Jenny Craig at One Month

Thought I would give an update on how the Jenny Craig is coming along. It's been 4 weeks....I lost 10 lbs and 6 3/4 inches. Not too bad. My friends that have done the program lost more in their first month, but that's ok. As long as I keep losing, and can keep it off, it doesn't really matter. My consultant calls once a week to see how I'm doing and I place my food order every other week. I've been able to stay on the program the whole time and not cheat at all. Usually once I put my mind on something, I give it 100% and I've really been able to do that this time. It's sooo convenient and I really like the food, so that makes it helpful. I feel bad in the evenings when Jay has to fix his own dinner and I just have to throw mine in the microwave for 5 minutes, but he's been doing pretty good with that. We've also saved money this past month. I don't have an exact number, but between not eating out (dinner or lunch) and not sitting at Hook Line every day for happy hour, the amount is pretty substantial!

One of the things I have to get better at is eating more vegetables. You're supposed to fix a side veggie with dinner and you can have unlimited veggies during the day to snack on it you get hungry. Once in awhile, Jay will cook up some squash, zucchini, peppers and onions for my side dish or we'll open a can of green beans, but that's pretty much it. So if  you have any easy veggie recipes you can throw my way, it will be much appreciated.

I'm doing pretty good with the fruit. You're supposed to have a cup of skim milk and a fruit with every breakfast and a fruit snack in the afternoon. On the days that I'm having cereal, it's no problem. But the other days, I don't like having to drink skim milk, so I make a fruit smoothie. I take the cup of milk, half a banana, and a handful of frozen strawberries, ice, splenda and splash of vanilla in the blender. It's pretty good. For the fruit snack, I just found a great way to dress up an apple. You take the apple and cut it in chunks, sprinkle with cinnamon and splenda and put in the microwave for about 50 seconds. Yum.

A few people have mentioned to me to stop using splenda and get the new sweetener stevia. I keep trying to remember to look for it at the store to see if they carry it here. I like splenda and we have a bunch of it, so I'm not sure if I would stop using it, but I'll try the stevia if I can find it to see what the difference is.

My first real test is going to be in a couple weeks. I've done well with the one day tests (on the boat or at the beach). But, I'm going to San Francisco for a work conference and I'll be gone a whole week. That's going to be tough. I'm going to take Jenny Craig snacks and some food items that don't need to be kept frozen, mostly breakfast stuff. We'll be eating most lunches and dinners out plus two 14 hour travel days, so I ordered the Dining out Guide to see what is suggested for those occasions. Hopefully I can stick with it.