The problem that we see with Jenny Craig is not whether you would or would not lose weight. You can lose weight with this program. Especially if you are the kind of person that needs lots of support and people to talk to about your weight loss efforts, this program could help keep you motivated. 

The problems with this program are threefold, in our view. The first issue is cost.  The more weight you have to lose, the more it is going to cost you, both for continuing your membership, and for purchasing the special foods and nutritional supplements that Jenny Craig wants you to use.  This can get very, very expensive.

The second problem is worse. It’s the food they want you to buy. You are asked to eat their food until you lose your weight, and that can be a long time. But their prepackaged meals are not very healthful. Many of Jenny Craig’s foods are not much better than the junk food most Americans already live on. Meals average about 20% of calories from fat, but some of their foods are much worse, approaching 35%. Their foods are overprocessed, not particularly natural. Basically, they’re selling TV dinners.

Another problem with their food is the very fact that you are asked to live on it for a long, long time. Who can keep that up for that long?  Plus, unless you live alone, you are probably responsible for feeding more than just yourself.  You certainly would not expect to feed your family Jenny Craig meals, as the cost would be prohibitive (and it probably wouldn’t go over too well with the kids, either).  So, this plan requires you to prepare their Jenny Craig meals for yourself, and then cook separate meals for your family. 

All this gets back to what you should and shouldn’t do to lose weight healthfully and for the long term. Eating prepackaged TV dinners, “diet” or not, does nothing to change your life, except in the short term. When you go back to eating regularly, can you guess what’s going to happen to your weight?  You got it… it’s all going to come back!  Maybe more.  And why shouldn’t it?  When you go back to the way you used to eat, you will also go back to the weight you used to weigh – it’s simple logic..

You need a plan that instructs you on how to eat real, regular food. And on how to live your life so the weight comes off naturally, and then stays off.  And unless you are willing to eat Jenny’s TV dinners for the rest of your life, you are not going to be able to keep the weight off, even if you do succeed in taking it off in the first place.

The same logic applies to the support network they provide (at a high cost, of course). What will happen when you finally leave the program? When the network is gone. How many people are still going to be able to motivate themselves not to slip back into their old routines, the ones that caused them to gain weight in the first place?

Jenny Craig is, in our view, another short-term solution. An expensive one. You can spend a lot less and get a lot more benefit elsewhere.