On Weight Watchers? Here are my tips for staying on track!

As you may already know I am all about Weight Watchers . It is an investment it does cost a little bit of money but let me tell you this. Add up all the extras you can do without, maybe it is buying coffee out twice a day, maybe it is fast food for lunch. If you cut that crap (lets be honest it only helped us get more unhealthy so it is plain crap) not only will you be saving tons of money it is way more than the tiny cost of weight watchers. I am on the monthly plan it comes out of my bank account and I honestly do not miss that $40. I have access to E-tools, can attend as many meetings as I want, and also have access to a whole community of people just like me going through the program.

I am so happy and excited when I meet people online or even in person and they ask me whats my secret and some of them tell me they are going to join WW. I am always sharing advice with them so happily and I learn new things from swapping ideas! I love it! So I thought I would share my weekly shopping list, some favorite low point snacks, and link you up to some of my favorite recipies. This will be a long post so bear with me, but I wanted to give some great information. I am not an expert by any means, nor am I claiming to be one, I just am a girl who loves food, loves to cook, and refuses to accept the fact that I cannot continue this love and be healthy!

Well first would be my weekly shopping list. In your pocket guide you have a list of filling foods, on the program these are the foods thats give you the most bang for your buck, in terms of being low on calories and points and fill you up. I live to cook and eat these filling foods. You CANNOT be successful without the right tools in your bag, you need to have the right foods on hand to avoid eating crap and straying off of the plan. So every week there are essentials I buy and cannot be successful without:

• 99% lean ground turkey or chicken, usually I will buy whichever is on sale both are excellent and so versatile to cook with
• thin sliced chicken breast, again very easy to work with and so healthy
• some kind of shellfish if its on sale, I usually focus on scallops or shrimp
• Plain oatmeal (I use Bob's Redmill GF cut oats) but anything will do if you are not GF
• carton of egg whites
• zucchini and or summer squash, both veggies cook nice on the grill or saute well and very filling and yummy
• spinach, onions, potatoes, peppers
• baby carrot sticks, a ton is ZERO points
• tomatoes and also canned or crushed tomatoes
• brown rice, I prefer the cook in a bag Success brand or Uncle Bens, because brown rice can take forever to cook these are easy and portioned right for beginners
• spaghetti squash, I have celiac so no gluten here and frankly yes pasta is tasty they eve have some yummy brown rice versions but lets be honest to me it ain't worth 5 freaking points!
• frozen veggies, I like buying frozen so A. they dont spoil as quickly and B. if I am not in the mood for it I do not have to cook it and eat it. I buy broccoli flourets, the mix with cauliflower, broccoli and carrots, and I like the singe serve brussel sprouts, the frozen veggies are just good to have in a pinch when you are out of fresh ones and looking for a quick side to your meal
• fruit, I have 1 serving a day, it changes with the seasons here in new england so you pick what you want but fruit is so good for you and filling. My faves are strawberries (very point friendly), apples (great in oatmeal), Mangos (sweet enough for a dessert for me) and bananas
• Weight Watchers cheese sticks, these are string cheese 1 point a piece and a great snack on the run
• Weight Watchers cheese slices, very close to the real thing, a 1 point flavor adder to many things, I use it in my egg white omlets, to top a veggie burger, in brown rice etc.
• Fiber One yogurt, I buy the 4 pack they are ZERO points for 1 and I have one every morning as my mid morning snack with my serving of fruit, its a cheap free (hehe) fruit dip and yummy I eat vanilla
• swiss miss diet cocoa, I got this tip from my WW leader, I adore her, 1 packet is ZERO again and I add 1/2 teaspoon of baking cocoa to it in a mug for a night snack, a chocolaty ZERO point treat. for me it satisfies that night time sweet tooth ache I always seemed to have
• Jello sugar free jello cups again another ZERO point little snack here, always good to have on hand if you wanna munch on something
• coffee mate fat free coffee creamer and splenda, I refuse to give up my coffee so I found a way to make it fit into my daily totals. the creamer is 1 point for enough to make a cup of coffee and the splenda just works for me. i use 2 packets and a little cinnamon and its yummy
• Water, I drink 100+ oz of water a day, I just made it a habit to cut out juices and sodas and stick with water, there is nothing better for your body than that. I am more successful when I have my water everyday at weights that week
• Hummus and fresh salsa, great for dipping veggies in :)
• olive oil, the healthiest oil to cook with
• nonstick spray, essential to avoid coating pans with oil and calories :)
• spray butter, if you feel you need it 5 squirts is zero but be careful more than 5 adds points!
• Condiments: I like to always have garlic powder, onion powder, and mrs dash on hand. I like to cook with no salt whenever possible and these spices work for me, make sure you find ones you like and will work for you. you need spice to keep the food interesting!

