my body is a mystery

Even after my disaster of a week, I lost weight. Less than a pound, but still. Weight Watchers, you mystify me sometimes.

cruising for a bruising

This has not been the most successful Weight Watchers week of my life. I ate way the hell too many cookies while watching Project Runway on Wednesday (oh, Petit Ecolier! Why must you tempt me so!), got a little over-excited at Otto on Thursday, followed a prosciutto, goat cheese, and fig jam panini at Paninoteca with a flight of whoopie pies from One Girl Cookies on Friday, and indulged in churros and chocolate and linguine con seppia on Saturday. I've been over my points since last night, which I've never done before. I just want to go home and sleep and I have no motivation to do anything I'm supposed to up to and including eating well. I imagine I'll gain when I weigh in tomorrow and frankly, a wakeup call would probably be a good thing.

service-oriented

A lot of people seem to find this blog by searching for variants to two questions: "how many points in Weight Watchers is a gingerbread latte?" and "Can I eat Chipotle on Weight Watchers?" The answers: a tall nonfat gingerbread latte with whipped cream (because fuck if I'm giving that up) is five points and not really, no.

good news/bad news

Good news: Pretty much all my skirts and pants are too big!

Bad news: This means that I don't really have any skirts or pants.

Good news: This gives me a perfect excuse to go shopping!

Bad news: I'm broke.

Good news: Seriously, these H&M jeans I purchased right before starting Weight Watchers almost fell back off me when I tried to put them on.

Bad news: I never once wore them and now the return period is over.

ha HA!

According to the booklet I got at tonight's meeting, dancing vigorously for 15 minutes will net me TWO activity points. Crank up the Mariah Carey, y'all. All I want for Christmas? It's you.

cannell-love-you

I'm currently working on a freelance assignment for an Italian foods company. When I took the assignment, my contact said she'd send over some samples. Guys, I came home today to find a giant box filled with no less than ten bags of pasta, five jars of different kinds of tomato sauce, a jar of roasted red peppers, a can of cannellini beans, one of chickpeas, one of artichoke hearts, and two bottles of extra virgin olive oil. I am set for non-perishable groceries for life, y'all. Or at least until Christmas. I made my favorite recipe with some of the whole-wheat shells tonight and it was as awesome as you might suspect. Later this week, I'd like to do something with more of the whole wheat pasta and maybe the cannellini beans? I'm obsessed with cannellini beans and want to eat them on everything all the time. I'm thinking maybe whole-wheat penne with cannellini beans and arugula pesto. It will be, I think, a very good accompaniment to the season premiere of Project Runway.

things that taste better than being thin feels: part two

•Pissaladiere

•Brownie sundaes

•Duck yakitori with yuzu-flavored salt

•Barbecue potato chips

•Bacon-wrapped hot dogs

•Sangria

siiiiigh

So, yesterday was an unusually exhausting day for me and I just plain forgot to post. Although I guess this means that I'm no longer an official NaBloPoMo participant (sad!), I'm still going to try to post every day for the rest of the month. Tomorrow, I'll have lots to say, but today? Today, dude, I'm padding over to my best friend's house and spending the day watching The Wire on DVD. Yessssss.

hell to the yes

The Gingerbread Latte is back at Starbucks. I don't care that Starbucks is lame. I don't care that frouffy coffee drinks are for pussies. I don't even care that a tall skim Gingerbread Latte is five points. It's the most wonderful time of the year, guys, and I feel great.

a love affair continues

My boyfriend who is, for the record, a fully grown adult, is worse than many children about eating vegetables. I'm on a neverending quest to show him that veggies can be delicious, so is it any wonder that I'm resurrecting my new favorite recipe for him tonight?

I'll take any excuse, guys.

tuesday yay!

Just came back from weigh in! 15 pounds down since starting the program! Is it maybe a little sad how happy I was to receive my five pound star sticker today? Yes. Yes, it is. But whatevs! I feel excellent.

words that are, apparently, banned in posts on the weight watchers message boards

•Shit

•Damn

•Crap

i wonder...

So, just, you know, hypothetically? How many activity points could I earn for dancing around my room to Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You"? Like, several times in a row?

a partial list of things that taste better than being thin feels

•Linguine carbonara

•Freshly made chocolate chip cookies

•Fried calamari

•Pizza from DiFara's

•Anything from Momofuku

•Burritos

•Cider donuts

•Soup dumplings

•A pot of Earl Grey accompanied by scones with clotted cream and jam

•An Alsatian apple & cream tart

•Cream puffs

breaking up with chipotle

The lack of banned foods is by far my favorite thing about Weight Watchers. I like knowing that I can eat whatever I want, so long as it's in moderation. My pre-WW eating wasn't, per se, unhealthy (as I discovered when I plugged my recipes into Recipe Builder, most are only 4-7 points per serving...the issue was that I was downing four servings at a time), so I haven't really much changed what I eat, just how much. The one exception? Chipotle.

