Our new friend Jenny

Hubby and I have a new best friend (OK, I just had to retype "friend" TWICE...first time it showed up as "fiend" and the second time, "fried"...honest...this will very soon become ironic).

Her name is Jenny Craig.  She's the kind of friend you need to keep around because she does things for you.  I'm afraid we might eventually kick her to the curb, but for now, she serves a purpose.  How callous.

A few months ago,  my husband looked at our naked selves in the bathroom mirror  and said "we look like we should be dancing in a witches' coven"....if that doesn't give you a visual, I don't know what will.  Now before you say "how DARE he??", he said it with laughter in his voice and love in his heart.  And he was right.  Damn him.

And so, like Kirstie, Valerie, Sara and Carrie say "Have you called Jenny yet"?  Yeah, yeah, I'm calling already.  But because my wonderful husband said he'd join me on this journey with our new best friend, we both hauled our extra poundage over to Jenny's house.

We were introduced to Nafisa, (apparently Jenny was too busy to meet us).  Nafisa is such a lovely young woman of Somalian descent.  Her complexion is like chocolate.  Hmmmm, chocolate.......

We went through the usual humiliation of having to stand on their scale (which is obviously broken), and be measured up for size.  The general consensus was that we'd been enjoying life a little too much and needed to solidify our new friendship with Jenny tout de suite!  Not a lot...about 15 pounds for me and about 20 for my warlock.  Nafisa assured us that we'd have no trouble embracing this new friendship and that Jenny would be with us all the way.

Armed with Jenny's meals and a fever to shed those pounds, we headed home to start our journey.

When I prepared the first meal and handed it to my husband, he looked at it and said "this is sad".  I was all bubbly and "oh, but with the salad and extra veggies, it's a lot of food!"  He just looked at me like I had sprouted another nose.  OK, to be fair, there's not a lot of food, but after you drink 8 gallons of water, you really aren't that hungry, are you?  I'm allowed 1200 calories a day and he's allowed 1500.  There must be some kind of gender bias discrimination law against this.

Exercise is a big part of our day.  My husband works out harder than I do, and he plays some tennis and in the summer, golfs when he can.  I like to ride my stationary bike.  Well, not "like" to ride it, but at least I can get lost watching The Food Network (I know, funny eh?) and my usual weekly total is about 50 - 65 miles.  I'm at it for about 50 minutes a day, 5 days a week and if I ever get where I'm going, I'll let you know.  We also walk to my mother's and back, a 5 km trek from our house.

I'm not going to say we haven't cheated on on our buddy Jenny from time to time...dinners out, dinners in...life does go on and we do have other friends.  But come Wednesday morning, the only friend we want to see is Jenny.  Nafisa weighs us, praises our triumphs and gently accepts our defeats.  He's down 15 (men lose it faster than women) and I'm down 13.8 (and the .8 matters!!).  Our clothes fit better, our energy level is up and we live for those moments when people notice.

We've realized just how little one needs to eat to be satisfied.  Could we eat more after a Jenny meal?  Of course.  But we don't and it's paying off.  Some of the food is really good, some of it mediocre and some of it, bleh.  Kind of like my cooking.  And now go back to the first paragraph and you will see that "fiend" and "fried" are obviously some kind of Freudian slip.

And the next time my husband says that we look like we belong in a witches' coven, I'll hit him with my broom.  And then we'll get on it and head on back to Jenny's.