The best thing about Jenny Craig is the ability to either choose a structured and pre-planned menu or choose your own foods. In addition, with the Rewards program comes one-year consultations with a specialist, all program materials, and increasing discounts leading up to 30% after the 20th visit on Jenny Craig food. Given my prior experience with Weight Watchers, the Bartels program, and several other diets throughout the years, I've learned that when it comes to food and changing my eating habits, structure is key!
I really like that with the menu comes a short list (on the back) of the grocery items needed for purchase to supplement the menu. The main menu items, of course, are purchased at Jenny Craig at the end of the consultation. However, the vegetables, fruits, and dairy items still have to be purchased at the grocery store. Jenny food costs range, but are supposed to average $125 per week not including the grocery items. Costco is a great place for purchasing the grocery items so after signing up on Saturday, I made a trip to Costco to try and save money. When I signed up, they "planned" on my starting on Sunday, but I wasn't ready and decided Monday would be my start day.
My first few days on the program included many challenges. The first challenge being Wednesday. Wednesday was Drake's last football game and the final day of the season for football. A big day for celebration and the opening week for Char-Grill in Durham. I had kind of promised the kids that we would go to Char-Grill opening week and thought this would be a good day to make use of the visit. Unfortunately, I indulged. How could I not. It is my absolutely favorite hamburger joint in the world and they were opening less than two miles from my house! Rather than having the half pound burger I had the double burger and of course had the fries and soda. It might sound horrible, but it was half the amount of calories for the burger and I didn't have any refills on the soda. It could have been worse.
Thursday went well and the week was looking up. Each morning I started the habit of starting some coffee and packing my cooler with my food through the afternoon snack. Something about having choices, and healthy ones at that, made me feel better. Rather than feeling limited, being able to see a cooler full of food that I could choose from made it easier. Of course it takes time and forethought. This bit me in the butt on Friday!
Halloween is loads of fun in our house and filled with all kinds of yummy treats. Typically, I like to do a "festive spread" that includes some healthy choices for the kids to eat before they go trick-or-treating. Having their bellies full hopefully makes the amount of candy they eat smaller throughout the evening. Friday morning I got a late start. Knowing that Colten had a Halloween parade at school made it important to get him to school on time when perhaps I would have taken the time to fill my cooler and get him to school later. This meant heading out for my day without anything to eat. I thought I would drop him off, return home, and get my food ready. Of course this isn't the way things happened.
After dropping Colten off at school, I headed to the grocery store, then headed to Target, then headed to Chick-fil-A. Yep, Chick-fil-A. Number one value sized with sweet tea with lemon has always been my friend and comfort food. By the time I left Target (having had not breakfast), I felt lightheaded and a headache beginning and knew that my body needed FOOD! After eating it my stomach felt full, but the rest of me didn't feel any better. Sadly, things didn't change throughout the day and neither did my eating habits. I picked up Colten, headed home, and prepared the goodie bags for Sidney's class. After returning home with Sidney, we started making and decorating cupcakes, cutting fruit, cooking hamburgers, and setting out all the remaining snacks and decorations for the evening. In the end, I had a cupcake and two hamburgers without a morsel of Jenny food. While how this would impact my visit to J.C. in the morning was in the back of my mind, it didn't change my actions. Honestly, I vaguely considered not keeping my appointment. What got me out of bed in the morning was my investment and desire to lose the weight.
Sidney's best friend's mother, Jill, owns a fun kids salon named Peek-A-Doo and planned a fundraiser for a teacher at Club Boulevard who had a fire in her classroom. In an effort to support her initiative, I scheduled a haircut for Sidney at 9:00, just minutes prior to my Jeny Craig appointment. While I really wanted to skip the J.C. appointment, I returned just 7 days after signing up and 5 days on the program. I'm proud of myself for not bailing, but not thrilled with the results. I have to keep telling myself I was really OP (on program) for 4 days and need to focus on making the change and staying OP for a full week.
My goal for this week is to stay on the program until my next visit (Monday, November 10th at 10:00) and walk the loop (one mile) at least six times (three days two times). This will be no easy feat but I really want to do it!
1 comment:
Congrats on your start with Jenny Craig! Support in the program really helps, especially with the holidays coming up! Have you had a chance to check out the JC forums?
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