Q&A

GEORGE WAYNE

Jenny Craig on weighty matters

Twenty years and 10 million clients after she opened her first weight-loss clinic, Jenny Craig's name is synonymous with prepared food and strip-mall storefronts. As Craig prepares to step out from behind her logo with the launch of her memoir, The Jenny Craig Story, George Wayne learns about her Victorian upbringing, the founding of her company, and the science of portion control.

George Wayne:What's new with America's favorite brunette?

Jenny Craig: Well, I'm not brunette anymore, I'm a redhead.

G.W.What's the fourth thing Miss Craig does when she gets out of bed each morning?

J.C. Well, the first thing I do is to have a cup of my Starbucks coffee.

G.W.You mean you have your own personal Starbucks downstairs in your mansion?

J.C. No, I buy the beans and keep them in my freezer. I guess the fourth thing I do each morning is exercise.

G.W.What is the most important thing that ever happened in your life?

J.C. Well, I think the most important thing that ever happened in my life was the birth of my children. But I saw this ad in the paper about a new concept coming to New Orleans, where I lived. And the ad was very provocative—a new method to reproportion your body without exercise—because up to that point I had always felt that manual exercise was the only way to change your body proportion. So I called up and made an appointment. The interesting thing was when I got to the office for the interview, there was my sister sitting in the office also. And we hadn't even talked to each other about it. Long story short, the owner of this company, Sid, called me the following day and begged me to come and work for him. We were both married at the time, but later—after working together for five years—we began a courtship, and got married in 1979.

G.W.Wasn't it Sid's idea to start Jenny Craig International?

J.C. We started Jenny Craig International in 1983. We had sold the company that Sid was president of in 1982, Body Contour, Inc., and signed a two-year noncompete and came back to America in 1985, when our two-year noncompete was up. And we opened 12 centers in Los Angeles and expanded from there.

G.W.Today you are a 70-year-old grandmother with 11 grandchildren. Nonetheless, vanity must still be an important part of your ethos. So where does Jenny Craig go for her Botox treatments?

J.C. I don't get Botox treatments.

G.W.Wasn't Jenny Guidroz the town tart in high school?

J.C. Are you kidding?! I grew up in a Victorian family and would go in the closet to change my clothes. I went to an all-girls school where at gym time we wore these bloomers that went all the way to my knees. Believe me, I was anything but a sex symbol.

G.W.The one complaint about the Jenny Craig diet is the portions are too small.

J.C. Let me put it this way: if you continue eating the same portions you are accustomed to eating, then you are going to have the same weight problem. You have to control the portion size.

G.W.Joy Behar is one of Jenny Craig's greatest advocates. She's lost 25 pounds.

J.C. She's lost 30 pounds, thank you very much.

G.W.Three years ago, you had this unusual malady where the neurological system in your face collapsed, and you developed this weird lockjaw. What exactly was the problem?

J.C. What happened was I was sitting on my couch watching TV and I fell asleep. And my head went forward, so my chin was sort of resting on my chest, and apparently something happened on TV that was loud. It woke me up, my head jerked back and apparently my lower jaw locked over my upper teeth, and I had to pry it down. It was really scary. I ended up going to 18 different doctors all over the country before finally Dr. Mitchell Brin in New York diagnosed the problem as focal dystonia. He said it started out as a trauma, and developed into focal dystonia. It wasn't until I had surgery that I was able to speak properly again.

G.W.God bless Dr. Mitchell Brin. And all you overweight people out there? 1-800-597-5366 is waiting for your calls!

J.C. You sound like a lot of fun. That's a great commercial.

G.W.Just make sure to send the residual checks! But isn't it true, Jen: you change your weight and you change your life?

J.C. Absolutely.

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