Jenny Craig: What A Rip-Off

Ann’s wants to lose weight, so we went to Jenny Craig tonight to see what they had to offer.

Wow, what a crock of shit that was. Close to $100 a week for food, per person. That would come to about $800 a month for food for the two of us. That’s almost a mortgage payment, or even two car payments. All they preach is eating healthy and portion control, something that you can do yourself if you are really committed to doing it. When I lost 90 pounds in high school all I did was portion control and lots of exercise. Oh, and I ate what I wanted and didn’t stick to some silly schedule.

After taking our weight, the counselor sat with us and went over the plan. Based on the information we gave her she determined a target weight range. Mine came up between 130 and 167.

I’ve got a large-frame body, and dropping down to 130 pounds seems really unhealthy to me at this age. Even when I did lose all that weight in high school, I was still in the 170-pound range and looked thin because of my body type. I’m overweight, sure. But I’m not morbidly obese like those blobs with cottage cheese arms you see on their commercials. I think if I ever reached that point, I’d opt for the gastric surgery.

The survey was full of loaded questions—the multi-choice answers on some of them made you out to be some sort of weakling with little or no self-control. In fact, I wrote-in my own answers on a few. Then there was the counseling session. I was getting so freaking annoyed during it that I just grabbed Anthony and left. The woman was talking and talking out of her ass at one point, and it was nothing I didn’t already know.

Basically, it’s like Weight Watchers but with their own food—expensive food. And I just don’t have that much time to drive to the place for counseling, food, etc. Does that mean I’m not committed? No, that means I’m not willing to spend $800 a month for food I can just as easily buy at Ralphs.

But I did take home some insight as to how the program works: start at 2,000 calories a day, and once you reach the halfway point, reduce it to 1,600 until you reach your goal. That’s it.

We can do this, and it ain’t gonna involve Jenny Craig.