Panda Express: Before and After

Last night I didn't know what to cook for dinner. Maybe it's because I desperately needed to go food shopping and my options were very slim. After discussing with Drew, we decided to have Panda Express for dinner. Yum! But before we ate, I decided to take pictures so that I could showcase a before and after of what I used to order and what I order now, and their point values.

Why?

Because when I talk to friends about Weight Watchers (and they are considering joining or struggling with following it) it seems like many people have a hard time giving up their favorite food items. Which I totally understand. Trust me, I do. But is it really worth eating an entire days worth of points in just one meal? Really?? Not so much. In fact, when i look at it that way, the food generally becomes very unattractive.

Presenting: Drew's dinner (this is what I used to order as well).

Mandarin Chicken: 6 points
Sauce on it: 1 point
Orange Chicken: 13 points
Chow Main: 4 points
Fried Rice: 5 points

Grand Total: 29 points
(my daily point total is currently 26-28)

My dinner:

Mushroom Chicken: 3 points
Broccoli Beef: 3 points
Veggies: 2 points
Steamed Rice: 2 points (aprox.)

Grand Total: 10 points

BUT! Because my portion sizing has gone down, I wasn't able to even finish it all. That is a LOT of food!! So what I actually ate was less than that.

And as a side note, the rice is actually a lot less than what the picture looks like.. there were veggies under it. It measured out to be about 1/3 of a cup. You know you can ask for that, right? Mostly veggies and a little rice? I love rice so I ordered just enough to be satisfied. Sometimes I get just the veggies though and that's 3 points total.

If you feel like you need something greasy, again, just check out your options before you order. Turns out the veggie spring rolls aren't nearly as high in points as one would think.

One of them, is ONE point. That's all! Or two of them is three points. It's a little better than one potsticker which was 2 points or an order of 3 is five points. I did eat one egg roll (they ran out and I didn't want to wait for more so they gave me a potsticker, which Drew ate a little of.. he didn't really like it). Just be careful of the sauces.. if you were to eat the entire container of sweet and sour sauce, that's 2 points. The potsticker sauce is 1.

After looking at all of that, it's so eye opening at what I used to eat and why I weighed what I did. I knew what I ordered wasn't so great for me (hello, fantastically delicious orange chicken!!) but realizing that was just my dinner... yeah.

I hope this was a little helpful for some. Again, my biggest advice when you're going to eat out is check out the nutritional information BEFORE you go. Then if you still choose to eat more points than you should, you can at least hold yourself accountable for it and not play it off as "I had no idea...".