What is Jenny Craig Diet?

Losing weight is as simple as managing calories, fat and portions on Jenny Craig. Jenny’s prepackaged meals and recipes do all three, plus emphasize healthy eating, an active lifestyle and behavior modification. Personal consultants guide members through their journeys from day one. You’ll gain support and motivation, and learn how much you should be eating, what a balanced meal looks like and how to use that knowledge to achieve weight maintenance. By following the plan, you’re expected to drop up to 2 pounds a week.

Jenny Craig offers three programs: its standard “Classic” program, Rapid Results and Jenny Craig for Type 2, which is designed for people with Type 2 diabetes by including a lower-carb menu, reinforcement of self-monitoring of blood sugar levels, consistent meals and snacks, and other self-management strategies for weight loss and support for diabetes control. Jenny Craig’s DNA Decoder Plan, which will match members’ genetic markers to their optimal nutritional program and action plan, will be launched in late November 2019.

Pros & Cons

How does Jenny Craig Diet work?

To get started on Jenny Craig, you’ll just need to sign up and walk through your individual plan. For the first half of your weight loss program, you eat three prepackaged Jenny meals and one snack a day – options like cinnamon rolls and homestyle beef pot roast – in addition to five servings of fresh fruits and vegetables and at least two nonfat dairy product equivalents.

You’ll get a personalized meal and exercise plan, plus weekly one-on-one counseling sessions with a Jenny Craig consultant. Note: These are not nutrition professionals – anyone who is “health-oriented and customer-focused” can attend a training course and get certified – but they’re trained in the basics of nutrition, exercise and behavior modification through a curriculum developed by registered dietitians in consultation with a science advisory board. Many consultants are former Jenny Craig members. Your diet, which ranges from 1,200 to 2,300 calories a day, is designed around your current weight, age, gender, height, goal weight and fitness habits.

The diet lasts as long as you need it to, be it three months or two years. Once you’re halfway to your goal weight, the Jenny Craig consultant begins working with you to cook some meals for yourself again, using Jenny’s recipes and low-fat food prep strategies. After reaching your goal weight, you’ll spend four weeks transitioning back to making only your own meals, while adjusting to a slightly higher number of daily calories. In monthly consultations, you learn weight regain prevention strategies such as nutritional label reading, exercise and stress management.

One-on-one support plays a big role, although Jenny participants don’t get together for group meetings, which is a part of some commercial diets. Instead, you’ll typically talk with your personal consultant once a week, either in person at a center or through the Jenny Craig Anywhere program, which offers consultations by phone or via video chat. No matter how you connect with your consultant, you’ll discuss how well you did the previous week, and whether you had trouble sticking to the plan. You’ll also choose the next week’s meals and order your food. On-the-go members who opt for “Jenny Craig Anywhere” have access to the same meals as those who pick up their meals in a center.

In 2018, Jenny Craig launched its Rapid Results plan, which is based on science involving the body clock’s circadian rhythms. The difference is in the timing – you eat during a 12-hour nourishment period, then take a break for a 12-hour rejuvenation period (which includes sleep).

Link to Jenny Craig Diet website: https://community.jennycraig.com/