Review: The Jenny Craig Diet - Part 1

A lot of you will have heard of Jenny Craig before, for those that haven't it is a weight management system with which specialises in diet food delivered to your door as well as providing you with the necessary information and tools for successfully following the plan and weekly calls from a personal advisor.

Now this is not something I would normally try for financial reasons but when I was offered a two week trial I couldn't say no. It came at the perfect time, I'm absolutely swamped work wise at the moment so this means I don't have to spend any time thinking about what I am eating and working out calories, I can just follow the plan the Jenny Craig team have devised for me.

After an initial phone call with one of the Jenny Craig advisors where I provided my weight and height and confirmed I had no medical problems we set up a delivery date and at midday on Monday this huge box arrived.

After excitedly ripping it open I laid everything out and sat there thinking that it looked like an awful lot of food, but actually after closer inspection the portion sizes were quite small. This didn't worry me too much as it's something I've been working on already and I knew I was able to add a lot of unlimited veg.

What did worry me was whether I was going to actually like the food they sent me, I'm not the biggest fan of microwave meals but when I started on Tuesday I was pleseantly suprised by how tasty everything was. In fact the curry pictured below was one of the most delicious things I've eaten in a long time.

I had a call that afternoon from my personal advisor just to check I understood everything and he mentioned that one of the key things was to make sure I ate everything on my menu each day even if I didn't feel hungry. This means I have to fit in eating 6 times a day so I thought it might be helpful to show you a typical day's food.

my three main meals

Breakfast 10am - wholewheat & chocolate coated flakes

(Add 1/2 cup of milk and 1 fruit - I chose skimmed milk and a small banana)

Snack 12pm - 1 milk

(I chose to have a cup of skimmed milk but could have chosen a small yoghurt)

Lunch 2pm - winter vegetable soup

(Add 1 starch, 1 protein and 1 fat, and a minimum of 1 cup of salad - I chose a slice of wholemeal toast, a 1/4 cup of cheddar and some carrot sticks)

Snack 4pm - Jenny Craig lightly salted potato bites

Dinner 7pm - chicken tikka masala

(Add a minimum of 1 cup of cooked veg - I chose 2 cups of broccoli + some red onion and red/yellow pepper which I grilled and mixed in with the curry)

Snack 9pm - 1/2 milk and 1 fruit

(I chose 1/2 a cup of skimmed milk and an orange)

My first thoughts:

- Everything I ate yesterday was delicious, I was so shocked. I thought the cereal would be flavourless, I don't like soup at the best of times anyway and I assumed the curry would be bland, that'll teach me!

- These first two days have filled me with confidence now as (touch wood) I haven't been left hungry and I am enjoying what I'm eating.

Tips:

- I am trying to space out my meals/snacks evenly so I am eating regularly and hopefully keeping my metabolism up.

- I am trying to eat my last meal/snack earlier. I would usually have dinner between 8pm/9pm and then maybe some fruit before bed, the problem with this is it just sits in your stomach over night then and doesn't get the change to break down and work off as well.

Goals:

- This is very hard as I really don't know what to expect from this diet. My goal for this first week is really just to stick to the meal plan provided as best as I can. If I have to eat out I need to work out what food choices are best.

- It would be lovely to lose a couple pounds in weight each week but we will just have to wait and see.

Lastly, I am still using MyFitnessPal as all the Jenny Craig food is on there, so if you're interested in seeing what I am eating you can find me on there as Raffyb19!

*These items were gifted to me for reviewing but the words and opinions are entirely my own.