What the Heck Do I Order?!!

Last Friday my friend and I went to a Photoshop Power User seminar at the convention center in South San Francisco. I didn't even know they had a convention center in South San Francisco (it's a separate city) let alone what restaurants would be around there so I had no way to plan my meals. Planning my meals is half of my diet strategy! Turns out the only thing near the convention center was Houlihan's. So if I wanted to eat breakfast and lunch that was my choice.

Breakfast was pretty easy.  I had an egg, english muffin and some fruit. I could roughly guess that it would be about 7 points and it actually turned out to only be 5.  Regardless, I knew I was safe on that front. We happily enjoy breakfast and waddle off to the convention center.  The seminar was fantastic and the first half of the day went really quickly suddenly - Lunchtime!

Back to Houlihan's we waddle, but what I thought would be a pleasant lunch turned out to be a Weight Watchers nightmare. I opened the menu and there was nothing, absolutely nothing that I saw to order. (If you want to see for yourself you can view it here.) I searched and searched and searched.  The first thing that caught my eye was the Fish Tacos, but being with chipotle mayo and being breaded in panko I didn't think that would be a good choice. I kept looking over and over the menu and then thought that maybe I should just look up their menu online to see if they had nutrition values, but guess what? My AT&T iPhone is permanently set to "Show Zero Bars When Phone Is Needed" so I was totally on my own.

So, what did I do? I did exactly what I always tell myself not to do. I ordered a salad. I know, I know, I know that it never turns to be as figure-friendly as it should be, but I have been trained just like the rest of us to think that a salad is the "healthy choice." It certainly wouldn't be an evil hamburgers. No, no, those hamburgers are the sole reason that America has an obesity problem. So, I choose my "healthy" Seared Ahi Tuna Salad and hoped for the best.

When I got home I diligently looked up the nutrition values online. So, I bet you know the outcome. The salad was much higher in calories and points than I expected. No surprise there, what did surprise me was when I did a little comparison of foods on the menu and their points value:

Item	Calories	Fat	Points
Ahi Tuna Salad	1074	67	28
Hamburger	703	13	18
Veggie Burger	825	14	21
Fish Tacos	876	39	23

So look at that!  A plain old hamburger is almost 10 points less than that "healthy" salad.  10 POINTS! What's more shocking is that the hamburger is even less points than a veggie burger, even with all that fiber veggie burgers have!  And, those fish tacos, you got it, fewer points than the salad.

So what did I learn here.  Well, I reaffirmed my suspicion that most entree salads are not figure-friendly. Far from it! More importantly, I learned that if I really need a go-to item when faced with a menu I am not familiar with that old fashioned hamburger is probably my safest choice. Imagine that! I guess it's not the culprit in America's obesity problem.

Cuties - My Snacking Saviour

Joey and I started Weight Watchers at just the time - Springtime!  With all these fruits and vegetables coming into season we can alway find something healthy and delicious to snack on.  My favorite snack has been Cuties.  What's a Cutie, you ask?  Well, Joey's my cutie but California Cuties are actually two different fruits: Clementine mandarins and Murcott mandarins. Clementine mandarins are harvested from mid-October through mid-January; Murcott mandarins from mid-January through April, though they are still selling them in the markets. They come in 3 or 5 pound bags and are about $1.00 a pound here in California.

Cuties are perfect for me because they are easy to carry, easy to peal and are packed with vitamins, minerals and fiber!  Just two provide me with all my vitamin C and have 4 grams of fiber, which helps curb hunger.  I probably eat about six of these little guys throughout the day when I am at work. It has really helped me resists the jars of Jelly Bellies and M&Ms that are all over the office!

So, if you need a healthy snack, I would pick some of these up soon before they are gone for the season! They are the perfect snack and at zero points are the perfect choice for someone on Weight Watchers.

Eating Out on Weight Watchers

One of the hardest things about dieting is what to do when you go out to eat.  It's bound to happen sooner or later and for us, it happened sooner. Actually, quite soon - our first week. We don't eat out that often anymore, but the past couple of weeks I have been out three times.  I am proud to say that each time I managed to eat a nice meal and stay within my points.  I didn't even dip into my points allowance!  So, what did I do?  I bet you're thinking that I must have had salad each time, but have you ever really done a calorie count of the meal salads you get when you go out?  A chef salad can be 25 points. To give you a reference, Joey gets 32 points for an entire day. An entire day!!! That's a lot of points for a salad. I don't know about you, but if I am going to blow a ton of points on something it sure as hell is not going to be a salad! When I go out I want to have a real meal. However, I have to admit it's hard to know what is within your points range and what's not, but with a little planning it is totally possible to eat out, have a wonderful meal and not break the points bank.  That's the key - plan ahead!

Check out the menu online - In this day and age you'd be hard pressed to find a restaurant that didn't have it's menu online. Take advantage of that and decide what you are going to have before you go out.  It's surprising how much you can get if you order correctly.  When Joey and I went to Fog Harbor Fish House, we really were able to get a huge meal: appetizer, soup, salad, and an entree! If we hadn't decided what we wanted beforehand we probably would have ended up ordering one thing we thought was healthy and ended up still hungry. Worse yet, that one thing could actually have a zillion points without us knowing it. We each had 25 points for dinner so, with my 25 points, a-plannin' I did go.

The first thing I did was go over the menu at home and see if there was anything that I just had to have. In this case there was. One can't really go to Fisherman's Wharf and not have clam chowder. That was a good start for me and when I found out that a cup was only 5 points my tummy did a little jig. A cup was all I needed and that gave me plenty of points for an entree. I looked over the menu and checked off the things I knew I couldn't have, but then I had a thought - we could order anything we wanted if we split it.  Luckily, Joey and I like the same things and we decided on Fish & Chips. Since we were splitting it, what would have been 16 points was now only 8.  Yippee, that's only 13 points total! Now, I may be counting points, but I have 12 points left and I am going to use them! I certainly am not going to let them go to waste.

Since we were sharing the entree, why not share a salad as well? I know I said that salads can have tons of points, and they can, but there are ways to cut that.  We had the Crab Louie and ordered the dressing on the side.  The thing was huge and really was just crab and vegetables.  The only thing that had points was the crab and the dressing.  That turned out to be only 6 points and that left me with 6 left.  Yay, appetizers!

Appetizers were hard, especially at a place like this.  There was a lot of cheesy, bready, deep-fried goodness on that front.  We could split away and still would go over our points. I gave up on that one.  We didn't really need an appetizer anyway.

The meal was delicious, satisfying and best of all in our points range.  We did it!  Appetizer, soup, salad and entree.  Yep, we did get to have an appetizer after all and a tasty one at that! I noticed while we were waiting for our table that they had oysters on the half shell. I figured a couple oysters would be about 6 points, but guess what? It's six oysters for 1 point!  How awesome is that?  Our entire meal was only 20 points.  We might have been able to use our 5 extra points for dessert, but honestly we were too full for that.