Jenny Craig is a diet plan that combines prepackaged food with weekly consultations with a counselor who offers advice and tracks your progress. The food is an important part of the diet, but you are also paying for a personal consultant to help you through plateaus and to answer questions. Dieters are encouraged to purchase meals which must be supplemented by your own fresh fruits, vegetables and dairy products. Prices vary, but Jenny Craig consultants usually say the food costs $12 to $18 per day as of April 2009. While, the Jenny Craig website does not show the prices of the food, it reports that meals cost only about $1 more per day than traditional meals. It is possible to follow the spirit of the eating program, though, by making cheaper substitutions.
Frozen Dinners
The Jenny Craig plan uses prepackaged, shelf-stable food to make meal choices easier. You can shop in your own grocery store for frozen meals that follow the same low-fat eating, with an emphasis on fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Healthy frozen meals, including Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice and Weight Watchers are similar to the foods offered by Jenny Craig and are often on sale for as little as $2 per meal as of October 2010. Breakfast items and snacks are also sold prepackaged for less than the cost of the official Jenny Craig food. Make sure to check the sodium content, though, as some frozen dinners are high in that element. Additionally Jenny Craig foods contain no trans fat per serving, so check for that, too.
Cook at Home
The Jenny Craig plan follows the USDA guidelines for a healthy diet. You can do the same by going to MyPyramid.gov and creating your own daily diet plan. Using that plan you can figure out meals that fit those guidelines and prepare them at your home. By spending a few hours on a weekend, you can make and freeze a month of meals that can be used for convenience and portion control. Supplement those meals with some homemade and some purchased snacks and you'll still be saving money.
Make Substitutions
The Jenny Craig plan will take traditional meals, such as a hamburger, and make a substitution of a turkey burger, or it will use fat-free milk in a creamy dessert such as a cookies and cream cheesecake. You can do the same at home by making similar substitutions, and save money by buying in bulk and freezing leftovers. In general the plan stresses whole grains such as oatmeal and brown rice while allowing only a few treats. The more you buy those items in bulk, the more you'll save over the course of the program.
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