Girl Scout Cookies and Weight Watchers

Girl Scout Brownie - Michelle

Our first boxes of Girl Scout cookies arrived last Friday. There were 2 boxes which my husband had ordered from his friend. He only shared a few Somoas with me.

I had ordered several boxes from a neighbor, but had yet to receive them. Well, I got my six boxes today, and my dilemma is what to do as a Weight Watcher.

I have a long history with the Girl Scouts, as I was one. View the lovely photo of me in my Brownie outfit (very figure flattering) in the 1980’s. My mom was even a leader for my troop for a number of years.

We had fun singing songs, going on trips and camping, but one of my best memories is of the cookies. Our house would be full of the cases of cookies, where my mom had to sort and distribute them to the girls in her troop.

My favorites are Thin Mints, Samoas and Trefoils who have kept their lovely 70’s shape throughout the years.

Now I have a daughter of my own who can join the Girl Scouts when she starts school, but that’s a few years off.

I know I can count the points for the cookies, but for me, it’s hard to resist only having 3, 4 or 5 cookies. I usually can eat half a box of cookies a day. My 6 boxes could be gone before the end of the week. I know I can freeze them too, and the Thin Mints in particular taste particularly yummy frozen.

I looked up the points, and the best amount of cookies for the points turns out to be the Trefoils with 5 cookies for only 4 points. I had even ordered a box of the Sugar Free Chocolate Chip cookies to try, but turns out you only get 3 cookies for 4 points!

Here are the points values that I calculated from Little Brownie Bakers.

Cookie	Amount	Points
Trefoils	5 cookies	4
Thin Mints	4 cookies	3
Samoas	2 cookies	4
Do-si-dos	2 cookies	3
Tagalong	2 cookies	4
All Abouts	3 cookies	4
Sugar Free Chocolate Chip	3 cookies	4
Lemon Chalet Cremes	1 cookie	2

So far today, I’ve only had five Thin Mints (and put down 3 points on my WW tracker), but it’s going be hard to make it through tonight, the rest of the weekend, and heck, even the rest of the week. What’s a girl to do?

Holiday parties are all about the food

It’s a miracle. I just completed three days of holiday parties without gaining more than a pound. I don’t know how I did it, but I’m not going to argue with the scale.

Wednesday kicked off the start with a little “sweet” holiday soiree by a department at work other than my own. It was held in the afternoon and only had desserts and sweets which included cake, chocolate crème puffs, cinnamon sugar covered walnuts, cookies, fruit, ice cream and Ghirardelli chocolates. If you know me at all, I have a rather large sweet tooth, so I indulged in most of the goodies, and even included some fruit on my plate.

Thursday was my husband’s holiday party during the work day at his place of employment. Spouses were not technically invited, but I snuck in. Their spread of dishes included many healthy options like salad, sandwiches, vegetarian dishes, and of course the dessert tray with an assortment of lemon bars, cheesecake bars, cookies and other treats. For beverages they had smoothies, and for dessert they had sorbet! The main dishes were too delicious for me to know it was healthy for me.

Friday night was our company’s party, held at the Signature Theatre in Shirlington, where spouses were invited. Timed from 4-8pm, we got my sister to be our sitter, and arrived a little before 5pm. We each got two drink tickets, and beer and wine was served until 5, and then after the full bar opened.

Dinner was more of an appetizer/buffet style with two tables of food. It wasn’t ready until about 5pm either. One table had an Asian food theme going on with spring rolls. They were being hand rolled and the line was enormous.

The other spread was more American style with mini grilled cheese sandwiches that had salmon or ham inside. They also had glasses with chicken and a whole grain we couldn’t figure out at the bottom, followed by grilled meat of some sort and grilled mushrooms. This was the shorter line, so I started here first.

My main complaint, no dessert table to begin with. From 5pm – 7pm, it was drinks, and two tables of food. At 7, they brought out the dessert.

