Don't know if you've seen the new Jenny Craig commercials with Valerie Bertinelli who has dropped 40 pounds (click link to see video) and is now back in her in her "skinny jeans." Valerie looks really happy and healthy in the commercial, and I am happy for her that she reached her weight loss goal plus an additional 10. She originally wanted to drop 30 lbs but went on to stretch out her goal to 40lbs. That's cool and all.
But....
I want to be optimistic and hopeful that Valerie keeps her new figure, however, I'm not going to be sold on Jenny Craig until I see her a year from now. I know that sounds harsh, but when Valerie is off the plan or eventually gets off it because no one stays on Jenny Craig the rest of their lives, she will have to maintain her weight eating regular food and living in the real "non-Jenny" world. While losing the weight did she also make emotional and lifestyle changes that will stick long term because those are the things that contributed to her weight gain in the first place.
It's no secret that I'm not a fan of weight loss "programs" that rely on you eating their foods or sticking to their programs because there is always an "ending" to the program. Diet programs all have endings, and that ending is you reaching your goal. When you reach your goal, you are a "Success Story", and that is pretty much it. You're done. You're on your own, that is until you gain the weight back and come back to the program because you know it worked before.
Programs like Jenny Craig are not designed for long term lifestyle changes to keep you at your goal weight. They are designed to get you to drop weight for a designated period of time. If you notice, the Success Stories just list people by how much weight they have lost. When do you ever see a diet program that shows success stories by "One Year Later" or "XYZ Years Later." You don't because if you look at their business models, they want you to come back, and the odds of you coming after you've had one success is high. Their programs want you to feel like you can't do it without them because if you can do it without them then you won't need to pay for more services later on.
My dream is to one day see a weight loss program marketed this way, "We will teach you how to create a healthy lifestyle so that when you reach your goals, you won't need us anymore because you'll have the tools and habits to do it yourself." Wouldn't that be something!
