by Herb B. Lewis

Jenny Craig is one of the largest weight management companies in the world. The Jenny Craig program began in 1983 in Australia and started U.S. operations in 1985. The company became a part of Nestl in 2006. Jenny Craig is headquarters are located in Carlsbad, California. Members follow a diet of prepackaged, pre-planned food from Jenny Craig’s line of frozen and dry foods along with store-bought items like dairy and vegetables.

Jenny Craig has franchised weight loss centers with a choice of weight loss programs, counselors, and packaged food. Members pay different levels of subscription for varying levels of support. The support is to help members eat food in healthy portions, not so much limiting what foods you eat, rather focusing on how much you eat. Daily exercise and a balanced, healthy view of self are a large part of the weight loss program.

How does the Jenny Craig diet work? The diet program starts with a visit to one of their weight loss centers and talking with a counselor. There usually have a special deal so you will most likely take the deal on sale. You buy the appropriate packaged foods from Jenny Craig, and come back for weekly weigh ins and counseling to help you with any problems staying on the diet.

The Jenny Craig diet programs involve learning the basis of good nutrition, how to look at foods, and what they are composed of. Dieters learn how to eat out and not sacrifice the weight loss and the good nutritional habits that you have developed. This can help you make better food choices and lose weight. Jenny Craig members can talk to a dietician, and receive advice at any of the centers across the country. Jenny Craig diet programs stress exercise alongside a good eating plan. Regular exercise will aid in the weight loss, and the body will grow stronger and healthier in at the same time. You can discuss your issues when it comes to exercise and counselors will develop an exercise program to fit just about anyone.

Membership doesn’t include the cost of food, which can become expensive. You meet with your nutritional consultant on a weekly basis to discuss your progress and pick up any food you need for the week. A counselor is an option that some people need to make losing weight fast and easy. The weight loss motivation at Jenny Craig gives members the food education to eat healthy after the weight is lost. The goal of the Jenny Craig plan is to help members change their eating habits so that they can maintain their weight goal without relying on pre packaged food, pre-planned menus and consultations. It is not cost effective to continue paying for Jenny Craig meals once you have learned to fix healthy meals yourself. Fixing meals yourself is important to maintaining weight loss for the rest of your life.

The website has hundreds of recipes, which can be searched by meal type, cooking time and occasion. The website also has user testimonials with their before-and-after photos, and a variety of member services. There is a great online resource called eTools, with a diet planer and journal to track your progress. You’ll also receive regular newsletters and tips by way of email.

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Posted by Herb B. Lewis, filed under Low Carb Foods. Date: November 23, 2008, 6:52 am | Comments Off

by Rowena French

Emotional eating is one of the greatest challenges in any calories loss diet because with the best of intentions, we can easily sabotage our efforts by uncontrolled binging brought about by our day to day emotional ups and downs. To manage our eating and to continue to enjoy a gradual weight loss, we need to be aware of and to some degree manage our emotions. The tips below will assist you to do this as you re-shape your body.

Learn how to determine whether what you feel is hunger or just a learned emotional response. The real physical signs of hunger can include a rumbling tummy or perhaps feeling lethargic and weak so if you have experienced emotional responses to eating across many years, you may eat before feeling truly hungry and not recognize these symptoms easily. Allow yourself to get genuinely hungry before eating so that you can become familiar with what this feels like and more accurately pin point when you should eat to provide the fuel your body needs.

Determine what sets off your emotional eating, making note of the times and causes of these occasions and look for a pattern around this to become apparent. Do you hanker after salty fatty food when the pressure is on at work instead of those calories loss lunches you know are nutricius and much better for you? Do you head for the cookie jar at the end of the day after a drive home filled with traffic jams or do you eat lashings of gravy on mashed potatoes when the kids are a nightmare after school?

Deciding on the events and the times when you are likely to resort to daily emotional eating is the key to controlling your response to the stressors in your life that lead you to out of control eating. Plan what food you will eat or what you will do the next time you feel distressed or under pressure and replace eating with other behaviours that will help relieve your stress. Taking a brisk walk or even an exercise class or eating an apple, some low fat yoghurt or other foods from your calories loss menu, getting a friend to massage your neck or even meditating are all healthier ways to manage the pressures in your life and still lose weight.

Do not buy comfort food because if it is not in the house, you will not eat it; it is just that simple. When you are feeling blue and you want something sweet or something fried as a comfort, if it is not in the house are you really going to take the time to drive to the store and buy this comfort food or go to the fast food restaurant to get something? Most people will not most of the time, so if you are craving something and you do not have it in the house you will look for a substitute rather than going out to buy whatever it is you are craving.

