Hello everyone! I am starting my 9th month on Jenny Craig and have lost 45 pounds. I love Jenny Craig!!! I am 15 pounds from goal and still feel nervous to plan a day on my own in fear my weight loss would slow down. My consultant doesn't push me to plan until I feel ready. Anyway, has anyone gained weight back or stopped losing once you got off the JC food?? Also my plan is to join Weight Watchers again once I get closer to goal and hope counting points again will help me stay thin forever on real food that doesn't cost me a fortune! Does anyone think this could work? Oh yeah I also have the Plat. membership with JC so I can use them as support also. I just NEVER WANT TO BE FAT AGAIN!!!!!!!! Thanks for reading my book

blinkie,
Congratulations on your terrific progress.
I am in the middle of my fourth week of maintenance and I started doing two full days on my own as soon as I hit half-way. I didn't experience any real slow-down in my losses (I think I went from an over-all average of 1.7 pounds per week at half-way to an over-all average of 1.4 pounds per week when I reached goal, and that included 1 1/2 weeks away from JC food at Christmas where I gained 0.3 pounds). A slow-down in your rate of loss is to be expected as you get closer to goal, since you are smaller and have less to lose by that time.
There is nothing magical about the JC food, it is just good low-fat food with proper portion sizes.
I found that it took me a little while (about three weeks) to get used to planning my days using the exchanges, but once I did, it was relatively simple. It takes me about 2 hours on Thursday or Friday evening (my appointment is Saturday morning) to create my plan for the week and do up my grocery list. When I was still in weight-loss mode, it would take me about 1/2 hour to do my JC days in the on-line menu, and then another 1/2 to 1 hour to do my days-on-my-own.
Since you have the Platinum Membership, I'd take full advantage of it. You get a 4 week transition to your maintenance calorie level, 10% off JC food, and you get 1/2 the membership fee back if you follow through the Maintenance program for a year (once a month visits after the transition period and within 5 pounds of your goal weight at the end of the year).
I don't think that it will really matter if you use Points or Exchanges, but I really like exchanges because they provide the structured guidelines I need to ensure I get a properly balanced diet (enough fruits & veggies).
Why don't you start small, do one meal on your own next week, and slowly work up to full days. Instead of using the meal-on-your-own exchanges, which are designed for eating out, pick the JC food that you would eat for that meal, and figure the exchanges out for it, then use those exchanges as the guide for your own meal. Once you are up to the entire day, you can use the day on-your-own exchanges instead. Stick with whole foods (i.e. grilled chicken breast with rice and steamed veggies, or toast with peanut butter and a latte) that are easy to figure the exchanges out for instead of trying to figure out other frozen foods right away (where you have to look at the ingredient list to determine what the food is made up of).
Breakfasts are the easiest, and lunches are second (I think). Dinners are fairly easy as well. I find the snacks the hardest to replace since it is quite hard to find fat-free or really low-fat snack items.
Portion control, low-fat, and balance seem to be the keys.
HTH.

Thanks for the reply 2sugargliders, you are right and I will take advantage of the Plat. program that I paid for. I am just sooo nervous about planning on my own because I am not much of a cook. Congrats to you about reaching goal!! Grr...now I know what people mean when they say keeping the weight off forever is harder than losing it!!!!!

I have been making recipes from the JC cookbooks and they have been simple, with decent instructions, and taste really good.
The 30 meals in 30 minutes one is probably the simplest recipes.
Start small and work your way up in complexity (you might even want to find a friend or relative who can teach you some cooking techniques or look into a class).
Keeping the weight off is definately going to be the bigger challenge for me than losing it.

I am almost there but I am on my half way for awhile now. I mentioned that it takes more time to understand what and how you are going to prepare for you own days. In my case after 2 weeks break during Christmas when I did not work and had time to think before I cook I lost more than I usually would loose eating JC food (I am a slow looser). When I am very busy and have not time to plan my own foods, I use "rule of the plate" provided by my consultant. You know your usual size of portion. So when you eat something you did not plan, divide your round plate (correct size) in 4 parts. 2 parts willb e veggies with low fat or ff dressing, 1 part meat and 1 part starch. It is than hard to make it wrong. Since I do not write down what I eat (bad for me, but in my opinion it looks like it takes too much time, and after all I am loosing weight without it - if I stop loosing I will start writing it down - at least I have a solution in case I am in trouble) I still note how much of what category I eat. I try to eat my mil exchages with cereal in the morning plus as one snack = I drink 3/4 cups of kefir before going to sleep. Fruits are my snacks too plus extras on breakfast. As I sadi, so far it works, and I mentioned that without understanding exchanges I would NEVER eat enough milk exchanges and usually will overdo my starches.