Tricky Tricky Tricky

The best part of WW is that you can eat whatever you want. The tricky part is maintaining the point level.

FOR EXAMPLE, tonight I have drinks at Sullivan's (Yum!) and dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House (Yum!). Both of these places are awesome. And I want to have what I want there.

Sullivan's is my favorite happy hour place. On Thursday nights, martinis are $5. FIVE BUCKS. Yes, I could go there and drink a happy spritzer or a rum&diet for low, low points. But what I want is FIVE DOLLA' MARTINIS! And I want four of them. Specifically, the Knockout. That's 16 points. Which is a lot.

Then dinner is at Ruth's Chris Steak House.

Confession: I have history with Ruth's. I was the bitchy, condescending hostess for awhile. When I was in a good mood, I could run that restaurant. When I was in a bad mood, it was unpleasant for everyone. Everyone. Most specifically, the poor suburbanites who came to the big city for their stupid anniversary or birthday or whatever, and who expected to be remembered from LAST year when they celebrated their stupid anniversary or birthday or whatever. Needless to say, because of my *attitude* I got fired and had to return to my fallback career: lawyering. Rats.

So, I could go to Ruth's and have a nice piece of fish. Or a salad. But c'mon. It's a STEAK house. What I want is a big fat ribeye. OMG. OMG. OMG. I'm settling for a petite filet. (Settling. I know. I'm a bratty brat. Ack that.) And still: that filet? 19.5 points. That's a whole day's worth of points for a smaller Weight Watcher. Also, that doesn't take into consideration that Ruth's presents their steaks BATHING in butter. (Glorious butter!)

Don't even get me started on the sides. Oh, that my favorite veg was fresh asparagus rather than creamed spinach au gratin! Potatoes! Bread! Salads with bleu cheese!

I've done a preliminary point count for the evening: I'm at 49.5 points. For dinner. I get 31 for the day and 35 extra for the week. And I haven't even mentioned dessert.

Are you kidding me? Caramelized banana cream pie? Dude. This is my porn. (Seriously. I've been staring at that picture for 4 minutes. I'm checking into rehab with Tiger.)

So, the TRICKY part is the planning. I need to spend the day putting together this jigsaw puzzle of dinner/drinks. Give up the spinach to eat the banana cream? Give up two martinis to have a dinner roll? Further to that end, saving all my points means coffee for breakfast and zero-point soup for lunch, while thinking of steaks and martinis and pies all day.

That's tricky.