforms or a meal plan.
‘So one thing I want to say is guys please be mind – it has a massive impact, Lucy has millions of followers, I know what that can do, it’s damaging… it is… so be mindful that this is also a business for Lucy, it’s like Coca Cola slamming Pepsi.
‘We’re in the same industry… she just has it her way with workouts every single day and making nice presented food that I’m sure tastes amazing, but for me it’s about finding something that’s quick, convenient, high in nutrition and low in calories.
‘With shakes, protein pancakes, waffles, meal supplements and meal replacements, that’s what’s happening here.’
The influencer grew emotional as she touched on the importance of boosting her fans’ confidence effectively.
Danielle said: ‘I just wanna put a few facts right before I get on to the mum thing as whoever knows me, knows… I can actually get upset… knows much I want to help mums feel body confidence.
‘I’ve never once said ”as soon as you have a baby, let’s get you on a shake plan”. Of course not – I didn’t even do that! I waited eight or nine weeks before I did my first 21-day challenge.
‘I actually would love for Lucy and any other influencer/PT who is slating what I represent and Herbal Life nutrition to really have a look at what goes on in our challenge groups.
‘We do live workouts, cook-alongs with Wholefoods, motivational talks, meditation – there’s so much that we do!
‘It’s damaging when people like Lucy can say that these influencers promoting shake diets… yeah shake diets are bad, diet pills and juicing without any whole foods [are bad too] – we don’t promote that!’
The Full Monty star also shared Herbalife’s success in the last year as she continued to insist that its products are safe to use.
She elaborated: ‘We promote helping you get into calorie deficit, that is what you want to do to lose weight, in a healthy with balanced food but in forms of low calories.
‘Let’s just say my shake this morning had everything that the body requires, then I’d have a mid-morning protein snack, then I’d have a healthy lunch, then protein snack in the afternoon and a healthy balanced evening meal.
Stunning: Danielle looked sensational as she showcased her incredible transformation in black underwear in a post she shared on Instagram (pictured right pregnant)
‘I don’t know what more I can do… for anyone who is going to continue to slate HerbalLife nutrition products… I know Lucy said someone ended up in A.E. And if that’s the case, I’m telling you, that wouldn’t be down to HerbalLife nutrition.
‘Last year, the company turned over five billion in net sales, last year turn over was 8.9 billion.
‘If all these bad things were happening, I would not be taking these products, my mum, I would not encourage my followers to, we would not have done 5.5 billion in sales, they’d be a hell of a lot of sick people in the world.
‘We’re regulated in over 96 countries, we’ve been around for over 40 years. Our ambassador, Cristiano Ronaldo, he wouldn’t be affiliated with a company like that. I’ve had to set the record straight as enough is enough now.’
The mum-of-one ended her lengthy video by encouraging other health specialists to explore Herbalife before commenting on its stock.
Dnaielle said: ‘I’d encourage any influencer or PT, Lucy, who wants to check out our products, to take them to a nutritionist. I did that when I first tried out these products. Come and see what we do in our community.
‘There is nothing wrong with doing it my way, what you guys do is absolutely fine, but please do not tarnish what I do or represent and absolutely love doing, because you might have lost a few customers yourself!
Impressive: Lucy shed a whopping four stone after welcoming her son Roman last March (pictured left last July, right earlier that year)
‘Anyway, sorry to have a rant, everyone is going to have their opinions! I’m open to anyone’s opinion, but I had to get on here as I’m proud of helping thousands of people all over the world over the four years.
‘Let’s all be kind to each other and help each other’s businesses instead of putting it down.’
MailOnline has contacted Lucy’s representatives for further comment.