Adventures In Weight Watching (Week 2.5)

Many people have been asking me questions about Weight Watchers lately, so I thought I’d make a mid-week post to share with you some little tips that have helped me so far.

First off, here are a few of the online resources that I have found to be quite useful:

• Weight Watchers:  http://www.weightwatchers.com/
• Points Plus Calculator:  http://pointspluscalculator.com/
• Portion Control Meal Plan:  The E-MEALZ rESOLution ~ Lose Weight Not Your Mind
• Hungry Girl (Blog & Cookbook):  http://www.hungry-girl.com/
• Gina’s Skinny Recipes:  http://www.skinnytaste.com/ (all recipes include WW Points Plus Value)
• The Best Restaurant Guide:  http://www.dwlz.com/ (you might also be able to get an app for this one on your phone)
• Another Restaurant Guide:  http://www.exercise4weightloss.com/weight-watchers-points.html#mp
• Additional Points Guide:  http://www.wikiweightwatcher.com/

If you’re cooking with a recipe, or eating someone else’s cooking, you can type a recipe into the Weight Watchers website and it will calculate  the point value of the meal.  You can make little changes (such as using whole wheat flour or substituting applesauce for oil in baking) to lower the point value if you like.  The WW website also has tons of recipes available for you!

I use the Portion Control Meal Plan from E-mealz for our dinners.  We used E-mealz long before we started WW so it was easy to just switch our eating plan to the one that includes Weight Watchers Points Plus!  This program is $15 for 3 months and you get a 5 Day Menu and a Grocery List every week.  Each week you will typically get at least one Crock-Pot Meal, and one Casserole, along with various other types of meals.  We’ve been doing it for about a year and have never once had a repeated meal.  Every single meal has been very good and there are many that we’ve repeated ourselves because we liked them so much.  If you chose to sign up for E-mealz please use the link above!

The Hungry Girl and Gina’s Skinny Recipes are both blogs that include DELICIOUS meals and give the point value of each.  Hungry Girl also has a few cookbooks available, one of which is called 300 under 300 and includes 300 recipes that are all under 300 calories.

The Restaurant/Point Guides listed are very helpful, but whenever possible I like to get the Nutrition Information directly from the box of food, or from a Restaurant website.  When I eat out, I try to look at the menu online before I go and figure out what I’m going to eat ahead of time so that I don’t have another surprise like last week’s Reuben Sandwich!

I prefer to calculate and track my point BEFORE I eat them, when I make my breakfast and pack my lunch in the morning, I track all of those points first thing (I will add dinner in too, if I’m thinking ahead to what we will be eating later).  This helps me to gauge how many points I will still have available for snacks, etc. throughout the day.  Many times this also will make me reconsider whether what I’m about to put in my mouth is really worth the points I’m about to consume.  If I’m legitimately hungry, something healthy will satisfy me just as much as a “treat”.  Put the cookie down, and pick up an orange!  😉

One of my friends who is considering starting WW mentioned that she was concerned that she would have to start adding all new things to her weekly meal plan.  My response to her was, “Well, DUH!”  (lovingly, of course!).  Since what you’ve been eating regularly is likely what got you fat (me too!!!), then obviously you’re going to have to reconsider the things you’ve been eating!  It doesn’t mean you have to completely eliminate everything you love from your diet, but you might want to rethink how often you eat them and you may just have to cut back on what you eat the rest of the day/week.

That’s all I’ve got for now!   Hope that was helpful!  I’ll let you know after my Weigh In on Thursday how well I survived Easter, and eating out over the weekend!