Weight Watchers 101: A Day in My Food Life

I know y'all are on the edge of your seats, waiting with bated breath for me to tell you what I'm eating today. Today is going to be a "typical day". We aren't eating out, we aren't attending a party, although we may have some friends over, and we aren't running errands, which always results in a stop at the Sonic during happy hour. So, I am completely in control of what I'm eating today. It's a typical day.

I use the term "typical day" loosely because "typical" would imply that these days happen more frequently than the "a-typical" ones. I'm not really sure that's the truth. We go through periods of time where we eat out more than we eat at home. We have seasons where we attend parties, and potlucks, and get togethers more often than not. So, to be more accurate, here's what I might eat on a day that we have nothing going on and I am at home most of the day.

To give you non-WW friends a little background, I am allotted 23 points per day feed my body. WW figures this for me, and it is based on my height, weight, gender, and activity levels during the day. So, yes, as I loose weight, I loose points.

At first I didn't think that loosing 1 point would be that big of a deal, but, sadly, yes, it is. It's a huge deal. It's the difference between one or two rolls at dinner. It's the difference between a sweet snack in the afternoon or a piece of fruit. It's the difference between chips or carrot sticks at lunch, one cup of coffee or two in the mornings. One point makes a difference.

On typical days, I've been known to plan, first thing in the morning, what I'm going to eat for the whole entire day. I spend 5 minutes in the morning planning and eliminate the what's for dinner blank stare. I also usually have the same thing for breakfast and snacks every single day. Surprisingly, I don't get bored with this. It's simple, easy, it works for me, it saves time.

So, here's what I plan to eat this fine typical day:

8:00 am Breakfast: (2.5 pts)
12 oz. half-caff coffee
1/2 tbsp vanilla creamer
3/4 c. Fiber One Original
2/3 c. skim milk

10:00 am Snack: (1 pt)
6 oz. WW yogurt or Dannon Light and Fit yogurt

12:00 Lunch: (4.5 pts)
Hot Sandwich - toasted English muffin, turkey deli meat, WW reduced fat shredded cheese
1c. zucchini stir fried in 1 tsp olive oil and seasoned with Mrs. Dash
Baked Lays
Hostess 100 Calorie Chocolate Cupcakes

3:00 pm Snack: (1 pt)
1 lg peach

6:00 pm Dinner: (12 pts.)
1 roasted chicken leg
Alexia roasted potatoes
green beans
1 reduced fat crescent rolls
1 Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich

If you do the math, you'll see that I have 2 pts left over for the day. This allows me to have something extra at lunch or this afternoon if I'm hungry. If I don't use it then, I'll have a couple of extra potatoes or another roll at dinner.

On top of all that food, there's the water. Lots of it, 48 oz to 64 oz. to be exact. On the days that I exercise, I have usually consumed all of my daily water by lunch. An average water day for me is 80 oz. I usually drink de-caff iced tea or Crystal light in the afternoons and evenings. When I'm at Sonic I order iced tea or very rarely Diet Dr. Pepper. Liquid consumption is not hard for me. Cutting out the Hostess cupcakes and Skinny Cows, well, that's another story.

It's here that I feel the need to do a little housekeeping. "POINTS" are a registered trademark of Weight Watchers. They are very protective of their point values, how many points one person should eat, and how to figure the point values of specific foods. They have this right because they have spent tons of money to develop this system, and it really would be considered stealing if you tried to use their stuff and not pay for it.

On their website, Weight Watchers asks you not to post specific point values and I want to respect that. If you are a WW member, you know how to figure these yourself. In an effort to help you understand my journey, I've come up with the compromise above. Which is why I gave you the point values of each of my meals as a whole, but nothing about specific foods.

In the future, if I post recipes that I use while following WW, I will try to provide the nutritional information. If you're a WW member, you'll know how to use the NI to find your points values.

So there you go, a day in the life. Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Advice? I'd love to hear it. Leave it in the comments section or find my e-mail address in the sidebar.