Easter Dinner and Several Meals Eaten Out Last Week

My parents hosted Easter dinner.  I wasn’t sure what all would be on the menu so I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect.  There are the usual staples at holiday dinners but I didn’t know what would be served.  Since I am working the graveyard shift at work I had most of my DPA left.  I also still had several WPPAs left and knew I was in good shape for our Easter dinner.

The menu included: ham, chicken, rolls, funeral potatoes, corn casserole, green beans, salad, deviled eggs, Marie Calendar pie, and fruit with Velata chocolate for dipping.  It was delicious!

I don’t know if I have ever actually seen funeral potatoes prepped before cooking.  I know they are yummy and I know they are not low calorie but I have never actually made them myself.  The potatoes were ready to go in the oven until Mom mentioned it still needed to be “patted with butter” and have corn flakes crushed on top.  Patted with butter?  I didn’t even know that was part of the casserole.  No wonder it is so delicious.

I also saw her prepping the chicken breasts.  She made a parmesan crusted chicken and was not just your average chicken breast.  Instead it had one-half cup mayonnaise on it.

We don’t really ever know how our food is prepped and cooked when we go to out to dinner or receive an invite for dinner.  I am not going to turn down an invitation just because I don’t know what will be served.  WW is for life and social events are a part of life.  If I know ahead of time and can plan accordingly, I will make sure I get in extra activity and balance my day with lower PPV food/meals. 

Last week I actually had several meals out, some were planned and some came up last minute.  I would have made a good Boy Scout because it is rare for me not to be prepared for a “food event.”

My Mom and I took my nieces to the movies on Tuesday.  I knew popcorn was on the menu since I love movie popcorn and had earned a free one with my rewards card so why not.  I had planned for the popcorn but wasn’t sure on lunch options.  Once we decided we would go out to lunch I started to research restaurant options.  There is a Carino’s in the parking lot of the theater and I had a GroupOn for $20 to spend.  I looked up the NI ahead of time and knew I was having the minestrone soup and salad.  I wasn’t 100% sure I would have any fresh baked Italian bread they serve with that yummy olive oil and roasted garlic for dipping since we were probably still going to have popcorn.  I ended up actually only having one bowl of soup instead of the planned two bowls so I was able to use the extra 4 PPVs for a few bites of bread and oil.  The popcorn was also planned, consumed, and as always…delicious! 

Later in the week I had plans to meet with a friend/old coworker for dinner at Cracker Barrel for their turkey dinner Thursday.  I love CB’s turkey dinner!  It includes corn bread dressing and I have mashed potatoes, minus the gravy, and cooked carrots along with it.  The WW mobile app has PPVs already figured out for you so I had known weeks ahead of time what I would be having and how many PPVs I would be spending.  Above all the company was enjoyable.

The following night I met my parents at my sister’s house to dye Easter eggs with the nieces.  It was decided we would have pizza and salad and the pizza would be from Papa Murphy’s.  The WW mobile app had PPVs already factored up so I wrote down several pizza options and planned to have two slices with lots of salad.  I wasn’t sure what dessert options would be at my sister’s house and I had made a commitment earlier in the week to reduce my sugar.  I made a last minute decision to make some sugar free Jello with strawberries, which was a nice finish to my pizza meal.  I love pizza.

Saturday night was a get together for a friend’s birthday at Old Chicago.  I love their turkey bacon club sandwich and have had it often when we used to go there back in my pre-WW days.  I looked up the menu and decided I would again get the sandwich.  It turns out that Old Chicago has NI and a really fancy customizer so I could find out the exact nutrition of the mayo (planning to have it on the side) and the bread (planning to only eat half).  They also allow the choice to substitute cut up veggies with ranch for the fries.  I had a beer-flight-sampler and only liked two of the four kinds so I only drank 8 oz of beer instead of the traditional pint serving.  I was pretty sure I would be having frozen yogurt at Aspen Leaf after our meal.  I had also planned for this since I had not yet had dessert all week.  I LOVE FROZENYOGURT!  It was a nice finish to the meal.

And lastly, I had the Easter dinner talked about above.

So, you can see this was quite a week for meals out.  I liked that I was prepared in advance with the amount of PPVs I would need to reserve/spend.  I am working the graveyard shift at work and waking up late so since most of these meals were at the start of my day.  I had more DPA allotted for these meals out.  Each of these meals was just one meal in an entire day.  Therefore I had to make my other meals smaller and less PPVs and I had to really pack in the Power Foods.  I won’t starve if I am out of PPVs, but instead turn to Power Foods.  I also really try to balance my days and my weeks.  You will hear that a lot!

I exercised everyday but Friday and Sunday so I was able to earn many APs to help offset my calories and give me even more WPPAs to use if I needed to.

I had an enjoyable week and while there was a little anxiety about all this extra food, I used my WW Tools to help me navigate.