Guys, I love Chipotle. Not-so-secretly, I want a burrito with rice, black beans, carnitas, fresh tomato salsa, cheese, and guacamole every day. That burrito? 28 points. My daily points target? 22 points. Could I eat half the burrito? No. I have no control over Chipotle, and anyways, burritos are subpar as leftovers. What about a burrito bol? Still 21 points. This is possibly doable, since when I have a Chipotle burrito for lunch, I don't need another meal until breakfast the next morning.

I've broken things off with Chipotle for as long as I can possibly stand it, but if an insane craving comes (and I'm sure it will), I'll probably still get a burrito and eat real real light for the rest of the week. Oh, Chipotle. Why must you tempt me so?

Also, if I'm home in Boston, I'll say fuck it to points targets for a super steak burrito from Anna's Taqueria. I once read an Andre Leon Talley piece in Vogue where he quoted Oprah as saying "Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels." That's bullshit. An Anna's burrito tastes at least twice as good as being thin feels.

all i want for autumn is squash

I love carbs and I love starch. If I ever went on Atkins, I would be the crankiest bitch of all time. Since joining Weight Watchers, I've learned to minimize my starch intake, but I'm not going to lie, most of my meals involve pasta or rice or potatoes. Last night, I made the starchiest/best recipe of, perhaps, all time. I completely think that the whole Jessica Seinfeld Deceptively Delicious thing is bullshit, but after trying this pasta with squash, goat cheese, and bacon, I understand how she gets away with stuffing mac and cheese with butternut squash. The recipe tastes like some of the best, creamiest mac and cheese you've ever had with a bonus kick of sweetness from the squash and awesomeness from the bacon. I got it from Serious Eats which found it in Real Simple. I used rotini (Barilla Plus, if you care) instead of linguine and a little more chicken stock and garlic than the recipe called for. I am seriously counting down the days until I can make this again. It's 9 points, 8 if you dial down the bacon a little or use whole wheat pasta. Seriously. Make it tonight. You will not regret it.

why i love weight watchers

Here's what I ate today:

2 Wasa whole wheat Crispbreads, each with 1 teaspoon of butter and 1/2 tablespoon of strawberry jam (4 points)
1 coffee with 1 tablespoon of sugar (1 point)
1 Trader Joe's roasted garlic chicken sausage (3 points)
1 serving mashed potatoes with goat cheese and basil (5 points)
24 bite sized Frosted Mini Wheats (3 points)
7 Trader Joe's chicken & vegetable gyoza (4 points)
1 cup steamed spinach with lemon juice (0 points)
1 white chocolate covered Oreo (2 points)

Could I have had another five Oreos? Hell yeah. Am I completely full and satisfied after having eaten exactly the amount of my daily points? Yep. Listen. When I feel deprived, I get mad. When I get mad, I eat a shit ton. When I don't feel deprived, however, I can stop when I'm full, which is probably not such a revolutionary concept for most people, but is a major breakthrough for me. That list right up there is full of nothing but awesome, delicious foods (even if I did put too much lemon juice on my spinach for the second time in a row). I don't feel deprived in the least.

fuck that cow

One of the many things I do not get about the Weight Watchers message boards is how people are always going on about Laughing Cow cheese like it's so great. Have they never had real cheese? Guys, don't trust a dairy product that doesn't need refrigeration! Laughing Cow tastes like plastic, as, in my experiences, do all low-fat cheeses. Fat is what makes cheese good. If you're going to eat something fat free, why would you eat cheese?

Here's what absolutely confuses me: all Laughing Cow products are at least one or two points per serving. Fat free cheeses are generally one point. For two points, you can have an ounce of goat cheese. Let me tell you: an ounce of goat cheese? Is a whole lot of goat cheese. It is 1/4 of a small package of the rich, delightful stuff. Next time you think about reaching for the Laughing Cow (that cow, by the way, is laughing at you for being such a sucker), why not try an ounce of soft goat cheese instead? It's great in a salad, delicious spread onto a Wasa crispbread and topped with tomatoes, and perfect in my favorite pasta dish of the moment.

Seven Point Goat Cheese Pasta

Ingredients
1 tsp olive oil
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp sage
1 oz goat cheese
1 cup Barilla Plus rotini

Instructions
1) Heat olive oil in skillet
2) Add garlic and saute until translucent
3) Add tomatoes and smash down until a sauce forms
4) While this is happening, make pasta
5) Add sage to tomato sauce
6) Toss pasta, sauce, and goat cheese together until cheese melts.

