A Lesson Learned

If last night is any indication.....this week is going to be tough.

We had "home group" last night. We meet once a month at a friend's house from church and they ALWAYS provide fried chicken while the rest of us bring a side and/or a dessert. I make allowances for one piece of fried chicken because I love it and I know the point value and can work around it and it's only once a month.

I did good in bringing a salad for a side dish. But I did horrible in bringing an apple cake as a dessert. I had bought some Macintosh apples a week ago but didn't know they were soft apples until I bit into one. I like my apples crisp, crisp, crisp. Well, I didn't want my apples to go bad and I didn't want to throw them out so I thought..."I'll make an apple cake." I've made it before and it's very yummy.

So, I make the cake and then I sit down to figure out the points. OH MY!!!

I piece [about 2x2] was 7 points.... Good thing I made a salad too. I figured I'd eat my chicken and salad and have a piece of cake. My points we going to be higher than usual for dinner but not too bad.

My plans did not turn out the way I thought....

I've traced my evening and have decided that this is where they "went bad". I ate lunch at 1 p.m. but we didn't eat dinner till 6:30. I was hungry when we left the house and had planned on eating some carrots to tide me over, but in our rush out of the house I forgot them and the caramel topping for the cake. [thank goodness my son drives and was willing to bring the topping to us...it "makes" the cake] So, by the time we ate I was very hungry. Too hungry if you know what I mean. I was starting to show signs of low blood sugar and that's not good for one trying to control what she is eating because when low blood sugar hits I could eat a house.

As I went to go get my food I realized they did not have the fried chicken I knew the points of....they instead had bought fried chicken tenders. Hmmmmm....how many points are in one? In my head I figured two tenders probably equaled one fried chicken breast. WRONG!!!

I made a salad, had my two chicken tenders and about 1/4 c. of mashed potato's and decided that I'd "splurge" on a roll. I don't mind using up some of my weekly points. After I finished eating I was still hungry....like seriously still hungry...so I went back and got one more tender and some cake. But instead of one piece of cake, cause they were so small and I was hungry, I decided I'd "splurge" on two. It's the beginning of the week for me so I knew I had weekly points I could use.

Well I am happy to say that after all that I felt satisfied and my low blood sugar symptoms had diminished. And the food was very good.

Then I went home to track my points....and I was SHOCKED!!!!!

My dinner had more points than what I ate for lunch and dinner on Thanksgiving combined. WHAT!!!!! How can that be??? Apparently each chicken tender was 7 points....times that by 3 and it came out to 20 points.....[ww's math] Will I be eating tenders again? I don't think so.... I had figured they were around 4 or 5 points because they were not that big....whatever....

Of course I had splurged on the roll and extra cake so add on another 18 points.....4 for the roll and 14 for the cake.

Lessons learned....

• next month I will go better prepared
• I will grill a chicken breast to take with me just in case they don't have my fried chicken breast.
• I will take a side of veggies worth 0 points that I like to eat.
• I will NOT make an apple cake...or I will look at trying to make it lower points.
• I will eat a snack between lunch and dinner so I won't be so hungry

It's a good thing that each day starts anew.....I still have a birthday breakfast and lunch for a friend to get through this week but I am going to combat that with getting more exercise and building up my activity points....cause I only have 12 weekly points left.....[sigh]