How Do I Calculate My Points?

I have gotten the question a couple of times now of how do you calculate your points for a meal you are fixing.  Here is how I calculate my points:

Let’s say you want to fix spaghetti for supper.  You start off with using 1 lb of meat.  You will need to look on your container of meat to find the calories, fat and fiber (this info will vary depending on what type of meat you get).  Usually the packaging will give the counts per serving…so you will need to find the number of servings per container (assuming you have a 1 lb container) and multiply your calories, fat and fiber content by that number to get the total number for that full container of meat.

Then let’s say you use a full box of spaghetti noodles.  You will want to do the same thing with this…find the nutritional information on the box…find the magical # of servings per container on the box and multiply the calorie, fat and fiber content by that number. 

Then you would do the same thing for your sauce.

Then you would add all those numbers together to get your total number of calories, fat and fiber for your dish.  If you are going to divide your dish into 4 servings then you can divide those numbers by 4 to get your amount per serving.  Then you can calculate your points per servings.

Clear as mud??  How about I help you out!  Here is a link to an Excel file that has a calculator that I have set up for you to enter your information!  I have set it up for a recipe that has up to 8 items in the recipe!!  (the first sheet is just the simple calculator and the second sheet is the recipe calculator). Hopefully if you have more items than that you can figure out what to do from there.

Please let me know if you have any questions on the calculator!

Remember, if you are wanting points for restaurant menu items click here for a pretty extensive list of different restaurants!!