This is only ideas and suggestions, obviously we all have a taste for different things but these are just the things working for me :)I cook and bring a lunch to work everyday, some weeks its a fresh made salad, some weeks its Turkey Lettuce Wraps, other days it might be a piece of Spaghetti Squash Pie. As a general rule for me I try to not have a serving of carbs at both dinner and lunch.

So packing lunch is essential for me when going to work, the preparation is key,  The 5 P's if you follow them you will not fail I promise. I always start my day with 20oz of water and a multi vitamin. Then I have egg whites and veggies and my coffee, some mornings oatmeal it all depends on my mood lol

Then we have the snacks. I literally eat all day. I snack every 2 hours in between meals, again this is just what has worked for me. Small meals and snacks in between keeps my metabolism burning and fuels my work outs. After I go food shopping I package everything in zip lock baggies at home and write with a sharpie the points values on the bags. This solves 2 problems: keeps me from eating a whole bag of something and I know what I am eating when I come across that snack in my lunch bag. Some of my go to favorite Low point snacks:

• 15 carrot sticks and 2 tablespoons of hummus mixes with 2 tablespoons of fresh salsa, I dip the carrot sticks in the hummus mix for a tasty 1 point snack
• Corn thins topped with 1 point WW cream cheese, I put up a picture of corn thins at the 5 P's post, 4 is only 1 point and I buy the WW 1 point cream cheese cups and spread it out amoung the 4, sometimes I will top it with thin sliced fruit too. Only 2 points!
• Jello sugar free Mousse cups, a great 1 point snack and satisfies my sweet tooth
• Soy crisps, I discovered these in the healthy food section most of the kinds you can have 18-22 for 1 point!
• Zero Points vegetable soup, I make a big pot of this every week and take 1 cup with me to work, it is so filling and again ZERO points I usually make it 1 point and add a teaspoon of parmesan cheese in it
• Pirates Booty, I buy the single serve 2 oz bags , it is 2 points but for me so worth it when i am craving Smart Food!
• the WW string cheese sticks are always good, I do not do WW bars often if I do it is the 1 point chocolate caramel one the only one I have found to be gluten free. Again the bars are good many people like them they just don't work with my Celiac 
• Blue Diamond cocoa almond pouches, these are heavin in a tiny bag lol literally 2 poitns yes but they are cocoa covered almonds, I eat them like that or sometimes crush them and top them on my fiber 1 yogurt cup

 Again keep snacks on hand, find stuff you like and go for it. You will never know whats working and not working unless you track everyday and keep looking it over, on a week I have a bad weigh in I go back to the tracker and see ok maybe eating out was a bad idea, ok not enough water, or maybe I did not get as many filling foods in. You get the idea, the beauty of tracking is it keeps you on track! I bought the journal and used it for the first 3 months, then I got a Droid phone and downloaded the WW diary application. I am inlove :) it has a tracker, WW point calculator, weight tracker, and fitness tracker and calculator. It is heaven in a application for me :)
If you do not have a phone with that kind of application no problemo.
E tools has it all built in, if no E tools i highly recommend the 3 month journal, and a points calculator. The calculator goes everywhere with me especially when food shopping.

My most essential tool I tell everyone it is a must have is a Weight Watchers electronic food scale. It is on sale right now for $25 it is normally $40. It is worth every pretty penny. It weighs everything and calculated the points for you right there. It has a zero out option so you can place a container on tip and zero that weight so you can put food in it and not dirty it. You can add foods together and weight them, it has over 500 foods I could go on all day it is clearly a love affair between me and my food scale, it just works. If you invest in nothing else, invest in that!

I think this is enough to get you going, if anyone has tips, ideas, suggestions please pleas email them to me and I will include them on my blog :) If anyone would like to guest post here about Weight Watchers I would be honored as well so please contact me!
tryn2bfit@gmail.com