The new menu at Sumo Salad is turning into a total Seinfeld non-fat yogurt situation for me. To recap, they “revamped” their salad menu a few months ago and added/removed a bunch of items. Fair enough. The problem is that the few salads that they kept are now MUCH less healthy, but they haven’t advertised that fact at all. (Nor have they updated their listing in the new WW Points Guides, all of which still list the old Points values.) I sent in a complaint before but I haven’t heard anything back. At the very least, I’m going to post the current menu Points here in the hopes that future WW Googlers will know what they’re in for:

• BBQ Prawn – 2.5 Points
• Smoked Salmon and Goats Cheese – 4 Points
• Tandoori Chicken – 4 Points
• Pumpkin and Pinenut – 5.5 Points
• Malaysian Beef – 5.5 Points
• Moroccan Lamb – 5.5 Points
• Lemon and Herb Chicken – 6.5 Points
• Grilled Chicken Caesar – 9 Points

It’s the Pumpkin and Pinenut that still galls me. How it went up from 2.5 to 5.5 is baffling, unless they started using new super fatty feta or something.

The Invasion of Iraq as a Text Adventure. Brilliant!

I’m happy to say I’m back on track. I hadn’t officially weighed in since before Christmas – though I did attend meetings, since I was subbing for our weigher, Jonathan – but I did hop on the scales briefly last week just to check whether I had put on a couple kilos over the Christmas holiday. I had. So I decided to get down to business. I signed up for the free trial of “eTools” at the WW site and the novelty of tracking my food and exercise online has gotten me doing it again. Last Friday I walked all the way from our place in Chippendale through the city and across the bridge to North Sydney, which took me over an hour. Last night I went back to kickboxing for the first time in ages, and it Kicked. My. Ass. The upshot? I’m officially back to 85.6 kilos… which is exactly what I weighed before the holiday madness. Sweet!

I think some of the weight was brain cells, though. I distinctly remember telling the Snook last week that there was something I wanted, but I was holding off buying it til I’d managed to stick to the plan for a week. Today was the big reward day… but I’ve forgotten what it is I wanted! Forgetfulness begets frugality, I guess.

This week’s meeting was really good, by the way. Gaye finished Maintenance and officially became a Lifetime Member, and she gave us a great speech about hanging in there. (It took her 16 months to lost 23 kilos.) I seriously got a little choked up. It was like an Oprah episode, and I mean that in the best way possible. I also came away with a task for this week: I’m going to go through my wardrobe and throw out everything – EVERYTHING – that is too big for me. No more hanging on to my “just in case” clothes. (Those of you who see me on a regular basis will soon observe that I only have four pieces of clothing left.)

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Mexican Shuffle. And now that you’ve got Herb Alpert stuck in your head for the rest of the day, I’ll just point out that this guy was responsible for it. (Isn’t that last paragraph cute? He worked in both me and the puss-puss!)

Check out this year’s We Love Our Lamb on Australia Day ad. The Snook and I were both LOVING that. Too, too funny. We’ll probably be at Steve and Kate’s annual do next Thursday, but I can guarantee that some lamb chops will indeed be whacked on the barbie as we “celebrate living in the best bloody country on earth.”

First fluffies and now amputee admirers… I noticed the other day that I was getting a fair few hits from that Yahoo! group, so I joined in order to see what the link was. Turns out somebody basically reposted Marci and Lindsey’s conversation from last year. Well, uh, I guess a welcome to my new visitors is in order! (I don’t normally post about amputee admiration.)

Dude. If they’d had this light cafe in London four years ago, we might not have needed to leave! (Can I just say how great it is to not have the sun set at four p.m.? Lack of light makes Kristy go nuts. A glorious, bright sunny Sydney day like we had today makes me happy to be alive. It’s like that scene in Swingers where Rob tells Mike: “The future is beautiful… It’s sunny every day here. It’s like manifest destiny.”)

Ma Snook thinks we should go to The Dark Side for my birthday in two months. We’ve read about it before. I dunno; I might be too scared to eat something without knowing what it is! The Snook would be up for it though. He’ll eat anything.

You Know You’re a Weight Watcher When… (Somewhat corny, but I couldn’t resist.)

Ha. I don’t even know who Giada on the Food Network is, but this blow-by-blow account of her tasting a sorbet that went very wrong is HILARIOUS. (Link courtesy of crumpet.)