Now if I’m planning what I want to eat, I want to see all of my options in front of me! I didn’t know if the dessert would be fabulous or just average, and if I should hold back on my dinner choices.

In the end, the dessert was just slightly above average. They had fruit on kabobs, some mini spice cake/brownie things, but the best part was the servers who went around carrying trays of chocolates. My husband spotted them first, brought me two, brought me another one, and on my way out I grabbed two more. They were a variety of dark and milk chocolate on the outside and different crèmes on the inside. The only one I didn’t care for was the coffee flavored one.

Sure there were drinks and dancing, but for me it’s all about the food.

My two highlights of the evening, the chocolates and taking a snap shot of our VP doing the DJ Casper Cha Cha Slide dance.

Candy and Halloween

Only 15 more days until Halloween, but between now and then I have at least three parties to attend, two of them with my daughter. If you know anything about me, candy is a weakness of mine. Especially at this time of year.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I don’t know if that’s because of the candy or dressing up. Even before I had a kid, Halloween was my favorite. Mark down candy for me as a reason. We have a friend who is a dentist, and you can guess the holiday that she hates.

My daughter’s first Halloween she was only 6 months old, and I dressed her up as a lady bug and took her trick-or-treating. Granted only to the neighbors that knew us, but I still got candy and ate it all since she couldn’t eat it. The next year she was Minnie Mouse and I allowed her a few pieces of candy. Who ate the rest? Guess.

Last year she was a cowgirl, and the prettiest little cowgirl you ever saw. By this time she was a great walker, and we covered a good deal of our neighborhood taking in one pumpkin plus a bag full of candy. I helped hold her stash. That year I found out she was a chocolate freak like me.

This year, she’s 3 and a half. Since I’m trying to get serious about this weight loss thing, I have to change my strategy. I’ve decide I’m going to let her dress up and take her trick-or-treating, but only to a few neighbors houses to show off her outfit. Then we will return home to watch a movie! I guess I’m going to have to buy her a new movie to make it more appealing than trick-or-treating, but I’ll do whatever it takes to try and keep a ton of candy out of my house.

Now the other dilemma is that I have children coming to MY house to trick-or-treat.  I don’t want to be a super downer and hand out pretzels and raisins, but if I end up buying candy to give out, who ends up eating it? A strategy I deployed one year was only buying candy I didn’t like. That doesn’t leave much available, but I think I bought Almond Joys and Mounds, about the only chocolate that doesn’t really do it for me. Not chocolate related, I’m not a huge fan of Skittles, but I will eat them in small quantities.

I also don’t want to hand out those cheesy little cheap toys or non edible things. What would you recommend I dish out to all the little ghouls and goblins that come to visit?

Three desserts and several gallons of water at the Renaissance Festival

We sweated like pigs out in the heat at the Renaissance Festival on Saturday. We dressed in shorts and t-shirts, while some dressed up in pants, long sleeve shirts, gloves, boots and hats. I think they were crazy.

We took a few bottles of water with us, but we sweated out everything we drank anyway. Luckily I avoided the port-a-potties thanks to the heat.

We had turkey legs (which I shared with my daughter), an apple tart alamode, an apple dumpling alamode (which I both shared with my mom), some cinnamon roasted pecans and almonds, a cone of mini chocolate chips cookies (which we all three shared) and some frozen snow balls (which my daughter stole from me). We also had a couple glasses of lemonade and a few more bottles of water. Drinks were only $1, including bottled water.

Everything was delicious as expected, and there were hardly any lines compared to when I went last year. We think most smart people stayed away due to the heat.

The only thing I was disappointed in was that there were no recycling cans next to the trash cans. I saw so many plastic water bottles in the trash it wasn’t funny.

We saw a few shows, shopped in a few shops, and tried to stay cool which was nearly impossible. The girl rode a pony, for free no less, but did not ride the elephants which were taking a break when we went by, and cost something. She liked the mother goose nursery rhyme show and the Pirate Queen show where she got to participate in both.

