Calculating Points For Complex Things

  • My husband works evenings taking care of MRDD patients in a group home. One of the perks of his job is free food. He cooks and eats with the residents every night.

    So, since I don't really have to consider what he likes when cooking dinner anymore, I make a huge batch of brown rice and stirfry and that's what I eat pretty much every night for two weeks or so. (I mean it really is a huge batch. I make like five pounds of stirfry.) It's cheap, it stays fresh a long time, and it's very high protein and low fat. It's basically light brown rice and a whole bunch of different vedgetables and a little meat (usually chicken or salmon.) For the sauce I usually use balsamic of red wine vinegret dressing.

    I know how many points are in all the various ingredients. And the serving I eat for dinner is approximately three cups. I've been estimating this at about 10 points. But really I have no way of knowing. Does anyone have any suggestions?
  • You should add up all the total points for everything you put into the dish, and then divide that point amount by how many servings you make the entire pot into.
    If the entire pan of stir fry is 100 points, and you divide it into 10 servings, they are 10 pts each.
  • If you have Weight Watchers eTools there is a recipe builder on it that you can use to calculate the points value for your recipes. I have taken a lot of my favorite recipes and added them to my recipe builder arsenal. If not then the easiest thing to do is calculate how much meat, veggies, and then rice you eat and then just add that together. The rice and meat are the biggies with stir fry along with the sauces. Sauces can be pretty spendy with your points budget. eTools is free with the monthly pass which is what I have but I think you can buy an al a carte membership as well.