FF: The Eating Edition

I'm making progress on this diet. Nearly three weeks into counting my WeightWatchers points, and after riding the water-weight roller coaster, my poundage is down between 7-10 pounds. I could be more accurate, but that would require more than my cheapo scale. Checkered has taken to weighing in on an industrial scale at work and has invited me to join him there, but using an industrial scale does something to my self-esteem.

The painful research by others: As we get more responsible around here regarding food, here are a few things to consider courtesy of the wonderful newsletter, Nutrition Action Health Letter

Olive Garden's Tour Of Italy is a trip no one should take.
This entree has 1,450 calories, 33 grams of saturated fat, and 3,830
milligrams of sodium. If you add a single breadstick and some salad and
dressing and you will have eaten an entire day's worth of calories (2,000)
in one meal.

The Cheesecake Factory: Chris' Outrageous Chocolate Cake. It looks wonderful. It sounds wonderful. But each "five-inch slice weighs three-quarters of a pound and has 1,550 calories and 32 teaspoons of sugar. By the time you hit the exit, your
arteries have 43 grams of saturated fat circulating in them that they didn't
have when you walked in. It's as though you had ordered three McDonald's
Quarter Pounders for dessert."

Now what about those food frauds (as NAH calls them)?
"Smucker's Simply Fruit . All varieties of Smucker’s
Simply Fruit contain more fruit syrup than actual fruit. And the syrup doesn’t
even come from the fruit in the products’ names, but from
(cheaper) apple, pineapple, or pear juice concentrate.

DanActive 'immunity' dairy drink. This Dannon product claims to help “strengthen your body's defenses.” But the only study Dannon did to see if drinking DanActive kept people from getting sick found that it didn’t!"

Research I've eaten:

*We love chili. Last week we ate Gina's Bean Turkey Chili. Oh my. It was so good that we are having it again tonight. Near disaster was averted though today when I checked the crock pot before I left for work. The chili had been cooking for two hours but didn't smell good yet. Yes, the crock pot was unplugged.

*And then there's dessert! Gina, through Weight Watchers has taught me that one may use any box of cake mix, 10 ounces of any diet pop, and two egg whites to make a cake or cupcakes. The diet pop replaces the oil and fat!! Mix and bake according to the directions on the box. The cupcakes are 1.75 points each. Top one with fat free Cool Whip to make yourself smile! (Hint: the Red Velvet cake mix I used with Diet Pepsi maybe wasn't the best combo. )

*One teaspoon of Splenda's brown sugar is actually higher in points than plain old Domino light brown sugar. ????

My own painful research:
My high school daughter refuses to wear a flashing light on her head, so rather than have her walk the 1/2 mile dark stretch to the bus stop at 6.30 every morning, I drive her and then I return home to get a boy to middle school. Then I return home and get two more boys to elementary school. To perk up and save some calories, I've taken to drinking a cup of hot tea before my first little commute every morning. A little Splenda, a little beneficial green tea and I'm set. It was unfortunate last week that I used Sleepy Time tea by mistake.

P.S. Pushing a shopping cart slowly but steadily around the grocery store does, in fact, count as exercise. I'm sure the really smart people already knew that.