Things I love...to eat

A few weeks ago, I started Weight Watchers. For some weird, sick reason, I'm kind of loving it and treating it like a challenge. Because who doesn't like a good challenge here and there, right?

Anyway, my goal is to lose 15 pounds. So far, I have lost a total of 1.8 pounds since January 13th. No, it's not a ton. But, it's something. I weigh in again tonight and I'm almost positive I've lost more this week. Fingers crossed!

Participating in WW has really made me realize that I, along with most of America, EAT TOO MUCH. I'm loving WW because I've become so focused on eating less and making it last longer. Does that make sense? I have also enjoyed trying a lot of the WW recipes. As you may or may not know, I absolutely love to cook, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how tasty the WW recipes have been! Even Mr. Smith has been thrilled with the majority of them. I think my fave so far has been the Orange-Marmalade glazed turkey tenderloin with sweet potatoes. Yummy yummy! Let me know if you'd like the recipe.

My usual day of eating looks something like this:

Breakfast:
Some variation of egg whites, possibly one slice of turkey bacon, and some low-cal, high fiber bread. Today, I made a breakfast sandwich on a Food for Life english muffin: one scrambled egg white, one piece of turkey bacon (cooked in the microwave, of course!) and some super low-calorie herbed cheese spread I got at the farmers market (it's made from organic milk instead of cream!). The Food for Life sprouted grain english muffins are amazing - but I usually stick to their Ezekiel bread (lower in points).

Lunch:
All the lunch WW recipes I see look great...but I rarely have the energy to make a whole lunch to take to work in addition to cooking dinner when I get home. I have eaten a Smart Ones WW frozen meal pretty much every day for lunch since I've started, and I have to admit...I'm totally in love with one of them. Who has tried the Santa Fe Style Rice and Beans???? Oh my gosh, it is absolutely delicious. I keep buying this one over and over again...in fact, I'm actually eating it right now!

Dinner:
WW recipe from online, WW blogs, or my new Momentum WW cookbook.

So far, I've been extremely happy with the food and rarely feel as though I am "on a diet." I try to eat a lot of high-protein foods to keep me going during the day. I'm sure you know that when you get really hungry, you get desperate and make bad choices.

Take, for example, yesterday. Yesterday I was feeling really skinny, like maybe I lost quite a bit of weight this week! Knowing that today would be my weigh-in, I thought I would really try to keep my points down to see how well I was doing. So, yesterday for breakfast, I had half an english muffin = 1 point. For lunch, I had a Progresso Lite soup = 1 point. And then I followed it with a WW yogurt = 1 point. At around 4:00, I was in a meeting and realized I was absolutely starving. Because I had eaten only 3 points for the entire day! For those of you not familiar with WW, 1 point roughly equals 50 calories. You do the math. It was late afternoon and I had only eaten about 150 calories worth of food.

At that point, my body was in panic-starvation mode, I think! My meeting ran late and I realized that I had forgotten to take what I was planning to cook out of the freezer. I really didn't have anything else I could cook, so I stopped to pick up Chinese food on the way home. After ordering what I knew would be relatively WW friendly (moo shu chicken for me, General Tso's for Matt, an order of spring rolls to share), I sat and waited another 20 minutes for the food to be ready. When I got home, it was 6:00 and I was feeling the hunger pains. So, I ate. A LOT. Bad, Shaina.

Lesson learned: eat all of my daily points, and not all at once! I really have found that if I eat something with egg whites in the morning, the protein really keeps me going.

Of course, doing WW has cut out some of the foods I love the most...chocolate and pizza. But what I love about WW is the extra points you are allotted to use during the week. I am allowed 20 points a day, and then everyone gets 35 extra points per week to use however you'd like. I like to use it on a dinner out, or a bit of chocolate here and there.

My one issue with WW is that they promote a lot of "treats" that a sugar-free. Of course, that means they are made with artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners such as Splenda used to not be a big deal to me...until I read the book Skinny Bitch. What they wrote about artificial sweeteners scared me to death, and I now try to avoid them at any costs. I have found that, if I really have a chocolate craving, I have one square of good, serious, organic dark chocolate. My favorite is Newman's espresso dark chocolate. Yum! And one square is only 1 point, so it's a good special treat.

I am hoping that I did well this past week, because my next weigh in won't be anywhere near as good! Monday is my birthday, and Mr. Smith and I are headed to Michigan to spend my birthday weekend with my parents. Before we leave tomorrow, my coworkers are having a birthday cake for me at lunch. And then my dad is making his award-winning chocolate cake on Saturday. And my mother-in-law is also making me a cake for when we return! I will do the best I can, but sometimes...you've just gotta have your cake and eat it too.