Peppermint Meringue Cookies

I’m going to a cookie swap tomorrow. Crazy, right? I already told the host that I am not taking any cookies home, but I also wanted to bake because, well, tis the season. I found a cookie recipe that is very low in PTS+ values but still fun to make and tasty to eat – meringue cookies.

I originally found a recipe for Chocolate and Vanilla Meringue Cookies on the WW site that I was going to try, but they didn’t feel very holiday-ish. So I kept looking and found a recipe for Peppermint Meringue Cookies on allrecipes.com that were almost identical but a little more festive.

A few things to note about the Peppermint Meringue Cookies:

• The recipe says it makes 56 cookies but the original author was delusional. I got about 12 large-ish cookies out of it. (I actually doubled the recipe and it made 24. I could have made them a bit smaller, but I didn’t. Maybe the next batch.)
• I only used 3 candy canes, not 6. I put the 2 that it called for into the egg whites for flavor, but then only used one for garnish atop the cookies.

I am going to make another double-batch of these for the cookie swap and combine the chocolate meringues from the WW site and these to make chocolate peppermint meringues. All I’m going to do is add 2 tbsp of cocoa powder and hope that it comes out reasonably well. I might add a smidge of vanilla to balance out the cocoa powder, but we’ll see.  

According to the WW recipe builder these are 1 PointsPlus each, using the 24 cookies per batch.  We’ll see what  the girls at my cookie swap think!

Vending machine roulette

I did not end up packing any snacks or lunch today – not good – so when my blood sugar started to drop at 3 pm I was at the mercy of the vending machine. I was debating between what would have been my choice in the past – a Balance Bar Gold – and the No Salt, No Cholesterol Energizer Mix. I thought the Balance Bar was 7 PTS and had no idea what the trail mix was (it used to be 6 vs. the Balance Bar’s 5).

In the spirit of this new program and the push toward “real food” I chose the Energizer Mix even though I didn’t know how many PTS+ it was. I felt somewhat OK doing so because it’s the second-to-last day of my week and I still have 36 weekly PTS+ in my arsenal. That’s a very, very new occurence for me, but I’m trying to embrace it.

The trail mix filled me up, and after my meeting I went online to find the nutrition information and assess the damage. I used my PTS+ hand calculator to find the PTS+ for 1 serving. It was 4. But then I used the cool “Multiply” feature** that I learned about in my meeting last night to tell it I actually ate 2 servings and it spit back a “7”.  Sweet! I love when WW math works out that way.

Now, the Energizer Trail Mix ended up being 2 more PTS+ than Balance Bar, much to my surprise. The bar has stayed at 5 PTS+.  But the Trail Mix is real food, so I still feel I made the better choice. I’m going to try not to be at the mercy of the vending machine again, but I know it’s bound to happen at least one more time and I feel better knowing what the tradeoffs are.

** After calculating the PTS+ for a single serving, when the screen says “Use?” above the PTS+ value, hit the “x” key. It will say “Multiply?” and you just enter the number of servings you had. I had been doing the math in my head (double each variable) but this stops me from having to do that. Nice touch, WW!

Week 1 on PointsPlus – Midweek Check-in

It’s Wednesday, and I’ve been doing PointsPlus since Saturday. I have to say, it’s been interesting. I haven’t done as well planning as I’d hoped but I’ve been faithfully. Interestingly, I have finally experienced that previously-baffling phenomenon of not being able to eat all my target PTS+ in a day! Monday night I was satsfied at 9:00 with 5 PTS left over. I ended up eating more just to get to 29, which felt somehow wrong. But I’m not going to second-guess the program just yet. I’ll do it as they say and the scale will decide if it works or not.

I do find myself reaching for more fruit, which is great, but I’m a little nervous about all those calories and their impact on my weight loss. But at the same time I’m eating far fewer carb-y things like granola or energy bars so perhaps it will balance out. In fact, I was hungry yesterday at work and ran out of snacks so I went to 7-11 and the choices were decidedly fewer than they had been. The store had the same merchandise, but the options had gone up in relative PTS+ value so they no longer seemed like options I wanted to “invest” in. Guess that’s part of starting over.

So I have 3 days left on PTS+ before my first weigh in. I’m hoping I will walk into the weigh in with Weekly Points+ values left in my bank and a lower number on the scale. Wish me luck!

Day 1 on PointsPlus – Success!

Yesterday was my first official day on the PointsPlus program, and it was a doozy. I was spending the day with my family for Hannukah, so I knew the day would involve a bunch of foods that I don’t normally eat and might have a hard time counting. Luckily, though, I was able to do really well. I looked up foods throughout the day as I went and ended up exactly at my Daily PTS+ target before dessert. We were having my mom’s famous low calorie chocolate mousse pie for dessert so I calculated that, too, and just used some of my 49 WPA. All in all it felt like a very, very successful day. Here’s what I ate:

B (9:10 am): Blueberries (0), 6 oz Chobani vanilla yogurt (3)

S (11:30 am): Whole wheat english muffin (3), 1 Tbsp natural peanut butter  (3), medium banana (0)

S (1:30 pm): Granny smith apple while driving (0)

L (2:15 pm): 1.5 cups mom’s homemade bean/pasta soup* (8)

D (5:45 pm): 3 oz chicken breast (3), 3 latkes made from  mix – 3″ each (6), 1/2 cup sweetened applesauce (2), salad w/ fat free honey dijon dressing (1)

Total PTS = 29

For dessert I had 1/8 of my mom’s chocolate mousse pie, which I’ll have to post the recipe for shortly. It turned out to be 5 PTS+ for that serving so I pulled from my 49 for that and enjoyed it without a stitch  of guilt. I was totally satisfied with what I ate and didn’t feel like eating anything else even though I was up for several more hours afterward.