This pasta is ridiculously simple (it takes about 15 minutes to throw together), tastes incredible (the melted cheese does a great impression of a cream sauce), and fills you up for a reasonable amount of points. Let's see Laughing Cow try that!

smells like cupcakes!

There's nothing better in this world than figuring out exactly what you want to eat. Most of the time, I feel like I'm vaguely craving something, but unsure as to what, exactly, that might be. Once in a while, however, I manage to isolate my true desire and it seriously feels like a light bulb is going off over my head. I was lucky enough to have just such a moment today. On Saturday night, I went out to the venerable Sake Bar Hagi, where I ate a meal so decadent that I needed to walk from Times Square to the East Village afterwards. Today, I had a major food hangover (FYI: if you've been on Weight Watchers for a month, chowing down on greasy food might make your tummy want to die, just a little bit). This afternoon, I knew that I wanted something sweet...and I'm not talking fruit. I ran through the list of my usual suspects. Did I want a miniature whoopie pie from One Girl Cookies? Eh, not really. Was it a 100 calorie Three Musketeers bar I was craving? Not so much. Finally, as I was passing the bakery on my corner, I realized just what I wanted: a cupcake. Not a fancy cupcake, but a plain, sugary vanilla cupcake with chocolate frosting. I got one and it was a point splurge, but I swear to god, eating it on the stoop was one of the happiest moments of my recent life.

Listen. I believe firmly in giving in to your cravings. If you can't stop thinking about a cupcake, you should eat a damn cupcake. If you don't, you're going to eat a dozen different things that you don't want as much. This afternoon's cupcake was a point splurge, to be sure, but I could manage it and anyways, if you're losing weight for yourself (which I am), you should be able to do it on your own terms and your own schedule.

My other big craving of the weekend? Bolognaise. It's been cold in New York, and there's nothing I want more in the winter than pasta with a great meat sauce. The Weight Watchers recipes for Bolognaise look awful (guys, tomato paste is so rarely necessary and have at least seven points. Eh! We can do better! Because I love you, here's my recipe for six-point Bolognaise.

Ingredients
1 box Barilla Plus penne
1 tbsp butter
1 shallot, peeled and chopped
5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
7 tiny carrots, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped
1 lb. leanest ground beef
1 serving red wine
1 large can diced tomatoes
As much rosemary as you like

Instructions
1) Melt butter in saucepan
2) Add shallot, garlic, carrots, and mushrooms and saute until carrots start to soften, shallots are translucent, and garlic is golden
3) Add ground beef and cook through
4) Add wine and cook until mostly reduced
5) Add tomatoes and rosemary and continue to cook, stirring frequently until the consistency is appropriately sauce-like.

Makes 8 servings.

how i got here

I'm a food writer, a cook, and an unapologetic food snob. I am also someone who has managed to gain a good thirty pounds since graduating college two years ago (at which time, not incidentally, I was already heavier than I'd like). As my pants size crept ever higher, I continually resolved to lose the weight before going home and eating three bowls of linguini carbonara. Then, about a month ago, I found out that four (!) of my friends from my improv classes were on Weight Watchers.

Now. Prior to this, I had a very definite picture of the kind of person who was on Weight Watchers in my mind. She was a dumpy, middle-aged secretary in some Midwestern suburb with motivational kitten posters on her wall and a copy of The Secret in her handbag (in addition to being a food writer, a cook, and a food snob, I am also an asshole). None of the girls in my improv class fit that description in the slightest, unless you want to equate a wall full of motivational kitten posters with an obsession with I Can Has Cheezburger, which I really don't want to do because it would be unflattering to myself. Anyways, the next night I went to a meeting on the Upper West Side with my friend Angela. I started following the Flex Plan the next day. That was on September 18, 2007. I've lost ten pounds so far.

I am totally, unironically in love with Weight Watchers because it lets me eat whatever I want. If I want some carbonara (seriously guys, I make the best carbonara), I can have a little. If I feel like making brownies after a stressful day at work, it's not a big deal. The key is moderation, which is something that I personally cannot manage without rules (the point system) and accountability (weekly weigh-ins and meetings). I probably eat about half the amount that I did a month ago, but I've never once been hungry at the end of the day.

Here's the thing, though: I'm willing to eat less. I'm willing to move more. What I'm not willing to do is eat shitty food. Listen, being able to shop for excellent ingredients is one of my top five favorite things about living in New York. I'm not going to buy low-fat cheese (truly, one of the more disgusting things in this world). I'm not going to eat low-quality low-point chocolate. I flatly refuse to truck with Splenda. Most of the Weight Watchers recipes make me want to puke. I truly believe that I can lose the weight without compromising my deep food snobbery. Hence, this blog. I imagine I'll post rants, recipes, and maybe even some general food news. I'm open to suggestions so do leave comments if you have any.