We arrived before it opened at 10am, and stayed till almost 4pm. I’m surprised we lasted that long. Kids 6 and under are free and we used our CVS card and got a $4 discount off admission price.

Then we went home, showered and went out later for dinner where my mom and I shared chicken quesadillas. 

It was a nice day, and I’m glad I shared my food instead of eating it all myself. At least I wore my pedometer, and clocked over 7000 steps.

Slim Fast Shakes and Chocolate Bars

I’m an occasional drinker of Slim Fast I must admit. I started drinking it in high school when it was just available as a powder that you added to milk. It even came with its own shaker cup and lid which my mother still has. Ironic thing, my mom was not fat, but she liked it because it was fast and convenient.

Later they came out with the cans which were even more convenient. Frankly, the stuff isn’t the greatest tasting in the cans, but its gotten better over the years. I remember when you could taste the metal of the can in the drink. I think the fresh mixed powder with milk still tastes the best.

But truthfully, I’ve never done the complete Slim Fast plan which is something like drink 2-3 shakes a day as meal replacements and eat only one regular food meal a day. One can or shake a day is usually enough for me. I’d just feel like a lab rat on a liquid diet if I drank more than that. For the majority of things, food tastes better as a solid.

With my crazy schedule though, I do grab a can before heading to work to drink in the car. Sometimes it’s the only time I find for breakfast. I’d much prefer a bowl of cereal, but if I’m running late, Slim Fast it is.

I did buy the powder recently too, but found out my daughter enjoys the taste of my “chocolate milk” so I end up splitting it with her on the mornings I shake one up. She also enjoys pouring the powder in the Rubbermaid container and adding ice cubes.

Carrying the can around with me is always a tad bit embarrassing. It’s like announcing to the world that I’m fat, and I’m trying to slim down….fast. Not that this blog is not announcing that I’m fat, right?

I liked when Whoopie was their spokesperson, but I forget the reason she was let go. Something about some comment she made somewhere about President Bush.  What if she made those same comments today?

I mostly drink a can for breakfast, but did take them for dinner at some night classes last year. Often though, I’d drink the shake in class, and just eat something afterwards which sort of defeated the purpose of the can in the first place.

I only know one person who did the whole diet meal replacement thing and lost about 30 pounds, but who knows if she’s kept it off or not.

Milk chocolate is good, but Chocolate Royal is better. Haven’t had Strawberry in years, but I remember the powder being pretty good, but the cans were nasty. Their chocolate bars are pretty good to, and the Crispy Peanut Caramel tastes similar to the 100 Grand candy bar. The Peanut Butter Crunch is similar to a Butterfinger too. The bars are only 3 points each.

Avoid the candy jar

Or dish. One of my problems is the availability of candy at the GWU graduate center. Other Weight Watchers complain about it at work too. The dreaded tempting candy dish.

I avoided the jar tonight, but many times I’ve grabbed a mini-dinner from that dish. So have my fellow classmates. Come on! We are in class from 6-9pm, so it’s bound to tempt us during our regular scheduled dinner time.

Those little mini Snickers, Milky Ways and 3 Musketeers are a lot of points! Well, not a lot, but they do add extra calories through the day if you reach in and snack from the jar.

My ultimate favorites are the Tootsie Rolls, which thankfully are not in abundance anymore. The Midgees are 3.5 points for 6, and the snack bars are 1 point each. Other values for the GWU jar: Two fun size 3 Musketeers bars = 3.5 points, 1 mini Snickers = 1 point, 1 fun size Milky Way = 2 points.

I love candy, yes I do. I even read the wonderful book Candy Freak over the holidays, and had to take B with me to Whole Foods to purchase the fabulous 5 Star Chocolate bars for myself and as gifts. Hazelnut and Caramel.  They were expensive; yet so delicious…..I’m not even going to count the points for those. If you’d like to borrow the book, just ask.