This is a review from a good friend of mine. It summarizes what I hear from most people about Jenny Craig. (Also, take a look at my video post, Jenny Craig vs. Nutrisystem, where an independent reporter investigates and compares both diets.)
My sister and I have struggled with our weight for our whole lives. Like everyone else, we had tried diet program after diet program. I clearly remember the day when we finally decided to do something about it and go to Jenny Craig. I’m not sure exactly why we chose Jenny Craig.
Maybe it was the Jenny Craig ads on TV with famous spokeswomen like Kirstie and Valerie (heard they just added Queen Latifah). Maybe it was the skinny people contrasted with pictures and videos of their former fat selves (”Results Not Typical” hmm). Or maybe it was just desperation because we had tried and failed at so many other diets: Weight Watchers, Atkins, and endless diet pills.
When we went to the center they put us through the drill. We watched a video, talked to the manager/sales rep, got weighed and got measurements taken. Very simple stuff which was all filled with sales pitches about how great the program is and how much weight we can lose. The whole initialization process didn’t fill me with a lot of confidence in the program, but I looked at it like it was a ritual that I had to perform to get to the nugget of the Jenny Craig program. The nugget that we believed would solve my sister’s and my problem. We were so excited about what we thought Jenny would help us do.
Jenny Craig supplies the following in exchange for your hard-earned dollars:
1) Counseling
Basically, the counselors were a joke. None of them had any insight or understanding of our struggle. Most had been thin all their lives. Some were 10 or 20 lbs. overweight and were far from masters of fitness and didn’t really understand us. On top of this the staff was untrained. They knew way less about weight loss than we did. If you want to know what the counseling was like imagine this:
Imagine your average decent woman from the street who has never really struggled with her weight. Imagine her sitting down with you and giving you advice on how to lose weight. Whatever pops into her head. Whatever skills she has come to the table with her and that’s it. Then she gives you an expensive menu that you must buy from and she whisks you off.
I guess there are a few good counselors peppered throughout the Jenny Craig organization, but, according to my experience, the counselors are generally less than useless. They’re counterproductive. It made me feel worse having some mega thin Barbie (who had always been thin) or some semi-pudgy “counselor” rush me through the session and ask me if I drank my water or ate an extra bar.
2) Classes
If you’ve ever read a book on basic nutrition and a basic diet book then you can skip these. I don’t know if they’ve changed them in the past few years, but they were entirely lame when I went. Nutrition and behavior modification courses taught by people who knew very little about either.
3) Expensive Food.
Some food was delicious and some was unbearably disgusting. I loved the bars. The menu was repetitive. There was about a week or two’s worth of different food which is redistributed over the menus for as many weeks as you’re on the program. I was on the program for a long time (8 months).
Here’s the real meat of the deal for Jenny Craig. From my experience it quickly became obvious that Jenny Craig was just a diet food retailer. They’re not really about counseling or classes, because the quality is way too low. I think it’s just a front. So, to compensate for the added overhead costs of all those diet centers, counselors, and marketing, they overprice their food. Pretty slick huh.
The Bottom Line:
As with any diet, you can have success losing weight with Jenny Craig, but at what cost? Strip away all the fluff and at Jenny Craig’s core is a company selling overpriced diet food, twice as much as their competition. Save your money and stick with better choices like Nutrisystem or Medifast.
Hi, I'm a dietitian with experience in hundreds of weight loss programs and fad diets. When forming my list of the
I worked for Jenny Craig for almost a year. I am interested in health and nutrition and initially thought I was signing onto a company that supported good nutrition and healthy weight loss. I soon learned that sadly this was not the focus. Yes, it really is all about the money.
I started out as a consultant. With much of the paycheck based on commission, it was a struggle trying to help consultants budget out their weeks knowing that it would be a huge chunk from my paycheck. When I first signed on, customers were allotted 20 minutes with a consultant. This barely allowed enough time to weigh the person in, sit down and go over the past week, order food, swipe credit cards, pull food and send them on their way. About a month in to working there, the 20 minutes was brought down to 15 minutes to squeeze in more people. It was impossible to stay on any kind of schedule without a focus on the food-purchasing part (the most IMPORTANT part).
