In my Tips n Tricks page I say never ever ever eat something you can’t calculate the points for because you’ll trick yourself about just how bad that food is for you…the easiest person to lie to is yourself. I stand by this at all times but joy-of-joys I managed to lie/trick/delude myself this evening thereby providing me with a blog topic 😛 and a supreme sense of stupidity/failure. sigh.
The day started off well, I kept to my points, ate healthy – sure I felt like I was starving to death in the afternoon but I ate some carrots and dealt with it. Even with being oh so hungry when I got home I managed to cook a yummy healthy dinner – you’d think if I was gonna cheat on my points it’d be then but nope…here is a pic of what I made…
Teriyaki Salmon Steak, Wild Rice and Mixed Veggies
Ok, so not the best picture out there but hey, I am not a photographer – pictures aren’t my talent! 😛 That is my super delish low point dinner that I had tonight and after I ate I realized I had a chunk of points left and was still quite hungry so I got a treat of light peanut butter on bread…man I love peanut butter. 😛
Here is where the delusion started, sigh, back for Christmas a friend of mine that lives in Australia sent me some candy from there that you can’t get here, one of the items was a Cherry Ripe chocolate bar – it’s coconut with cherries covered in dark chocolate, so, like a Bounty bar but with the added cherry flavour. I didn’t think I would like it cause generally I don’t like cherry flavoured things but I looooove coconut and dark chocolate so instead of grabbing a jaffa bar (which is 3 points) I decided to open the cherry chocolate bar. *rolls eyes*
Here are the lies I told myself to convince myself it would be ok to eat the chocolate bar (1) a jaffa bar is 3 points and this chocolate bar is practically the same size (it’s not, it’s almost twice as long but half as thin so I thought that made up for it) (2) I don’t have any way to calculate the points which means I’ll hafta guess anyways so why not guess tonight (3) I won’t like it so a nibble of it won’t hurt, then I’ll throw it away and finally (4) well, I didn’t really have a fourth, I just grabbed it and opened. sigh.
I had 2 points left for the day, the jaffa bar would have put me 1 point over because it is 3 points but I was willing to go over by 1 point but, sigh, that chocolate bar was 5 points, 5!!! So, that is 3 points over, 3 whole flex points used on a chocolate bar!!!
See how we lie to ourselves?!?! I managed to convince myself that chocolate bar wouldn’t be so bad for me, it woudn’t use anymore flex points then the jaffa bar, it wouldn’t make me feel like crap for essentially cheating on a diet that is supposed to not need cheating on cause you can eat anything (ha!) – I lied/tricked/deluded myself all cause I was (1) lazy and didn’t want to take that whole 30 second effort to figure out the points online (2) felt like chocolate and couldn’t bring myself to care all that much where I got it from and (3) convinced myself that I ate so well the rest of the day I deserved a treat. Argh!
I didn’t deserve a treat, I have used flex points every frickin day this week! well, almost everyday, I have used around 12 flex points this week and that is practically a record for me when there was no big meal, no special day, no reason to have a treat. The way I acted with food this week goes against how I have held myself accountable during this journey. My rules (and these are the way I choose to follow the program, they are obviously not for everybody) are to never use flex points, not unless I absolutely have to – and really, why would I absolutely have to? I shouldn’t! But things do come up, accidents in counting are made, days where you feel like you are being starved happen – so in my world, flex points are for those days. They are not so on a daily basis I can have a little treat, if I can’t eat a food within my daily points then I don’t eat it…well, until this week apparently. sigh.
Oh, and to make it worse, did I exercise this week? Nope. Sure, I was sick, but you know what, that just means that I be more careful with eating cause I had no exercise to balance it out with…but as we already know, I was not more careful, I was less careful then ever. *rolls eyes*
So beware all those trying to lose weight…don’t take the lazy way out, calculate your points if you’re on Weight Watchers, count your calories if that’s your thing, track however you track every single thing you eat cause if you eat it first and track it later you’re gonna wish your knees bent the opposite way so you could kick yourself in the ass for screwing up when you were doing decently well.
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 
don’t give up – you are doing a great job with your weight loss………my WW leader ate all her points, plus all her flex points, and exercise points every week when she first started the program, and she lost over 40 pounds. She is the best leader I’ve ever had………she hated exercise before she joined WW, but now she runs 5 miles every morning, so she can still drink beer – my kind of leader!!!! So eating your flex points may not be bad at all – guess you’ll find out at your next weigh in.
don’t beat yourself up – that chocolate bar sounds yummy – and worth going over your daily points. Besides, people who eat all their flex points as well as daily points, tend to keep losing weight (my leader did). Guess you’ll find out at your next weigh in.
sorry, don’t know what happened there – the first time I posted, the comment didn’t show up, so I tried again, and both of them showed – oh well, maybe the computer is as not-awake as I am, as it’s quite early in the morning!
you left your comments before 7am, of course your computer wasn’t awake yet! lol
I know the flex points are there to be eaten if you want to/need to – I just don’t feel like I have given my best effort if I use them. shrug. My daily points should be enough on a nice normal average day, so on one of those days, if I use flex points I annoy myself cause it seems like a waste of them.
I like saving my flex points for say, going to a movie and having some candy, or going for dinner with a friend – things I don’t do all the time so it’s a treat, not the norm.
Ah well, nothing I can do about it now, we’ll just have to see what happens on the scale tomorrow! 🙂