Beer and Brownies: A Tailgating Survival Guide

Football may not be your thing. You may not like it, you may not understand it, or you just plain may not care about it. However, even though it's not your thing, you probably have some kind of "thing" that seems to revolve around friends, food, drinks, and fun. For me, football is that thing. And although this is my survival guide to tailgating, I'm sure parts of it can also be applied to whatever your "thing" is that happens to involve eating and drinking.

(Disclaimer: I'm not claiming that everything in this guide is "healthy", most of the tips are just my "healthier" options to enjoying the day. The beauty of WW is that you don't have to give up eating and drinking with friends in order to live a healthy lifestyle. It wouldn't be healthy to live this way every day, but on occasion it is necessary to fit a day like this into your life, if only to preserve your sanity!)


Tomorrow I will be attending the home opener of my favorite professional football team. My friends and I are pretty serious about football. Eleven of us own a bus, painted in our team colors, which we will be driving to the stadium tomorrow morning. We will arrive in time for the parking lot to open at 8:00am. Here are some suggestions for getting through a day like that without completely sacrificing your hard work toward living a healthy lifestyle:

Tip #1 - Bring breakfast
Breakfast is for wusses! Beer is all the breakfast we need! Well, not this week. I will be eating fruit before I leave home, but I am making low fat blueberry muffins for everyone else (and I will have one too). I'm hoping this will allow me to eat lunch at a more normal time instead of having hot dogs at 9:00am because I am starving!

Tip #2 - Bring your own snacks
I bought fat free pretzels because I have a sneaking suspicion that everyone else will be bringing snacks like potato chips and Doritos. Snyder's is my go-to brand for pretzels, yum!

I also made a dip, because for some reason people really like to dip their snacks in something (myself included). I'm not sure why, pretzels are great on their own, but when tailgating, I always feel the need for dip. This dip is super low fat! I have a dip mix that calls for mixing the spices with mayo and sour cream. I substituted nonfat Greek yogurt for the sour cream and used low fat mayo. 2 T of dip are now only 1 point!! It's called Fiesta Dip and has a lot of spicy, Mexican flavors. Doesn't it look yummy?

Tip #3 - Keep track of your beer!

For me, this one is especially important. I am very serious about tracking my WW points. After a few beers, it gets really hard to remember how many I have had, and almost impossible to track them later! Some people say to limit your alcohol intake by drinking water in between beers, and that may work for some, but not for me! I'm not interested in filling up on water when I planned to drink beer all day!

My number one rule: no beer in the stadium. It's too expensive and too difficult to keep track of. Instead, any beer I am going to drink will be while tailgating in the parking lot. Every time I finish a beer, the tab (in this case, since I bought cans, but you can do this with bottle caps too) goes directly into my pocket. Later, when I get home and need to track my points for the day, I can pull out the tabs and know exactly how many beers I had. No guesswork!

Tip #4 - Substitute
I am from Buffalo. We are a town that appreciates our sausage. I am from a very Polish family. My innards are practically made of processed meats. I would love to say I am vegetarian and have the easiest excuse for avoiding these meats while tailgating, but my friends know me way better than that! Even more, I know I will WANT those processed meat products, and I am not about to give up all the great things in life if I don't have to. Everyone is going to be eating hot dogs, sausage, and hamburgers. However, I will enjoy eating these goodies more if I know they aren't a heart attack on a plate... So I substitute. First, I bought reduced fat hot dogs. Second, I am bringing some homemade venison sausage (venison is a very lean meat). And third, I am eating these products on wheat rolls with more fiber than your typical hot dog bun:

Tip #5 - Play games!
So, I have already saved all my weekly points for tomorrow. And I have already earned as many APs as possible. But instead of just sitting around bs-ing and drinking beer, I will have tailgating games handy to try and sneak in some activity. For those outside the greater Buffalo area, I present to you the best party game ever: KANJAM!!

Seriously people, this is a fabulously fun game to play with friends! It involves throwing a frisbee into a small plastic container (like a small garbage can with a slot cut in the front). If you don't have access to KanJam, there are lots of other great group games you could bring... Rings, ladder golf, beanbags (we used to have a great team logo beanbag toss, but it got warped in the rain one day). None of these things are hardcore exercise, but they certainly help prevent everyone from sitting around and eating nonstop!



Tip #6 - Conquer the post game munchies
After the game we head back out to the bus. Being Bills fans, we typically have just suffered a devastating loss, we have lost our buzz, and we are facing hours of traffic to get out of the parking lot. We don't want to fire up the grill again, so we snack on whatever is handy. There are always leftover chips (luckily I will have my pretzels) and someone brings cookies or brownies.

This time, I refuse to get caught up in that post-game lull of mindless snacking on unhealthy foods. To satisfy the sweet tooth, I made No Pudge brownies to share with everyone:

I added some chocolate chips on top, which did increase the points value a little (this is a batch of 24 brownies, at 3 points each). I wonder if anyone will be able to tell they are low fat!!

I hope this survival guide helps some of you through the football season (or with whatever your "thing" is). Go Bills!!