Jenny Craig Diet shows that not all bodies work the same way

by Jessica
(Chicago)

With the Jenny Craig diet, I learned about the effects of starvation on gaining weight.

All of my life, I thought the secret to maintaining your weight and/or losing weight was related to watching your calories and exercising.

After recovering from a serious injury, I tried to return to a previous level of fitness.

I was thin at the time, but there was very little muscle on my body. I’d always been active.

Since I’d been bedridden for a long period of time, it wasn’t a shock.

I have a book of diet recipes that I’d relied on for over a decade. It was really great recipes that you made from scratch.

I began eating making and eating them and slowing increasing my exercise. After a short period of time, I saw that I was gaining weight. So, I started restricting my calories more.

I was weighing and measuring everything that I put in my mouth and using the diet recipes that I’d used for years. I was eating less than what I ate when I was lying in bed all day, and I was exercising for hours a day.

I did cardio: elliptical and treadmill. I lifted weights. I swam laps. I did aquatic exercises, and I did more squats and lunges than anyone would ever want to do.

I was gaining fat. In one month, I gained approximately 30 lbs.

At that time, I was eating 1200 calories a day. I’ve never been a big eater. Eating an entire sandwich tends to make me feel Thanksgiving Day stuffed. All of that background information is necessary for you to understand my Jenny Craig experience.

I chose Jenny Craig, because I’d been measuring, weighing, and cooking my own meals for months: 6 homemade meals a day. I was exhausted.

As it turns out, you can starve yourself to obesity. The body does incredible things to compensate.

They started me on 1500 calories a day. I had to supplement the meals by buying fruits, vegetables, and dairy: string cheese, yogurt, milk, cottage cheese, etc.

Initially, I think I paid $30-50 for this supplementary food. It grew to around $70-90 or so a week. That’s in addition to the approximately $500 a month that I was paying Jenny Craig for food. I don’t remember the exact figures, but it was really prohibitive.

Anyway, I lost 5-6 lbs the first week. I had trouble eating all of the food, because I’d never eaten that much food in my entire life.

The second week, I lost about 2 lbs. I was still struggling to eat all of the food.

On the third week, it was easier for me to finish my meal. I’d grown accustomed to them, but I didn’t lose any weight. At my weekly meeting, we decided to increase my caloric intake. I added a “lean meat” to 2 of my snacks.

The Jenny Craig plan was a lot like the diet that I was doing on my own. It also had 3 snacks and 3 meals. The quantities of food were greater, which is odd, because the diet that I was on had large diet portions, compared to other diets.

I had trouble eating the additional food, but I did it. When I went back, I’d lost 3-4 lbs. The following week, I learned that my body rapidly adapts, because I’d stopped losing weight again.

As it turned out, I had to increase my caloric intake at least every 2 weeks, in order to lose weight. If I didn’t, not only would I stop losing weight, but I’d start gaining.

I couldn’t handle eating all of the food. I eventually quit, because I couldn’t handle the food. I primarily ate the high protein meals.

To give you an idea of what I was eating, when I quit the Jenny Craig diet:

Breakfast: Egg & Ham English muffin, ½ grapefruit, 1 cup milk, and ½ cup juice.
Snack: ½ turkey & swiss sandwich, 1 cup milk (with protein powder stirred in), fruit

Lunch: a high protein dinner entre, steamed veggies, a piece of fruit.
Snack: ½ turkey & swiss sandwich, cottage cheese/yogurt, fruit, and 1 T. peanut butter

Dinner: a high protein dinner entre, steamed veggies, a piece of fruit.
Snack: chocolate/lemon cake and 1 cup milk.

At my last Jenny Craig meeting, we discussed increasing my calorie count again, and I quit. It wasn’t Jenny Craig’s fault. My rapidly adapting body was to blame for all of my hardships.

The lesson that I learned from Jenny Craig is: when you stop losing weight, it might not be because you are eating too much. It could likely be due to eating too little.

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