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Muffin Pros & Potato Cons

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I was running late for work today, and when I finally got here I noticed a muffin sitting next to my keyboard. Evidently there were some donuts and muffins left over from a charity event we hosted early this morning and my boss snagged me a blueberry muffin in case they were all gone by the time I got in. While I was of course very touched at his thoughtful gesture, my first thought was, "Oh God, there must be at least ten points in this thing." I nonchalantly asked him where they ordered the muffins from, and when Dunkin' Donuts was his reply I quickly went to my computer to look it up. Sure enough - 13 points! That's half my day! No way could I eat this thing. But what could I do? I would feel terrible telling him I didn't want it, and even more terrible if I just threw it out. So, I waited until his next meeting, which fortunately was about ten minutes after our discussion. When he shut the door to his office I quickly grabbed the muffin, headed to the kitchen, and placed the muffin back in the box. I then proceeded to heat up my Jimmy Dean Delights Sandwich and peel my clementine. Six points, and no guilt!

After my muffin triumph I went back to my desk to track my dinner from last night. I cooked for a friend who stayed after dinner to play Wii for a bit, preventing me from tracking until this morning. One by one I added in my meal:
  • Weight Watchers Chicken Breast - 3 points
  • 1 tbsp Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce - 1 point
  • 1 cup baby spinach - 0 points
  • ½ cup strawberries, sliced - 0 points
  • 1 tbsp low-fat feta cheese - 1 point
  • 1 tbsp low-fat raspberry vinaigrette - 1 point
Everything was going just great, I had 4 points for my chicken and 2 points for my salad. Now all that was left was my side dish. A baked potato. I was really excited about trying a [modified] recipe from the Power Foods Favorites recipe collection I had stumbled upon. I was confident last night making the dish at what the points would be, however when I went to track the items this morning I was horrified at my results:
  • 1 tbsp low-fat cream cheese - 1 point
  • ½ cup broccoli, steamed - 0 points
  • ¼ cup low-fat cheddar cheese, shredded - 1 point
So far so good.
  • 1 baked potato - 3-7 POINTS!
WHAT!? My jaw simply dropped! I naively assumed potatoes had zero points being as they were selected to be in the Power Foods recipe book. However, not all power foods have zero points, in fact most of them do not. A very foolish error on my part. Especially with a potato. Come on, Sam. Your last diet wouldn't even let you have potatoes at all because of their high carb content. Ugh, I was SO mad at myself! My day, which was spot-on points-wise was now a staggering 5 points over (my assumption of the size of my potato). And yes, I have weekly points to tap into but after last week I really wanted to have a perfect week, no weekly points used at all. I was mad about this potato problem all morning, remembering I also had another half of a potato (my friend couldn't finish hers last night) sitting in the fridge to be eaten as part of my lunch. I made the decision to skip my traditional Lean Cuisine and only have the half-potato (which worked out to be 2 points, although I'm calling it 3), a Greek yogurt (for 2 points), and a free apple, making my lunch a total of 5 points. Yes, very low, but after my blunder last night I didn't want to have a lunch of 11 points, as it would have been had I eaten my Lean Cuisine. Although I'm a little hungry right now, I'm glad I made that choice. The half-potato and sides filled me up enough, I didn't need the whole potato. I really didn't need to whole potato last night as I was STUFFED. I really need to get my portion-size barriers broken down. You don't need the whole potato. You don't need to have more than one side dish, or even a side dish at all - but that's a whole other post I'll be working on another day.

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