Hey, everyone. I just finished my first month on the program (online/app points based version; no meetings) and wanted to see if y'all could help me out with some answers to a few questions.

• Weekly points: So are you supposed to use these or...what are they for? I've been treating them like "failure points" like, "Oops I slightly overdid it today and accidentally had to use a weekly point or two". If I use a weekly point I must have messed up, but they're a buffer so I don't feel too bad about myself. Then I started thinking that they give me a ton of weekly points so maybe they're intended to be used? I'm not sure. So how are you "supposed" to treat weekly points? So far I've dipped into them twice (1 point once, 2 another day), but otherwise haven't touched them.

• Daily points: For reference, right now I have a 41 points budget per day. I've been treating daily points as a hard n fast limit. Mostly this has been balancing the points in meals throughout the day. 0-8 points for breakfast, 16-18 for lunch, 15-17 for dinner. That kind of thing. I usually have 1-6 points left at the end of the day. I assume this is the way you're supposed to do it?

• Occasionally however I'll have a very low point breakfast, a zero point or very low point lunch (chicken breast and grilled veggies or something), and then find myself with nearly 40 points left for dinner. Should I be trying to use all these points? I notice that I don't get my blue "healthy eating day" dot if I have any more that 6 or so points left at the end of the day. Does this mean I should blow it out on a 30 point dinner just to use the points and get the blue dot? That seems wrong to me somehow. I understand saving points if you're expecting to be "bad" like going out with your friends or something, but you shouldn't regularly be going like 0-6-35, right? That can't be good even though you're staying inside your daily budget.

• When I reach my goal weight (optimism!) does the point balance switch to a "maintain" model or something? I want to stay with the program after I'm at my goal weight because I'm doing the program with a buddy who has a lot farther to go than me and I want to keep it going to support them even after I'm "done".

Thanks for any info. I appreciate y'all who are out here providing support and encouragement. You're doing good work. :)