Quick, Satisfying Weight Loss That Leads to Permanent Weight Loss: Try Jenny Craig
Every time we turn around, there’s another weight-loss program out there that promises to make you drop 10 pounds in 48 hours. Low-carb, no carb, low fat, no fat, no meat, and on and on and on. However, there is no real magic to losing weight. Simply, to get and keep weight off, you have to ingest a sensible amount of calories (neither too many nor too few) and a balanced amount of carbohydrates, fat and protein so that you can get and keep weight off sensibly.
Simply, fad diets just don’t work. They come and go precisely because they don’t. However, they do pique dieters’ interest because absolutely, they do usually make you drop a lot of weight very fast in the beginning, but because they’re unbalanced, you gain it right back. Simply, you can’t sustain what a fad diet wants to make you do. It’s just not healthy. The only way, again, to getting and keeping weight off is to do so sensibly with a weight loss and maintenance program that keeps health as its first priority.
Now, you can construct your own healthy weight loss program, perhaps hiring a nutritionist to help you do so. Any sensible program is going to help you lose weight and keep it off, comfortably, without starving. However, if you don’t have the time or inclination to construct your own program, it’s not going to work, and pretty soon you’re going to go back to old eating habits, only to keep packing on the pounds.
Jenny Craig can help you fix that. No “new kid on the block,” in fact, Jenny Craig has been around for 25 years. The program works because it gives you a carefully constructed meal plan that you fresh fruits and vegetables and low-fat dairy to. The meals are prepackaged, so there’s no thought given to it, and it appeals to the “quick grabbers” in all of us. There’s no thinking with this meal plan. You simply grab your meals and go. In fact, that element is one of the biggest reasons Jenny Craig is so successful. It gives dieters the convenience they want, but it does so with healthy meals are carefully constructed and prepackaged so that dieters don’t have to think about what they’re eating.
Now, of course, that’s a drawback, too, because eventually, even the laziest of dieters are going to have to learn what “good nutrition” means. And that means, they’ll have to learn how to cook with nutritious foods and ingredients, and learn proper portion sizes. But the good thing about Jenny Craig is that this “grab and go” focus on prepackaged meals is relatively short term. While the meals themselves give dieters a jump-start on their weight-loss program, and also serve as models to what healthy meal contents and portion sizes look like, dieters are also meeting with counselors to learn how to plan and cook their own healthy meals and dish out their own healthy portion sizes.
And if there are any disadvantages to this program, it’s that it’s relatively expensive. You’re going to pay between $10 and $15 a day for the prepackaged meals, plus any extra expense for your own dairy and fresh fruits and vegetables. The other thing is, this program is not meant to be a permanent solution. It’s just meant to get you started on healthy eating habits and give you the knowledge you need to continue with your own weight maintenance once you’ve reached your goal weight, with your own healthy cooking and portion control.
But if you think $10-$15 a day sounds like a lot, let’s take a moment to think about that. How much do you REALLY spend on food every day, counting fast food grabs, junk food grabs, donuts at the office, etc.? If it’s around $600 a month, then Jenny Craig (including the extra fruit, vegetable and dairy purchases) is going to be no more expensive. And then, there’s also the indirect expense of being unhealthy and overweight, which can have long-term and expensive medical consequences. Losing that weight with Jenny Craig is certainly going to save you money over the long haul.
So what’s the consensus? Jenny Craig, like any weight-loss program, is really meant to be a temporary tool and not a permanent solution. However, it can teach you how to cook and eat properly, and give you a jump-start on weight loss, so that you lose weight slowly and healthfully — no crash diets, fad diets, or deprivation. It’s solidly and nutritionally based, and there are 25 years of success behind it. It’s not perfect, certainly, but it can certainly give you a good start toward your goal weight that may be just the momentum you need. Whether or not it’s the right program for you is entirely your decision.
