Since I wrote that I had started the Weight Watchers at Work program while continuing Jenny Craig, I’ve had a few people ask the obvious: Why both?
Each has positive points, so I thought today I’d do a quick comparison of the two plans. Since I’ve done both plans several times, I feel thoroughly qualified to give this layman’s viewpoint.
The best way to judge which weight-loss plan is right for you can be pinpointed with one word: willpower.
When God was passing out willpower, I was evidently standing in the music appreciation line. I recognize my lack of willpower is a shortcoming; it always has been and most likely always will be a battle for me.
That’s why I like Jenny Craig – it’s the great enabler. Its prepackaged meals keep me in line when I would normally be ransacking kitchen cabinets looking for something to quickly satisfy my hunger when I come in from work or have TV-watching munchies.
When I walk in the door from work at night, I’m tired. I don’t want to start cooking. I don’t want to measure and figure points. I want to eat. Now.
With Jenny, I can immediately pop a dinner in the microwave to nuke while I fix a salad, and dinner is ready in five minutes or less.
Without Jenny, I’m standing there with some type of snack in my hands, staring into cabinets wondering what’s for dinner.
Jenny Craig has a life membership sign-up of $399 for newcomers, but if you’re recruited by a friend already on the plan the price drops to $199.50 According to my Jenny counselor, some health insurance plans will even help pay 20 percent of the program.
But Jenny also offers great try-me specials every six weeks or so, such as six weeks for $36, or 20 pounds for $20. I first signed up under one of these specials thinking six weeks would be long enough.
After I had re-upped multiple times, I realized I would have come out much better just to take the original friends deal.
Of course, these sign-up fees are on top of the weekly food you buy from Jenny. On a good week, I get out for $69 or less; if I bought everything they recommended it would easily pass $150 a week (in addition to milk, salad greens and other staples I still have to get at Bi-Lo).
After two weeks on Jenny, I’d figured out which foods I liked and which I couldn’t tolerate. The latter included all but one of the lunches, so I subbed Lean Cuisine meals for Jenny lunches, which cut my Jenny grocery bill by a third.
A newcomer to Weight Watchers signs up for 11 weeks for $110. Weight Watchers is currently running a special offer through Saturday: $39.95 for your first month and get a second month free.
Since we have Weight Watchers at work, it costs us $60 for 12 weeks. The cost of weekly groceries is on top of that. You don’t have to buy any WW foods, or weight-loss gadgets, although they are available.
On Jenny’s plan, you eat six small meals throughout the day to meet a calorie-intake level your counselor determines at your sign-up. At each weigh-in, you receive a printed weekly program that just requires filling in the blanks with which Jenny meal you used that day.
On WW, a formula based on your current weight, gender and activity determines how many points per day you are allowed. Then it’s on you to figure points on foods bought at the grocery and track them in a daily chart.
For me, it’s just always been too easy to get off track on WW because I forget to write food points down or I’m really busy and just don’t want to be bothered.
Again, that willpower deficiency has kept me from being successful on WW. However, I can’t afford to stay on Jenny for the rest of my life, which is why I signed up for Weight Watchers.
Weight Watchers teaches me how to determine portion control and how to make lifelong nutritional changes using foods I buy at the grocery. And that’s what it’s going to take for me to keep my weight under control: lifelong changes.
I tell friends who ask “Why both?” that WW is my Jenny withdrawal. It’s helping me learn to rely more on my own food purchases and less on Jenny’s prepackaged meals.