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Thanksgiving Vigilance

The good news: I’m down 0.6 pounds this week!
The bad ambivalent news: I’m up 3 pounds total this year.

Today was the annual Thanksgiving meeting, and it was actually more helpful than I’d counted on. Linda, our leader, passed out pieces of paper and had us write down what we were going to eat for our Thanksgiving meal.

At first, I wrote, “Whatever Uncle Pete serves us.” Then I decided that maybe I should play along and actually do the exercise, so I wrote:

  • Turkey, probably smoked, 4oz
  • Stuffing, 1 cup
  • Carrots and veggies with low-fat dip
  • Acorn squash (I hope!), 1 cup
  • …with butter and brown sugar
  • Green bean casserole, 1/2 cup
  • Sweet potato
  • 2 butternut squash cheesecake cups
  • Pumpkin pie, 1 piece

When I totaled everything up, I came up with a whopping 41 Points. For those not familiar with Weight Watchers, a full day’s food for me is 24 Points, plus I get a weekly allotment of 35 Points to use whenever I want.

Looks like I’m going to be using them on Thanksgiving Day next week.

I unashamedly shouted out the total Points value of my meal when Linda asked. Later on in the meeting, I shared that my battle plan is to eat only one plate of food, and not go back for seconds. Which is totally true. Although I’m still going to eat appetizers (OMG Nate’s spinach dip!) and dessert (accounted for above, for the most part).

So, this week is a dry run. Can I get through an entire week and not use ANY Flex Weekly Points? Evenings and weekends will be the test; I won’t have the buffer of Weekly Points when I eat them all on Thanksgiving. And, yes, I think I’ll probably just assume that I’ll use them all, in lieu of actually counting and tracking my Thanksgiving meal.

Not going to gain 10 pounds this holiday season. Nope. I didn’t gain anything last Thanksgiving, although I did gain a good five pounds the Thanksgiving before, and the Thanksgiving before that was in the middle of a slow five-pound gain over the end of the entire month of November. Something to keep in mind: it’s so, so easy for me to go off the wagon for a long weekend and undo months and months of progress in one fell swoop.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE!