Yesterday I was trying my best to be way under on points.. so when it came to dinner I had some decisions to make… it was just me and 2 of my sons (Cece was out with the girls) and I thought of a few choices… Chipotle.. I hadn’t been in awhile and the Weight Watches guide had some choices that didn’t look too bad… then I thought East Buffet.. East Buffet is one of those all you can eat chinese/americanized buffets… no real way of knowing the points and could be dangerous with lots of fried items… a few other places went through my mind… but they all seemed like poor choices… but Souplantation kept coming to mind…
I love souplantation and I figured that I could make some decent choices there… so that is where we went…
Frmo the start I figured I could have a little of the items that would be high in points since I had used very few points all day… so as I went down the salad line I started out strong.. Romaine lettuce.. Mushrooms.. a few garbonzo beans and black olives… some pepperoncinis.. then the dressings… I used a ladel of low fat italian… then a ladel of lemon vinegrette… then a ladel of ranch.. I could have used teh fat free ranch, but I didn’t… then croutons and diced chicken… in my mind that was not a bad salad.. My drink there is always Diet Caffine Free Coke… then I hit the soups… Chicken Lemon Orzo is a GREAT soup that they have durring their Greek week.. so I had that.. and of course French Onion… but here again I knew I was making a bad choice by adding swiss cheese and croutons to it… I have had it before without and it is fine… but I went ahead and used a small amout of both.
Next I decided to stay away from the baked potatos and the pasta.. but the focassia bread was another cheat.. I decided on 2 pieces of the cheese and 2 pieces of the greek one.. then I tried a Potato, Tomato and spinach soup… then another serving of the Lemon orzo and the french onion.. again with the cheese and croutons..
At that point I was feeling pretty full.. and pretty good about my choices.. sure I had ‘cheated’ but not that bad.. so I then decided to have a small bowl of the fat free frozen yogurt… with a tiny spoonful of lava cake as a reward.. and of course I had one warm chocolate cookie too…
Today when I entered the points into my Weight Watchers Tracker I had a rude awakening… that one meal that I had tried to be good at was 73 points… yes SIXTY-SIX points… it’s crazy… and the soups are a big part of the problem.. the orzo was 11 points for 2 servigs.. and the french onion with the cheese and croutons was 14 points… the 4 small pieces of focaccia were 18 points!
My HUGE salad was about 14 points for everything… chicken, dressing.
What an eye opener.. each bowl of soup was at least 4 points.. even the potato, tomato, spinach one that was low fat and vegitarian…
Now, can I go back there and eat a reasonable amount of points… sure.. I would use only fat free dressings.. skip the croutons on my salad… have 1 bowl of any soup of my choice and maybe on piece of focaccia… fruit for desert and that would be a nice meal.. probably between 11-15 points all together… but would it be worth it… how hard is it to sit there knowing you can get more of whatever you want.. sit there watching your family eat everything…
I don’t know that I will be returning to Souplantation in the near future…