I've been doing the Jenny Craig program for about 11 months now (down 13lbs YTD) and I am starting to get tired of the food. Is anyone else experiencing this? I have not tried everything on the menu because I tend to stick to foods that I know I will like. Needless to say I find myself struggling to keep to the eating program because I am getting bored w/the food.

If you have any suggestions on how to "spice" up these meals to make it more interesting please pass them along! Or if there are any particular meals you enjoy please let me know which ones so I can order them next time I go to my meeting...right now the only one I don't mind eating over and over is the rising crust pizza...i could eat that for every meal. LOL

Your advice/thoughts are much appreciated!

I'll go with the obvious first and suggest giving up Jenny Craig, saving your money and eating regular food instead which would allow you pretty much anything, just keep track of calories.. .

I agree with Mal. It might be hard to actually keep off the weight if you're not used to figuring out what and how much you should be eating to maintain your weight. I would use something like JC as a temporary measure to get me back into the swing of things, but not as a year's long endevour. I would get VERY sick of the food! And I would worry about all the additives and other unnatural ingredients that these meals no doubt contain.

Funny you should suggest that because that is pretty much were I am at. The only thing is that I really need the convenience of pre-packaged meals right now to take the guess work out of portion sizes and calorie content. I don't have a lot of time right now to prepare anything myself so grabbing a frozen meal and throwing into my lunch bag w/some fruit and yogurt as I run out the door to the office for works best for me. JC meals tend to be lower overall calories and salt then the store bought brands so I prefer them over the others...

Again, I totally agree with you. I just need "easy" right now. I'm going to have to really start making time for food preparation though because you are right. I doubt this much processed food is healthy for me

While I don't like them myself - Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice make frozen dinners -and kashi and Amy's have a line of frozen stuff - a little pricier, but definitely heathier tha the LC or HC and I'd imagine taste better...

You could also cook once a week with real foods and make your own frozen dinners to grab with you - an hour or two once a week could give you meals for a week...

I hear you though, LovelyLady, its hard to find the time to cook and its cool when you can easily figure out the calories. How about maybe keeping JC for one meal a day and then figuring something out for the others? I used a frozen food delivery service for about 2 months (Diet To Your Door) that had really healthy stuff with no additives, but I got sick of the food after a while. Let us know what you come up with .

or if your just looking to spice up what you've currently got...

a plain chicken breast with a scoop or two of salsa on it gives you a lot of flavor punch without a lot of calories.

Baked potato - with all sorts of different toppings (green giant boil in a bag broccoli w/ cheeese sauce )

Hit the condiments aisle in the grocery store and you might find some spices/herbs/seasonings to spice up what you'regetting to give it a bit more flavor.

Thanks M&B. I appreciate your advice. I'll need to figure out something soon so I can stay on track. I have to make meal preparation a priority if it truly is going to be a "lifestyle change".

I did Nutri-system a couple years ago and I got so sick of the food I nearly gagged when i ate it...I don't want to go there with JC so I need to figure this out asap. hahaha I'll let you know what I come up with! Thanks again!

I am only new to JC (week two) and am a very fussy eater. I have forced myself to try meals that might not sound great/tasty/filling and have been pleasently surprised every time.

My choices are limited as I am a vegetarian.

I have also played around a little with my vege intake - using lemon juice in salads, baking veggies with no fat etc.

I haven't been on this forum for a while but it seems like there are a lot of people who have no interest in answering a question but are super-keen to enforce an opinion where ever they can hey?

Welcome to the Internet. HTH, HAND.

(Bonus points to anyone who recognizes the acronym.)

LovelyLadyLumps, are you willing to pay the price of spending more time to prepare your food in order to be successful with a healthy lifestyle?

Careful paydirt or Louise above will chide you for lending your opinion or advice on -- gasp -- a public message board forum about weight loss. So Louise, if the poster says she's doing the no eating plan for the next year, and wants advice on how best she should space her water intake for maximum hunger quelling, how would you respond? Obviously this has nothing to do with the great question of the original poster (my friend LLH), more about what message boards are all about.

LLH, at some point, you will have to wean off the JC pre-packaged foods anyway. I think the advice to just make those dinners your lunch and cook for the rest of your meals is a good one.

Some of the things I have done to make meal prep very easy when I don't feel like cooking are getting those steamin' bags that Glad and Ziplock make.

- You can prepare meat or veggies in those in just a few minutes. Add in herbs and spices and you have a very tasty dish healthfully prepared.

- When you do lasagna (if you like that), use lean ground turkey and only one layer of noodles. Cut into portions and freeze the portions that you don't have your meal in those zip lock boxes.

- Aquastar at Walmart and Pacifica at Kroger are the two brands I've found single serving size of fish. I like the Pacific salmon and the recipe tilapia. Pacifica has florentine, scallop and pepper and 3 cheese stuffed tilapia, as well as ginger marinated tilapia. These little packages are great because you take them out of the outer plastic and poke a hole in the vacuum packed plastic around the fish, and nuke them for around 4 minutes. TASTY! Serve that with a salad, and there's your healthy, portion controlled lunch or dinner.

- Invest in an inexpensive set of measuring cups. Measure your portions at home, when you aren't quite sure. Do this for as long as it takes for you to get a handle on what one serving of something looks like. It didn't take me more than a week.

- Michelina's Lean Gourmet. Less than $1 at Wal Mart and Kroger and these are pretty tasty. If you look, you can find them with somewhat lower sodium - less than 700mg for a freezer meal is considered pretty good, though not sure how that stacks up against Jenny.

- When you find yourself faced with fast food .... go for McDonald's or Wendy's Asian Chicken Salad. Don't use the crunchy noodles for Wendy's and you make the two salads nearly identical in calories. Use only 1/4 of the pouch of dressing to keep the calories down too. I can't stand BK salads. The ones I've had have been beyond disgusting.

- Denny's. A trick is to ask if you may order off the senior menu. They serve about half the food of their regular equivalent menu items. The grilled shrimp kabobs are really good with the vegetables and salad. Applebee's is awesome for it's WW menu. I LOVE the portabello burger and the other offerings. Very good and filling they are.

I think the best advice I can give you is this - don't get discouraged. Find a way to adapt yourself to healthy eating habits that wean you away from the "diet meals" mentality. Allow yourself to be empowered by making healthy real life choices with less and less dependance on that crutch. A good first step would be to ask at your meetings if JC has a cook book so you can try it on for size. If they do have recipes they make available to members, then you can try one out on the weekend and see for yourself what is a healthy portion. Before the food ever makes it to the table, put one portion on your plate, and put the other single portions into the freezer for future use (portions that aren't going to another person right then, that is ). Take baby steps and pretty soon you will be running a grand race!

God Bless,
mik

Thanks for your warm welcome Blancita. If there was such a topic I woudn't post because I dont really have any helpful suggestions. I understand message boards completely and you are absolutely right - there's always one or two in the forum isn't there?