Whether you want to save a few SmartPoints for a glass of wine or you went through them all by lunchtime, it can be helpful to have a few tricks up your sleeve to maximize the value of your SmartPoints and keep them working in your favour. Here are five ideas to get the most out of your SmartPoints.
Track
We know that tracking is the key to success but, it’s not always the most fun thing to do. But tracking is really the key to not only reaching your healthy goals, but also understanding your eating patterns and maximizing your SmartPoints budget. The easiest way to do this is in the WW app, where you can search thousands of foods in the database and log each item, as well as its portion size. The more you track, you’ll start learning the SmartPoints values of foods you eat regularly and become familiar with high- and low-SmartPoints foods. And you’ll start becoming aware of what items will set you back and what will keep you on target. For example, you’ll know that a few slices of bread will use up quite a few SmartPoints, whereas a piece of fruit will count as a ZeroPointTM food. This way, you can plan out how you use your SmartPoints in a day and save them up for the things you want to have.
Go zero
The easiest way to bank your SmartPoints is to make ZeroPoint foods the foundation of your healthy eating pattern. So, if you’d like to save up for a glass or two of wine tonight, you can focus your meals around the ZeroPoint foods on your plan. And if you’re on the Blue or Purple plan in myWWTM, your ZeroPoint foods include beans and legumes, skinless chicken and turkey breast, as well as fish, seafood, tofu, plain non-fat yogurt and eggs, so there’s even more ZeroPoint foods to choose from. By using ZeroPoint foods as the basis of your meals, you can save up SmartPoints for cocktails, a piece of cake at a friend’s birthday party, or a treat at the movie theatre.
Use your Weeklies and Rollovers
Don’t forget about your Weeklies! These points are there to be used and reset every week. Also, if you don’t use up all your Daily SmartPoints, up to four unused points a day will be rolled over into your bank of Weekly SmartPoints. This gives you lots of flexibility to save up for a weekend treat.
Do quick restaurant research
The WW app has a number of popular restaurants’ menu items in its database, so if you’re heading out for date night or you find yourself at a restaurant unexpectedly with friends, you can quickly check the app to find the SmartPoints values of various dishes so you can find things you enjoy that fit into your SmartPoints budget.
Meal Prep
Though it may seem daunting at first, preparing meals ahead of time is one of the best ways to stay on top of your healthy goals – and manage your SmartPoints. Choose a day of the week that you have a couple of hours to cook so that it’s not stressful. Plan out a few dishes for the coming days that you’d like to have. If you work a 9-5, that might mean it’s most helpful for you to prep your breakfasts and lunches ahead of time since you can make dinner when you get home in the evenings. If you work later hours, you might need to prep lunches and dinners ahead of time, and then focus on making your breakfasts each day. Do whatever you’ll find most helpful to save yourself time. By making your own meals, you can control everything that goes into them and you can calculate their SmartPoints values as you’re making them, which makes tracking much easier each day.