Seek comfort in things other than food so that if you feel miserable or pressured you head outside for a walk with your partner or some games in the park with your family or friends. It would be nice if you could just wave a wand and not have anymore unhealthy food cravings but that is not realistic so have a list of alternatives to eating a greasy hamburger and include in these relaxing with a glossy mag that you love, a long hot bath or a pedicure- whatever it is that you really enjoy. Make a list of these alternatives and be ready to act on them instead of eating.

Stack the shelves that used to store your junk food, with healthy alternatives to use every time you experience one of your cravings and need comfort. In place of those maple syrup pancakes high in calories, keep hummus dip and fresh vegetables, and if you simply must have something sweet, try a fruit salad. It is not a matter of stopping cravings, more a case of satisfying these differently with alternative foods that will in the long term be a way of re-programming your thinking and even your palate as well as accommodating the many foods that you will find on your calories loss diet.

Always allow 30 minutes to pass after your craving registers before you take any action. Time yourself to make sure that you do not eat anything for the full extent of this time. You should eat half of what you craved at the end of half an hour if you still want it but it is often the case that cravings disappear in that time especially of you have replaced them with another activity.

Get exercise because exercise is not just good for burning calories as when you exercise, your brain releases serotonin and endorphins, which make you feel good and make you happy. Twenty minutes or more of exercise can trigger the same feeling of peace and happiness and well-being that you get from food. Emotional eating is not responsible for your entire weight gain, but it can be a factor in why it is hard for you to make a consistent weight loss. Using these tips and tricks to control your emotional eating will help you stick with a calories loss diet and might be the way for you to start losing weight and keeping it off.

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Posted by Rowena French, filed under Low Carb Foods. Date: November 22, 2008, 5:46 pm | Comments Off

by Simon

Lot of the younger generation people in the western world usually are addicted to processed foods like colas, pizzas & burgers that have massive proportions of carbohydrates which are injurious to their health in the long run resulting in major problems like high blood pressure, cholesterol, hypoglycemia, to name a few.

But the fact of the matter is that our ancestors had started to take meat about 2 million years ago & our agricultural system was invented about ten thousand years ago. Since then mankind has been banking on these high carb foods. As of now, we humans have not started thinking about alternative diets to these high carbs. Added to this, our body does not have any exact idea on what do with these heavy amounts of carbs.

On the other hand, assuming that we have to cut down our carbs, we cannot achieve this process drastically which may lead to many health issues. The best possible plan is to adopt ourselves to low carb diets rather than starving or eating blunt foods to trim our weight.

The real mystery about these carbohydrates is that they increase weight rapidly by making you addicted for such stuff on a daily basis. As we all know that carbohydrates are utmost necessary but will have negative effects if we consume them in alarming proportions. They not only make us tempted to consume them daily but will also make us unhealthy in the longer run. We will prone to many health hazards in our middle ages.

These carbohydrates are the major source of energy providers for our red blood cells and the brain. They also help us in decreasing our blood sugar & insulin production. An additional advantage of them is that they help you in utilizing the fat deposited in our body for the purpose of efficient energy production. They also help us to maintain good health conditions in our middle ages.

It is better from our health perspective to low carb diets & consume for the foods like green leafy vegetables, meat & eggs, spinach, broccoli, tomato which are pretty much vegetarian diet plans. These will not keep your health in best possible way but will also burn your calories in a gradual manner. You can as well take soybeans, strawberry fruits & few dairy products that are low carb diets & can easily be replaced with high carbohydrate products.

It is proved beyond doubt that these low carb diets are pretty nutritious & tastier even when compared to high carbohydrate foods. There are quite a bit popular diet programs followed by many people like Dr. Atkins diet, south beach diet, Hollywood diet, zone diet to name a few & each one of them have their own set of specifications about diets that are taken on a daily basis.

It is extremely necessary that in order to achieve weight loss & prevent obesity in our real life, we should go for low carb diets. It is recommended to drink lots of water may be up to 10 glasses per day. Along with that we can also go for club soda, decaf tea, herbal tea, diet soda or limejuices as our beverages.

Large population of people are slowly moving towards low carb diets to guard themselves against major health hazards in their middle ages. For highly desirable results, it is advised to take up the exercises along with these low carb diet plans so that we have the best possible health in our life span.

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Posted by Simon, filed under Low Carb Meals. Date: November 18, 2008, 3:29 pm | Comments Off

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