I'm just finishing up my first road trip and I did a good job sticking with my allowed Weight Watchers allotment in the Points Plus plan. That said...there were very little veggies and only a few servings of fruit each day. Unfortunately, I allowed a lot of my points to be spent on crap like Pringles and Hostess 100-cal servings.

So here is my question...how much am I hurting myself? I think allowing myself to eat things like the 100-cal portions of Pringles and Hostess coffee cakes helped me to stay within my Points Plus allotment. It kept me away from fast food. But obviously, I know it is still junk.

Are all points equal? I'm inclined to believe they aren't.

WW encourages the following of the healthy guidelines in the material. All points are not equal in healthy/nutritious food.

That being said, WW does not say you can't eat Pringles and Twinkies, but it should be sparingly.

If it keeps you away from worse fast food, I would suggest this, pick one thing each day to be a treat, pick a time of day when you have time to sit down and savor it. Or pick up some of the little snack bars at a WW meeting, but you still can't eat a dozen of those either.

The rest of the day, take advantage of the free fresh veggies and fruit for your snacks.

Above all stay committed and keep plodding along.

Eliana, who posts a lot in other threads made a committment a little over a year ago to work on her weight loss and exercise for one whole year, getting up more than she fell down, just so she could see where she would be in a year. She's lost over 75 pounds!

WW is not about eating within your points as much as it is about nutrition. If you don't get your 9 GHGs in, you are compromising health to eat junk and it will catch up with all. All calories are not created equal as you will see when you read your materials.

I think the key is to figure out what you have learned from this experience: how does your body feel eating that food? How does your weight loss go over the next couple of weeks after eating that food? What is your normal eating like and will you go back to that now that you aren't on the road? When you take a road trip next time will you bring more food? Make different decisions?