Jenny Craig® Offers Pricey Food, OK Tapes & Great Cookbooks
Jul 22 '02 (Updated Jul 23 '02)
The Bottom Line Jenny Craig offers a plethora of pre-packaged foods, a handful of audio and video tapes, and some very high quality low-fat cookbooks. Foods are over-priced, and desserts are most palatable.
A long time ago, many pounds ago, this new nursing school graduate worked as a Weight Loss Center Counselor/Nurse in a now-defunct program called Good Health. We did a weekly weigh-in, took measurements and set client weight loss goals and sold a lot of expensive food in little cans and cannisters.
Today, you can buy weight loss food in your local supermarket's freezer section, from drug stores and warehouse shopping aisles, on-line and in traditional strip mall walk-in joints such as Jenny Craig Weight Loss Centres.
The Jenny Craig Brand is associated with frozen meals and boil-in bag meals, in little packets, 4 ounce cans and even tubes. You'll find breakfast lunch and dinner entrees and snacks, as well as food supplements and associated Program materials.
There are Standard, Chocolate Lover and Vegetarian, (Ovo Lacto) Menus to choose from, all bearing the JC brand, and some of the offerings include:
French Toast/ Banana Nut Muffin/ Blueberry Waffle
Pancakes/ Triple Grain Crisps/ Oatmeal with Raisins/
Pan Pizza/ Chicken Pasta Parmesan/ Fish and Chips/
Chili Con Carne/ Cheese Curls/ Italian Style Tomato
Soup/ Chicken Fettucini/ Veggie Burger (soy-based)/
Broccoli Potato/ Carrot Cake/ Mocha Java Cheesecake/
Hearty Beef and Vegetables/ Bean With Ham and Bacon/
Beef Sirloin Bowl/ Chicken in Plum Sauce/ Choco Chews/
Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake
The JC Brand diets focus on daily menus between 1,000 and 2,300 KCal per day, and a weekly weight loss goal of 1 to 2 pounds per week. Other products in the Jenny Craig brand program include a set of 2 audio walking tapes, 2 exercise videos with resistance toning tube, (looks like a trendy inner tube someone cut in half), motivational tapes, and a variety of books on success stories, motivation, low fat cooking and portion control.
There are various levels in the Jenny Craig brand program, which is under the umbrella of Ultimate Choice™. You can take your choice of the In-Centre counseling and menu selection or Jenny Direct, which provides a 1-800 number more anonymous "personal" (oxymoron?) counseling, and your menu choices may be made on-line or faxed in.
There are various membership levels including Platinum, ($340 suggested), which offers the highest level of support, discounts for family members, a Phase I, Phase II, (halfway to weight loss goal) and Maintenance Program, plus Weight Loss Success manual and Audio Walking Program tapes.
The basic Gold level membership, ($199 suggested, various in-house discounts available), focuses more on getting to your weight loss goal, and forget about keeping the weight off.
For those not sure whether to shell out this kind of investment, Trial Memberships and the popular Pay-By-The-Pound promotions, (e.g. $10 for 10 pounds), would be a better bet. Just be warned, the JC brand programs all require you to purchase the prepackaged foods, and at an average of $300-350 per month, this still is no bargain.
Jenny Craig brand can be found on nutritional bars made to compete with the current crop of soy-based energy snacks on the market. The Jenny Craig brand touts the lowfat food pyramid model of weigh control: 60% carbohydrate, 20% fat and 20% protein, and the menus and prepackaged products use a Weight Watcher's style ADA exchange program.
The exchange program counts fruits, vegetables, starches, grains, very lean meats, lean meats, moderately fat meats, dairy and fats. Both the Jenny Craig brand foods and cookbook recipes provide information on per portion exchanges, such as 2 lean meat, 1 starch, 1 dairy.
Purchasing the JC brand foods through the Program Centres is obviously pushed, making these brand products more akin to Nutri-System Weight Loss Program than the aforementioned Weight Watchers. Few of the branded products, other than books and tapes, are available outside these centers, and as such, the program food will run an average of $80 per week, in addition to supplemental fresh fruits and vegetables your diet will require.
I prefer purchasing my program food through a local supermarket, where competitive pricing and sales can net some excellent prices on brands as good as Jenny Craig, (WW), or better, (Lean Cuisine and my personal favorite, Healthy Choice). This way, I can save as much as 50% ($28) over the cost of 14 lunch and dinner entrees, as well as have often, tastier meals, just as well balanced and low fat.
Of all the Jenny Craig brand products, I would recommend the cookbooks, especially the Fast and Fresh Cookbook or the dinner-time helper, 30 Meals in 30 minutes. Spending almost $2 for 4 ounces of chili or 10 ounces of prepared soup, is beyond my budget and common sense, and is a hefty price to "subsidize" the canned motivational center patter dispensed by size 5 teens during weekly weigh-ins.
Given my druthers, I'd take all the cheesecakes, the Choco Chews and Cheese Kurls, a la carte and probably eat those in addition to my regular, daily diet. Sigh. And for motivational, well-balanced group programs, I'm sold on exactly 2: Weight Watchers time-proven program and the reasonable and individualized on-line eDiets deal ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(And when I hear that JC brands has its own prepackaged foods cookbook, I wish I would have copywrited the 100 or so Good Health foods recipes I concocted way back when, (1983 actually). When I'd take that little 4 ounce can of Chili Con Carne and lead the hungry dieters through my own renditions of low fat tosadas, Chili Cheese Dip and the like, or turn that flatulent sorbitol Chocolate Shake Mix or pudding cups into low cal trifles and much, much more!)
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
kcfoxy
|
 - Top 200 |
|
Member: Casey Stewart
Location: West Coast Of Mars
Reviews written: 935
Trusted by: 643 members
About Me:
Save the Earth...it's the only planet with Chocolate!
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.