How to Calculate WW Points for Your Recipes

Have you ever wondered how many Weight Watchers points are in your favorite recipe? Although there are many Weight Watchers recipes available through cookbooks and the internet, you may have a recipe passed down from good old Mom in which you love and need to track the points. In order to do this you need a few things. First you need to know each ingredient for your recipe. I am assuming you already have this since it's your favorite. Second you need to determine the nutritional information for each ingredient. Lastly you need to know the total servings for each recipe. With this information you can begin to break down your recipe and calculate your points.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Calorie Calculator
• Weight Watchers Calculator (optional)

1. Identify the Ingredients
   
   First write down all the ingredients and how much is needed for your recipe. This will be required for the next step. Some ingredients such as water, a pinch of salt etc. you don't need to worry about as these will not change the overall nutritional values in your totals for the recipe.

2. Calculate the Calories, Fat and Fiber
   
   The next step is to calculate the calories for your ingredients. If the recipe calls for 3 eggs then get the total calories, fat and fiber for all three eggs. Later you will be dividing all the totals by the number of servings to get the WW points per serving. To calculate this information the quickest way is to use an online calorie calculator. These calculators generally give you all the nutritional information you need and you can search by a food item.

3. Add it Up
   
   Once you have the right nutritional information for all the ingredients you need to total these up. Use a spreadsheet to record each ingredient and then simply add a formula for adding it up. Or you can simply write each one down and use your calculator or do the math in your head. All these methods will work to get the total calories, fat and fiber.

4. Divide It
   
   Now it's time to take your total and divide it by the number of servings it creates. If your recipe serves 8, then divide the total by 8. Now you have the calories, fat and fiber per serving. These 3 items are what is need to calculate the Weight Watchers points.

5. Weight Watchers Points Time
   
   Now it's time to calculate the WW points. You can do this one of two ways. The easiest way is to use a points calculator online in which you plug in the calories, fat and fiber and let it tell you the total points. The second is to do the match yourself. In order to do this you need to know the formula for WW points. Here is the formula;
   
   a = Calories per serving / 50
   b = Fat grams per serving / 12
   c = Fiber per serving (up to 4 maximum) / 5
   
   (a+b)-c = Weight Watchers points per serving

Tips & Warnings

• If you can't find a particular ingredient in a calorie calculator use a similar item to get the nutritional information. This will give you a close approximation.

Resources

• Free Online Weight Watchers Points Calculator
• Free Online Calorie Calculator