The Losingist Loser that Loses Part Two

By Karine Green

The Losingist Loser that Loses! (Part One is here)

Part Two – What to consider BEFORE you make that call to Jenny Craig

Firstly, you’ll need a membership! Some are free. Some are not.

Many, many moons ago, Jenny Craig offered lifetime memberships. They were rather expensive, even by Jenny Craig standards, since some were nearly $900. The one I chose back in the day (Platinum) was about ½ of that, because I could not afford the $900 one. Luckily, it was still a lifetime membership. I have always worked out and tried to maintain my weight, and for the most part never strayed more than 10 lbs out of my “comfort zone” thanks to Jenny Craig. It also appears that the free program in its current form may be going away. Please thoroughly check the website BEFORE you go in and start your consultation.

My real weight gain came when I was severely injured in an accident. It took months for me to recover, and my mobility had to be surgically restored over time (about three years). Of course, this cut off my ability to burn calories—drastically for the first year. After that, only upper body was “available,” and while that helped, it was not nearly enough. Long story short, at the end of my medical odyssey I had slowly climbed to 52 lbs over my former “healthy” weight level.

The only thing that stopped me from engaging with my Jenny Craig habit was the lack of income I had during this time period. As soon as I returned to work the decision was easy. I resumed my membership with Jenny Craig. But this time was different. I did not need to simply loose five or six pounds on my maintenance program – this was going to be for the long haul. This was going to be my first experience doing the program for more than a couple of weeks.

It was only now that the asterisk warning made sense to me. The first thing I learned was that my lifetime membership has been nothing more than the “free program” in disguise. The many transfers of ownership of Jenny Craig had whittled almost all the benefits away, leaving nothing except the name of the program. The ONLY true benefit of it was that the consultant did not have to enter a program for me (as in enter the free program), she could simply continue to the checkout. But all discounts and other things had been stripped. So, my first visit involved the benefit of saving time (about two minutes) since their antiquated checkout system is probably run-on Dos (required for 1980’s computers.) While I’m on this topic I’ll just warn you that you should plan for the slow running of their program during your consultation. If you don’t, the consultant will actually try to help you with issues that arise with managing the emotions that come with “will power,” and this will run your time over. So, if you are a time sensitive person, please do bear their computer system in mind.

The second thing I learned was I needed a NEW program, or this was going to be way outside my budget. Feeling like I was now at a used car lot, I opted into the VIP program. An employee told me that the old “Rewards” program was now the only “old” program that offers a discount – and a good one too: 30%. However, this required an annual fee of $49 to maintain and is no longer available to purchase. Honestly, I felt completely duped over my “lifetime” membership that was really just a fast track to the “normal” free program offered to everyone who swings the door open. Sigh, that was money wasted way back in the day.

With this said, I do believe in the program, so I looked over the options as I squashed down my frustration at feeling duped. They were offering two at the time I was there: The VIP (and it’s discounts) and the program that was equal to my lifetime membership (The Free Program). You can find current Jenny Craig offers by scrolling all the way down to the bottom of the webpage and finding the light blue (lower case cursive) j. Click on it, and it will pop up the latest offers for you to view. Just be aware going in that if you have any other previous memberships, that are not rewards, you would do better to just purchase whatever program they currently have available than to torture yourself with what cannot be retrieved. (Alternatively, if the high-pressure sales really bother you, wait for later posts about NOT using Jenny to lose weight)!

Despite my frustrations, I do recommend the VIP option if you need to lose more than 20 lbs. The cost will even out over time, and the program will eventually (certainly not in the “five” visits they claim) start to “pay you back” with its discounts. VIP also includes discounts for you ONCE you reach maintenance. Until then, you will need to purchase a full planned menu to get the discount.

But hey! Two can play at that game. Set your goal as LOW as you can and still be reasonable. This will allow the menu flexibility of the VIP maintenance to kick in earlier. After all, you can still buy full planned menus on it and continue to lose weight until the company comes up with another policy to thwart this tactic. Yes, used car sales tactics inspire customers to engage in used car sales buying tactics.

Example: You weigh 230 and want to get down to 150. Set your “goal” at 190. It’s still reasonable and the maintenance benefits will allow for a bit more flexibility. This will be helpful, especially as you start to retrain your eating habits and explore healthy options that produce weight loss (such as EATING OUT)!!!

If you only have 10 or 15 pounds that you want to lose, I recommend the FREE program and following their advice like you would a prescription from the doctor. Then you can affectively use the discounts, albeit limited discounts, that come with the free program to reach your goal and save money.

Like a car dealership has a product that you may or may not know that you need, Jenny offers a similar  product. Of course, there are other weight loss programs out there. You may have tried them and failed, or you may have tried them and succeeded. If you have tried them and failed though, you have nothing to lose by trying Jenny for the four weeks. Well, that’s not entirely true – you have up to the 16 or 17 pounds that you could lose!

I’ll discuss budget in more detail in its own post. However, for now I would just like to add a few sentences. You have to spend money on food every week no matter what diet you choose; even if you choose not to have a structured diet you still have to buy food that week. Therefore, I would encourage you to walk in the door at Jenny Craig with that figure in your head. Then you will know what the true cost of the program to you is – because no one spends $0.00. You can’t compare Jenny’s $150 a week against your spending of $0.00 at the grocery store. In this case, it’s probably going to cost you $30-$60 more than you would normally spend a week depending on what programs you choose and what food items are available at the store. But again, this is its own post and I will talk more about it later, because budget can be very dynamic and impacted a great deal by the choices you make.

Let’s face it, the only way to truly get a free meal is to hang out at the back of a pizza joint while hoping somebody throws out a box of pizza somebody else didn’t want. Or perhaps Door Dash erroneously delivered tacos to your door. Barring these, you are going to spend money on food no matter what. The real question is, are you getting your money’s worth? The grocery store doesn’t have a consultant that can guide you through the program, but let’s be honest, yes, it is cheaper to go to the grocery store and do it yourself. You just have to ask yourself where has your personal policy has landed your weight? Jenny Craig is asking for four weeks. It’s not forever, and you aren’t just buying food. Use their resources to help structure a whole new healthy way to eat for yourself.

SEE YOU NEXT TIME! 😊 Happy LOSER DAY!