Jenny Craig is Pissing Me OFF!

Back in November I started to get into a funk because the scale no longer seemed to be trending down, no matter how well I watched what I ate and how much I exercised. My weight loss had been stalled since sometime in September. It didn’t seem to matter if I was spinning or running or riding, eating approximately 1200 calories a day on Jenny Craig or whatever, somehow my body had decided that it really, really liked being at the weight it was at, thank you very much. After months & months of non-stop weigh-loss the effort was stagnated there, still so far away from any kind of reasonable goal. I think I just became exhausted, overwhelmed and demoralized at that point. Added to that was my annual birthday/holiday depression, a dip in morale because of the dismal economy (and all the dire predictions), company layoffs and a heavy end-of-the-year work-load and I just needed a bit of a break. I never stopped Jenny Craig, and I never stopped working out. I just relaxed it all a bit. Had a few non-JC meals here & there, wasn’t so restrictive with alcohol and didn’t work out as much.

I got back on the program starting on January 5th. Became more regimented about the food, more consistent with the exercise, went back to the trainer (I had taken two weeks off from the strength training) and completely eliminated alcohol. I hoped that maybe my body had just needed a break back in the Fall. But so far this year my efforts have been pretty much unrewarded. I initially lost a couple of pounds and then I gained back a couple of pounds and now have lost one pound again. According to my scale. According to the JC scale apparently last week I had gained a pound and now this week I held steady. It is so unbelievably frustrating! I know it’s only a couple of weeks into my new resolve and that I really have to try and be patient, but it just seems like more of the same of what I was experiencing back in the Fall and I’m beginning to feel somewhat upset and worried.

Now, I like my Jenny Craig counselor. But I take everything she says with a grain of salt. I certainly know more about exercise than she does and I would guess that I even know more about general nutrition than she does too. She knows the JC diet plan specifically and can answer questions about that, but otherwise, it’s all kind of a lot of bullshit. I know this, and my expectations are low in that regard. She is great for weigh-ins and encouragement, but when she starts wanting to brain storm into reasons why my weight-loss is stalled, I want to scream. It just IS. I don’t want to analyze it with her or I’ll go crazy (if I get to the point where I need to start analyzing things, I’ll go to my DR). Anyway, she means well, so I try to be patient, but then she’ll pull out the old stock questions because she really doesn't know what else to say:

• What is motivating you to lose weight?
• How are you rewarding yourself?

I mean, I know it’s all Jenny Craig rhetoric, but could they be more trite? Again, I try to be patient and respond without being too caustic, but it sure is an effort, especially when I’m completely pissed off and frustrated.

So, I don’t know what the answer is yet. I’m not completely panicking yet, but I’m getting a little closer to that. I might have to go back to eating JC for lunch too or something. Not sure how I’m going to handle that since I got very sick of JC lunches very quickly (I think I stopped eating them about two months into my program). I’m still fine with the breakfasts & dinners though, go figure. Maybe I’m going to have to find some early morning spinning classes or perhaps I need to workout twice a day or something. I just don’t want this non-progress to affect my attitude like it finally did back in November. That’s the attitude that would cause me to give up the effort completely. ARGH! Just … argh.