Most Americans need to lose weight. More and more people rely on home delivery of prepared, portion-controlled meals. This helps eliminate the temptation to binge - indeed, the dieter may not even need to keep any other food in the house.
Nutrisystem is the leading diet plan that provides pre-packaged meals as a part of the program. Jenny Craig, the diet named after the Australian nutritionist and weight-loss expert, has become increasingly popular in the United States. And the well-known Zone Diet has entered the field with its Zone Cuisine program, endorsed by Dr. Barry Sears, the creator of the Zone Diet.
Product Critic reviewed these three leading diet food delivery programs to determine which, if any, we could recommend to our readers. Our testers each agreed to follow the recommended diet strictly for 90 days and document their experiences daily. After the 90-day period each person filed a final status report. Thus we arrived at our conclusions regarding the Nutrisystem, Zone Diet and Jenny Craig diet food delivery systems. More information on weight loss.
Our staff of experts have rated a number of products in this category and have listed their recommendations.
Other Spellings: Nutri System, Nutra System, Nutrisystem, Nutrasystem
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Due to the lack of service, dissatisfaction with the meals and high drop-out rate, we give the Jenny Craig program a very tentative recommendation.
Competitive price point. Fairly widespread coverage.
Poor customer service. Not enough variety or taste in individual meals. Less weight loss. Much higher drop-out rate.
Due to the lack of service, dissatisfaction with the meals and high drop-out rate, we give the Jenny Craig program a do not buy recommendation.
Testers who tried Jenny Craig found the experience to be frustrating at times. This is possibly due to the fact that Jenny Craig makes use of a network of franchisees. A dieter's level of service and consistency depends on the local franchisee responsible for the dieter.
Many of our testers experienced intense cravings. We do not have a reliable explanation for this -- perhaps the Jenny Craig meals were overprocessed, or they weren't sufficient in amount, or overprocessing led to insulin spiking and crashes. At any rate, many of our testers found that they felt too much like they were on a diet.
A surprising 30% of the testers on the Jenny Craig program failed to complete the three-month test.
Due to all these negatives, we cannot recommend the Jenny Craig plan despite its lower price point.