So I’d consider the first day of the new program a rousing success. On to day 2!

*This was a cross between ministrone, pasta fagioli and a stew. I looked up the PTS for all three and took an average.

Daily Menu Plan: 12/3/10

I’m not going to start tracking in my new journal until my official WW week starts Saturday, but I put together a menu for tomorrow using the new PointsPlus program. So far, I’m liking it. I am able to have a day that would satisfy me but be “expensive” on the old Momentum program and it’s within my Target in this version if I use the updated activity points for my typical Friday spin class. Here’s the plan:

B: Frozen wild blueberries (0), 6 oz Chobani vanilla yogurt (3), 30 g Smart Bran cereal (3), homemade breakfast sausage patty (2)

S: Baggie of grapes, probably about 2 cups (0!)

L: Tuna salad on a whole wheat wrap with lettuce (6), 1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese (2), medium granny smith apple (0)

S: 100% whole wheat english muffin (3), 1 Tbsp peanut butter (3), medium banana (0)

D: (restaurant) Blackened Haddock filet (4) with fruit salsa (0), 1 cup black beans (4), salad w/ oil & vinegar (1), 6 oz glass white wine (5)

Total PTS = 36 (29 Target + 7 APs)

45 minute spinning class = 7 APs!

This day would feel pretty indulgent to me normally, or at least not a big sacrifice, but it would have been well over my old daily PTS allowance. It would have been 31 oldPTS. My old daily PTS target was 20, so that would have meant using 11 APs or WPAs. Spin class was typically 5 – 6 APs so I still would have had to use 5 – 6 WPAs for this day. On the new plan I don’t have to dip into my 49 WPAs at all. Sweet! Of course the real test will be in the weight loss I see at the scale next Saturday. I’m really looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Starting over with PointsPlus

I went to my old meeting tonight to learn the basics of the new WW PointsPlus program. Out of respect for their copyright I’m not going to talk about the specifics here, but the basic gist is that foods that are high in protein or fiber have become better “bargains” than they were and stuff that’s high in fat and carbs has become worse. Fruits are free, which is huge for me because I LOVE fruit of almost all kinds. Most veggies are still zero except the really starchy ones. The rest is largely the same. Spend your Points on the healthiest foods you can, stick to your target, exercise, use your weekly allowance for indulgences and special occasions.

The biggest thing to get used to will be the numbers (and saying PointsPlus! It’s not a noun so it’s harder to say. I find myself calling them “PlusPoints” instead). My daily Target went up, and so did some of the PointsPlus of my go-to foods. In some cases, though, it’s still the same relative proportion. A food that was 2 PTS was 10% of my daily allocation before. Now, it might be 3 PTS but that’s still 10% of my daily Target so relatively speaking it’s the same.

I’m taking advantage of this new program to re-commit to my healthy eating, planning, tracking, and to the idea that this can be a fun adventure. As was the case when I first started, and a few times in the last 10 years, I’m trying to look at this as a way to expand and change my dietary repertoire and shake things up. Stay tuned to share in the fun!

Gnu Baked Bars

I just returned from a business trip to Minneapolis, and in the airport I came across a new type of snack bar I’d never heard of – Gnu Bars.** These bars are good sized, tasty, look and feel like real food, and are surprisingly good on the old traditional PTS scale. I bought two flavors – Banana Walnut (140/4/12) and Orange Cranberry Walnut (130/3/12) – and both were only two PTS.

I’m trying very hard to break my reliance on bars, especially when I travel, but the reality is that they are an easy to carry, shelf stable snack option. To mitigate the fact that these aren’t Filling Foods I’m trying to at least choose ones that are made from real food, not soy protein crumbles or things of that ilk. I think these fit the bill, so I plan to pick up some more. They seem to be available at many Whole Foods in this area as well as Vitamin World and The Vitamin Shoppe. They have a nice store locator on the site you can use to find a location near you.

Note: Both flavor of bars are 5 PTS on the new PointsPlus system, but I’m not sure what that means yet since I get more of those new PTS per day. I can’t tell if it’s a good “price” or not, but I suspect it’s not the bargain it once was. Each bar went from 10% of my PTS allowance per day to 17%.)

** Side note – the otptions for healthy snacks and foods in the Minneapolis airport were surprisingly good. Kudos to the folks at MSP!

Everything happens for a reason…

I have, I’ll sadly admit, not been going to meetings much lately. This is the first time in 10 years I can say this, and I’m not happy about it. But life got in the way. I tried to rearrange my schedule so that I could have more weeknights free, so I started going to meetings on weekends. But then I was either traveling or had house guests every weekend for months. Literally. I’ve managed to get in my monthly weigh in, but I have stayed for precious few meetings.

Enter POINTS Plus.

I learned the other day that WW has totally changed the POINTS program for the first time in my 10 year tenure as a WW (my anniversary is coming up – 4/3/11!). I’m reserving judgement until I hear all the details at a meeting this week, but I can’t help but wonder if someone up there didn’t put this change in my life at this time to re-energize my committment to healthy living and eating. I love mastering new things, and as a self-appointed WW expert I’m now back at the beginning with a whole new set of rules. It’s going to become harder for a while – I can estimate old PTS in my head without even trying. That skill, though fun at parties, will no longer serve me. And I don’t think I”ll be as easily able to figure out the new formula b/c it’s more complex (fat/carbs/fiber/protein instead of calories/fat/fiber).

Stay tuned for more about my adventures in re-learning the WW program. I still believe that the old tried and true principles of Eat Less, Move More apply, and that Filling Foods are always the best choice. I’m curious to see what changes I’ll make to my own staple diet as a result of this, too. I look forward to sharing the journey along with you!