Yesterday was a Food Disaster Day...Not the end of the world

Last night I tied one on. It wasn't planned. I hadn't thought I was going out at all....but sometimes life just happens.

Our friend Tim had been staying with us for a while as he lives in Windsor but was teaching at the Institute of Holistic Nutrition here in Toronto. 

Last night was his last night with us and while we had planned to have dinner with wine, we didn't really plan on a "last night out".

After dinner, however, we decided to go to the local Pub the "House on Parliament" for drinks. I knew my weight watcher points had already been used up for the day, but I also knew I had my weekly points allowance and my exercise points so off we went for drinks at the pub.

Although I had already had three glasses of wine I still managed to also have three pints of beer...and a HUGE order of sweet potato fries that I can assure you were not baked in an oven.

The question then became..."how the hell do I figure out how to enter all this in the Weight Watchers Tracker?". This is the type of dilemma that turns people off of Weight Watchers.

Last night I had decided just to move the 49 weekly points allowance into yesterday's points and make the decision that for the rest of the week I will only have my daily points allowance and any new points I generate through exercise.

Today I decided to do my best to be a bit more accurate. It actually wasn't that hard. 

I looked up my points for the wine and beer and entered them on the tracker. The next thing to figure out was the points for the Sweet Potato Fries. The pub I went to does not have nutritional information available so I looked up the Nutritional information for Sweet Potato Fries at the TGIF restaurant as I guessed their fries would be cooked in much the same way. 

When I looked up the nutritional info. at TGIF the website indicated the information was for a "side of fries". I had well more than a "side" of fries so I multiplied the nutritional info by three and calculated the points....it came to 31 whopping points.

So....the grand total at the end of my day yesterday was 101 points (I am allowed 37).

Seems like the end of the world from a weight loss perspective doesn't it? It is not.

Over all, after adding in the 49 weekly points allowance that I am allowed to use at my will, and the activity points I had already earned this week I was in the negative but only by 6 points. I will do 5 points worth of exercise today. This means that as long as I eat just like a normal person today, by tomorrow morning I will only be in the negative by 1 point. 

This goes to show that we can enjoy a good time and still overcome what seems like disaster.

I don't get off scott free, however. I am going to have to be a little more careful the rest of the week.

Looking forward I will use my 37 points daily allowance each day (as I am supposed to) and continue to do 5 points worth of exercise each day. There can be no "skipping the gym" this week.

By tomorrow night I will have paid off my debt and have generated 4 new usable activity points (The five I earn through exercise less the one I was still in the "negative" for). Then on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday I will earn five more activity points each day. This means I still have 19 "fun" points available to use.

This is good news as we will be going out Saturday night so I will need them. It will just be drinks Saturday night as we will eat at home. According to Weight Watcher's beer "cheat sheet" a pint of light beer is 4 points. This means that as long as I have a 36 point day Saturday rather than a 37 point day, I can go out that night and have up to 5 pints of light beer. I think that should do me :-)

I am glad I wrote today's blog. It actually helped me to plan the rest of this week out while simultaneously convincing myself once again that the Weight Watchers plan really is doable for life. I can have fun AND lose weight. Well...I guess the scale will determine that next Wednesday :-)

Be healthy!

Alan