OK - I am following pro points and the scales are gradually moving...

But I am having serious issues tracking points consumed in the evenings.. home cooked foods we make are never just meat and two veg - i.e a piece of protein on a plate. We eat lots of italian foods and casseroles and things.
Also we have a thai student staying with us who loves to cook! And half the time I have no idea on what ingrediants he has used - its all from the Asian store in Thai.. Also I am struggling because i would follow a receipe that serves 6 - and it works out to be 10 points per serving once I have worked out the points value for every single ingrediant in there and then divided by 6. But then how do I know that my portion is a 1/6 the of the whole receipe? My 9 year old son will eat 1/6 of the foods but my husband will have more??? agghh. I am tempted to go out and buy weightwatchers prepackaged meals for monday to friday so I can work out exactly how many points I have had.

What does everyone else do??

I cook all the dinners and my family just follows suit. So it's easier for me. Sometimes you may have to make your own dinner ( can be the same type but weigh measure and keep your portion separate) I know it's extra work but if you really want this you will do whatever it takes to get it !

Good luck I know how difficult it can be. Sorry I don't have any great advice.

I always divide dinner into the correct portions. I then serve myself the correct portion and let my fiancé choose one or two portions, depending on what he wants. That way everything stays measured out correctly. When I'm cooking with a recipe, I use the recipe builder tool on the WW website. It then saves it for me and I can just pull it up again next time I make it.

I hear you pommychic!! I have that same problem. Breakfast and lunch are easy to figure but dinner is a whole other story. I have an infant and toddler at home and don't have time to enter ingredients in a program or devy up portions. I know others do it but... I've thought of using the Simply Filling technique just to avoid this. Sorry I have no tips to offer just my understanding.

I'm anal about measuring and weighing foods. When I make a recipe for the first time (one that has combined ingredients, like a casserole, sauce, etc.) I just add up ALL the points, then divide by how many servings. (Say 28 points for the whole recipe, 4 servings in the reciple, comes out to 7 PP per serving). But I don't stop there. I take whatever it is I'm serving and I put it all in a dish I know the weight of (I have them written down) then I weight it, then subtract the weight of the dish. I take my total weight and divide it into my servings I know how much to give myself in oz. You could also place your serving dish, etc., put it on the scale, then adjust the scale to read 0, then put your food in that dish to get the weight of it.

Say my food comes out to be 28 points altogether. It has 4 servings (I'm cooking for 2 people). I weigh it and without the weight of the dish it is say 2 lbs of food. I then take that amount in oz (32 oz, right from my scale) and I divide THAT by 4. Comes out to 8 oz per serving. I now put my dinner plate on my scale, adjust it so it reads 0 oz and I put on 8 oz of food! Wala!

If you need a better explanation (and other posters don't), I can PM you with a few examples.

Believe me, I stayed away from casseroles, stuffed peppers, sauces, etc. because I was afraid of figuring out the points. But once I have done it once with a recipe, I write it down and keep it in my recipe box. Easy peasy! Also, when I am browsing new recipes to try, I calculate the PP BEFORE cooking them so I know if I want to alter ingredients.

About.com has a decent cut and paste recipe analyzer, you just sometimes have to tweak how something is written or make sure it chose the correct ingredient. (http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php) Then you can take that nutritional info and plug it into WW's calculator to get the pp value for a serving.

But if you really want to save time and make sure something is accurate, use WW recipes. Either from their cookbooks/website or on free blogs like Skinny Taste that have that stuff already figured out. Every recipe I've tried so far on ST I've liked.

I always separate the portions and make my plate first, so even if hubby is eating an unknown quantity, mine is what it's supposed to be.

With the Thai student, I might at least see if WW has the name of the dish in their database, or google the nutritional info for that dish and see if a few sites have comparable info. If it seems like too much of a guess, I just might have my own thing that night.

Same here. I get my plate ready before going to the table. Then I get his ready and ask if he wants more, less, etc. We also eat on two different sized plates. Mine are a smaller diameter. Matching china? Eh, not in my house anymore! My sister even has one of my small plates at her house and when the kids set the table, they give me a small plate!

This is where I would use the complete food companion and dining out companion. Both should help. And, if you're still unsure and the student isn't offended by it, that's when I would pull out a SmartOnes or Lean Cuisine, etc. Or make a different version of the dish for yourself. Or, cook a single portion meal for yourself.

I love SparkRecipes, GFC Recipes, Weight Watchers Recipes, Skinny Taste and I probably have others bookmarked, but those are the ones I used more.

When we are serioud about losing weight, we do what is necessary to accomplish that goal, including weighing, measuring, using recipe builder and tracking our food.