As some of you know I’m on Weight Watchers again. Well I was out with my parents today helping buy a HD LCD TV for my father’s birthday when we decided to have lunch at Costco. I had one slice of their cheese pizza.
When I went home I looked up the NI on it and saw it was 18 points. I nearly fainted! It was good but not that good.
What foods have you tried that you decided is not worth the points?
Heavens to Betsy! Eighteen points for ONE slice of pizza?!?? AAACK!
My “not worth the points” anecdote is this: The first time I was on WW, which was…uh…not recently, I was having dinner at my brother and sister-in-law’s house. I did not put any potato salad on my plate, but my mother exhorted me, “Oh, Freck, you must! Sue makes the BEST potato salad!” So, against my better judgement, I took a small helping, and it was totally ordinary and not worth the points. My white-trash SIL smirked at me from across the table and says, “I buy it at the Kroger deii.”
You poor soul. All those points wasted not on just pizza, but *CostCo *pizza. Blargh!
Me, I gave up muffins, after this incident.
(I count calories rather than the WW thing.)
The first day I re-joined Weight Watchers, we had a department lunch at Ruby Tuesdays immediately following the meeting. Inspired and feeling smugly virtuous, I ordered a veggie burger. I remembered that BocaBurgers were about 4 or 5 points so I figured this one would be around 7 or 8. I also ordered fries and tossed half of them, thinking that the whole meal would be about 12 or 13 points.
Ha Ha.
I went to the site and the veggie burger was 22.5 points. Twenty two point five. One veggie burger took me over my point allotment for the DAY.
So I started again the next day.
I do likewise (calorie counting, with a side of comparing the calorie count (and fat content) to the weight of the items in question as a sort of way of determining an overall “food value” – how likely it is to satiate me versus how many calories in contains) and was also rather shocked at muffins. Sure, they’re full of bran-y goodness, and fiber is good, but Jebus, I eat frozen dinners that don’t have half the calories a single muffin does! Even so-called “lite” muffins don’t bring it down into the reasonably acceptable range.
I gave up most snack foods. I mean, I’ll still indulge from time to time but I’ve cut way down on the chips and cookies and chocolate and crap like that. It’s nice to have but it ain’t kind on a body whose metabolism has decided to take a very long nap.
This is not related to calories, but the other day I had some mac & cheese. It was okay, but mac & cheese is never FANTASTIC, so I wasn’t expecting too much. However, I set the bowl on the floor for a few minutes while I was taking care of some things and my cat came up, sniffed the bowl, and then started trying to bury it in the carpet like he was in the litter box. I decided that if the cat thinks it smells so bad it is the equivalent of poo I probably should not put it in my body. Mac & cheese is generally pretty bad for you anyhow.
Couple of years ago, I was going to college. The library there had a Starbucks. Two or three times a week, I went in and had a Grande Chai Tea Latte and a cinnamon scone. Eventually I looked on the Starbucks website and discovered that this little snack had 750 calories and 79 grams of fat. One lousy gram of fiber – in excess of 20 lousy Weight Watchers points!
I love to cook. Happily, since I joined WW, I’ve found that I cook more than I used to! And it’s good food; I’ve found the wonder of flavor, without having to go through heavy sauces!
And I have to admit - muffins are my weakness. Difference is - they are muffins I make and are portioned out carefully.
Susan
What’s the total daily point allowance?
The daily point allowance varies depending on your weight and goes down as you lose weight. I actually tried it a few years back because it wasn’t like most diets and if I remember correctly I got about 23 points a day.
Well, it’s not WW (I mostly just use calories) but I used to think cheese and crackers was a nice “light” meal until I added up the calories one day. My simple meal would wind up being close to a thousand calories and never really satisfied me. I’ve since discovered that a “real” dinner has fewer calories and is much more satisfying than cheese and crackers could ever be.
So, what the hell are you people allowed to eat?!
Well, today, for breakfast, I had 1/2 an olive (I was so decadent!). For lunch, I stood in the breakroom for an hour and smelled everyone else’s meals. Dinner is all the fresh air I can stand!
Seriously, here’s today’s meal, at 20 points for the day:
cereal - 2
soup - 4
muffin - 3
grapes - 1
yogurt & fruit - 2
pita w/ham & “cheeze” - 5
milk - 2
apple - 1
The soup (Turnip & Pear), muffin (Quick Three-grain - three grains being rye, wheat, and cornmeal), and “cheeze” (Boursin Cheeze, from a vegan cookbook - just trying for fun!) are all homemade.
This is one of my lighter meals. I’m saving my WPA for the weekend, because Mom’s coming to visit, and we usually eat out when she does.
Susan
You’re clearly eating the wrong mac & cheese. Mac & cheese can and should be fantastic. When it’s made properly, with butter, milk, *real * sharp cheddar, jack, and just a bit of (again, real) parmesan or asiago, it’s totally worth the calories.
I don’t do weight watchers, but I definitely do a cost/benefit analysis on everything I eat these days. It’s surprising how easy it becomes to swear off crap when you start to see and feel the results.
I actually make a good macaroni and cheese - that comes from a WW cookbook! The recipe is in WW Versatile Vegetarian. I was never huge on mac&cheese, but this recipe, I just love.
Oh, and I just wanted to mention - I left out the veggies in the menu above. Sugar snap peas at lunch, and a salad of romaine, cherry tomatoes, and balsamic vinegar with dinner.
Susan
This just totally cracked me up.
One of my coworkers just came and dumped a load of Tootsie Rolls on my desk. I think I’m going to throw them in the trash when she leaves for the day. I wonder how many points a Tootsie Roll is?
I don’t count calories or anything like that, but I do look at the info to leave out the heavy duty stuff.
The one thing that I just cannot rationalize eating no matter how much I want to is a donut. I’ll get a burger or fries or some such and write it off in my head with an excuse. But not a donut. It just seems like the forbidden fruit to me, even if there are things much worse.
10 more pounds. That’s all I ask. 10 more pounds.
The minis are about 1 point each. The larger ones that are wrapped like an actual candy bar and have segments are 3 points each.
:eek: What! Even on a regular eating plan of 2000 calories you only get 66 grams of fat a day. 79 grams?!? I thought that was just Ben&Jerry’s pints.
Actually, everything I cook (and I’m a pretty good cook) is pretty much okay on WW (I get 20 points) as long as it doesn’t have a lot of dairy in it. I still eat plenty of cheese and cream and stuff, I just count up how much it is and don’t just eat it willy nilly. (In other words, it better count - no crap, only really good stuff.) You get 35 flex points a week, too, to spend however you like.
It’s not gross or restrictive, in my experience (I’ve been doing it for, like, three weeks, though), although it’s kind of hard to figure out how to figure out what you ate when you eat out. I was really surprised by some things - Musselman curry at my favorite Thai place is 19 points for a cup! Sob! But you can totally go out for barbeque, if you don’t do like I did on Friday and go back twice for hush puppies.