I then was ‘promoted’ to be the program director. I am generally an understanding and non-pushy person, so ultimately this was a bad position for me. I felt so much pressure to be a pushy salesperson by supervisors and the regional manager. People would come in and would be upfront that they are on a tight budget. There is no way that I felt good about duping them into buying the 500 dollar program despite knowing that my paycheck was getting a beating. Secret shoppers would come by occasionally and pretend to be interested in the program. I would always get marked down for NOT being pushy enough. Good grief. Then, the regional manager would have a talk with me and we’d go over the sales pitch over and over.
We’d also have continuing education classes about once a month. When I signed on, I figured these would be going over new health and nutrition information to tell the customers. Sadly, every single one was about how to squeeze more money out of people and trick them into buying the big program. We’d go over situations in which people might need to think about whether or not to sign on. If they said that they needed to talk to their spouse, we were suppose to hand them a phone and say, “call them right now!” Jenny Craig has poorly trained consultants that are basically only taught how to possibly get people to pay more money.
I’ve become much more interested in nutrition as a result of working at Jenny Craig. Contrary to what we were supposed to tell people, it’s not that healthy. It’s your basic preserved overpriced processed food.
The food prices increased twice in the year I was there. I can’t imagine what they are up to now, nor can I imagine that people are willing to pay that much with our economic situation.
Please stay away from Jenny Craig. It’s a terrible company to be involved with from both the employee and customer end. One of the highlights of my past year was turning in my two weeks’ notice!
I’ve been going to Jenny Craig for about 3 weeks now. I had gone to them several years ago in Fla. and lost the weight I needed to lose. But after Christmas holidays I just couldn’t get the weight off that I had gained.
I got the sales pitch from the manager ($399) and I said I wasn’t prepared to pay that kind of money, especially since I only had about 10 lbs. to lose. Then she suggested the $20 for 20 lbs. deal, which I did buy. I’ve had a hard time losing the weight — almost to halfway after 3 weeks. I do go out to dinner occasionally, but find in order to lose I have to follow JC strictly.
Last week, my counselor (an older woman, actually pretty knowledgeable), whispered to me that I could get the “maintenance” program for only $200 “on sale” and I would immediately get $50 off and then $50 whenever I was at the midpoint, then I could come back anytime and yearly renewal would be $49. I did get it, but now am considering stopping as soon as I get to halfway for my $50 discount (probably this week) because of the expense.
I found most of the food is pretty good, but as semi-vegetarian, rather repetitious. I’m sorry so many people fell for the $400 - $700 (!) upfront contract. Also, the food when I came 5 years ago came to about $80 a week and I didn’t have to buy everything. Now it’s more like $120/wk. and they give you flak if you don’t buy all their food. Good luck on your weight loss!
Jenny Craig and it’s associates are sales driven robots. Jenny Craig ripped me off for $100. That may not be a lot to JCraig but to me it is. I started on a plan for 6 weeks…I think $36 and the cost of food. I spent a lot of money on food those 6 weeks and I was also sales pitched into buyin a pedometer and video tapes and an exercise ball and these expensive cup of soups…ughhhh..I hate myself for it. I decided I just couldn’t afford to continue with the program and I had lost minimal weight. The thing is they kept pressuring me to do the lifetime membership thing..300 plus bucks. I couldn’t do it but they convinced be to add 50 bucks to each week and it would go into this “savings” and I would eventually put away the money to get the lifetime deal. When I decided I didn’t want to be on the program anymore I called and asked for a refund of the money I had not used. WOW! It was a no go ladies…BEWARE OF JENNY CRAIG! The lady told me that they couldn’t refund it that they had to go thru the “account manager” person and guess what??? She is never there. I have been going round and round….I don’t know what to do. *sigh*