In what can only be seen as complete universal injustice, we here at ShrinkGeek have to hold down regular old nine-to-five jobs in order to put our healthy food on the table. Fortunately, the job that I’ve got is a pretty decent one – especially when you factor in the benefits. In particular, the employee gym we have in our corporate headquarters is pretty nice. I’m down there at least once a day, and it has helped me considerably in my efforts to refocus on my weight loss in the last year.

One thing we do not have, however, is a cafeteria. We’re a decent-sized company, but we don’t really have enough staff in our main location to justify that kind of expense. The only access we have to food comes in the form of vending machines, and as someone who traditionally doesn’t carry cash, that has never been a viable option for me… up until last week, anyway. We recently switched vendors, and now all of the food dispensary units in our break room take debit cards.

Unfortunately, many of the options in those machines can’t really be slotted into the “healthy choices” category. In fact, some of the ones that seem obvious choices in that arena are far from it.

Take, for example, the land mine I stepped on the other day. I had hit the gym for an hour on the treadmill after work, and when I was done, I was ravenous. My commute home is an hour long and I knew that once I got there I’d still have to cook before I could eat dinner, so I was facing at least an hour and a half of gnawing hunger. Not really what I consider to be a “fun” situation. I stopped by the break room, debit card in hand, and noticed that one of the options in the snack dispenser was a package of Snackwell’s Vanilla Cream cookies, which seemed at the time to be an obvious choice in regards to Weight Watchers® POINTS.

When I got home, however, I found out that was not really the case. Perhaps that should be phrased as “really not the case.” Two of those cookies come out to 2 Weight Watchers POINTS. Not so bad. There are, however, four cookies in the package. When you run the numbers on the whole package? Five POINTS.

My current favorite line of candy bars are the Reese’s Whipps. Guess how many points are in one of those? If you guessed five, you would be correct (and not attempting to throw the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch).

I wouldn’t have been so upset about this if it hadn’t been for the fact that I actually THOUGHT I was making a good choice. I’m the type of person who believes it’s OK to indulge on occasion, and I have no hesitation in doing so. But if I’m making what I think at the time is going to be a good choice and I get smacked in the face by the fact that I could have gotten something “bad” for the same amount of caloric investment, I tend to get annoyed.

The truly sad part about all of this is that after eight years on Weight Watchers, I really should know better. Looking up the calorie/fat/fiber information of food AFTER you eat it will almost always turn around and bite you in the butt. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve ordered a salad in a restaurant that turned out to have more calories in it than a cheeseburger. The key to success when it comes to dining outside of the home is preparation. Know what your options are going to be in advance and prepare for them. That way, you don’t end up with any nasty surprises. In my case, had I been aware that I was going to be spending 5 POINTS on the Snackwells, I would have just gotten the Peanut Butter Cups that were right next door. Or maybe I’d have opted for the Baked Lays. I certainly would not have used ALL of the points I had just earned by exercising for an hour on something that I was only marginally interested in eating.

Never assume that the food in front of you is the right choice to make simply because it’s advertised as being “healthy.” Do a little research before you take the plunge and you’ll avoid a nasty case of diner’s remorse.