Jenny and the Mall

Bill and I are doing Jenny Craig, and it's tough! Jenny Craig doesn't have a Center where I live, so we have to do it through the Jenny Direct program. Every week, a Consultant calls us to get our weight stats, talk with us about any concerns or problems we have, and in general be our cheerleader/motivator. Every other week we place another order for 14 days worth of breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. We do have to buy fresh produce and milk at the grocery store. Since Bill and I are doing it together, we're buying our produce and milk at Costco. I hate going to Costco, but it's much cheaper.


Being told what and when to eat isn't a huge deal for me. The problem is, since we live in Alaska, Jenny Craig can't ship any of the frozen foods to us. That means we only get about 50% of the food choices. We're not getting a lot of variety, and that's the tough part. The food is fairly decent, but the same things day in and day out gets a bit old. I've lost about 7 pounds in 4 weeks, but I'm sure it would have been more if I had been strictly following the plan. A couple of nights I was simply craving something different. I had Cassandra make a pizza using Boboli pizza crust, cheese and mushrooms. I knew it was relatively low fat because I limited the cheese. So, instead of my Jenny Craig dinner, I had a piece of homemade pizza. It was either that or order it, and that would have been catastrophic. I still had my salad and iced tea with it, so it's not like I completely binged and gave up. So yea, Jenny and I are having some issues, but we're not complete enemies.


We also started walking at the mall for exercise. It's actually not that bad. One lap around the mall is half a mile. The first three days we only made it twice around, but this morning we did three laps. After going walking after work the first two times, we decided to bite the bullet and get up early to walk before the stores open. It's nice and quiet, and the only people there are other dedicated walkers. This mall even has a Walkers Club. After you register, you just log in your miles and turn them in every 25 miles. The mall gives you prizes based on how many miles you've walked, with the best prize being a $25 gift certificate for any store in the mall. Not a bad deal considering the mall lets you walk for free! I'm pretty motivated to do this, even though I have to get my butt out of bed at o'dark thirty. It makes me feel like I've accomplished something.


So all in all, in the last month I've lost 7 pounds and walked 90 minutes for a total of 4.5 miles. I think I'll blog about this on a monthly basis. Then I can look back and see my progress (I hope!).


This next month will be tough, because we're going to Colorado for four days and will be eating out. I'm hoping I can make good food choices. Bill said he'd check out the mall near our hotel to see if they're open for walking. I hope they are, because even if I don't eat as well as I should, I can at least exercise a bit.