Drumroll, please.

As of 8:30 this morning, I am officially down to the weight on my California ID card. (180, if you care. I’m not shy.) I haven’t yet officially lost 10% of my starting weight, but I’m betting that by next week, I’ll have hit that goal. Not bad for 12 weeks.

And a very nice birthday present, too.

Yesterday was a complete Monday, and Kelson and I decided that since we needed to go to the market, we’d split up and he’d grab food at the Pick Up Stix in the same shopping center. As I was looking at yogurt, he came into the store and reported that they’d changed their menu yet again and the Buddha’s Feast (mixed veggies) that I’d wanted was now labeled a “Veggie Saute,” but otherwise had still seemed all right to get. Okay, fine. We finished our shopping and went home.

Come to find, when I opened the carton, that not only had the name changed but also the contents. I’d been expecting the old ingredient list, which to the best of my memory included baby corn, eggplant, and snow peas. None of that here. Just a lot of carrots and zucchini, with a handful of bean sprouts, a couple of mushrooms, and a sprig or two of broccoli. Not even any onions or peppers.

Then I found the meat. Not just one piece, either. Three pieces of beef and one of chicken. And it wasn’t stray chicken from Kelson’s dinner, since his was dyed brown with soy sauce and this was lily-white. So they managed to bring in bits from not just one but two dishes that weren’t even in our order! I have never been so happy not to be a strict vegetarian (or Hindu).

This is still very bad news. If a place that does kung pao is this careless about cleaning their utensils, we can’t eat there anymore. Not that it’s worth it anymore since they’ve been systematically getting rid of everything we really like. I didn’t often get the Black Bean Shrimp (aka Double Indemnity Delite), but it was nice to know that if I needed a fix, I could get it. Not anymore.

Nasty letters, here we come. And if you know anybody with the potential to be affected by this kind of sloppiness, you might want to tell them too, if they don’t already know.

3 pounds gone so far. Yay me!

I’m having way too much fun with this, I think. One of the impromptu group leaders is into eating small amounts of high-point foods (think half a can of full-calorie soup, or a very small serving of lasagna) along with large amounts of the boring kinds of point-less veggies. Another one eats salad all day and supplements it with frozen entrees at mealtimes. And here I am having a portabello sandwich with roasted peppers and goat cheese. (Yeah, it was 7 points, but if my low-point bread hadn’t gone moldy–ONE DAY after buying it–it would only have been 5.)

Hawaii is going to be a challenge, but it’s better than it could be. I’ll be in the land of tropical fruit, after all, and it’s early enough in the plan that there shouldn’t be any willpower issues or getting bored with things. I am NOT going to lose the ground I’ve gained….er, regain the ground I’ve lost….whatever. I wonder if my magic mug will travel well.

The materials from Weight Watchers had an interesting line near the end: “You’ll be amazed at what you learn about yourself when it comes to losing weight.” Well, they might be exaggerating a bit, but there’s at least a grain of truth in it. Looking over my food logs for the last two weeks, I have learned something.

I eat like a hobbit.

Seriously. I have breakfast before I go to work, which usually means I eat around 7 am. By 10, I’m starving, so I have a snack. This tends to be almost as much food as I had for breakfast. If I have lunch at 12:30, like my official schedule says, then no matter how much I eat, I’m ravenous by 5, sometimes even as early as 3. The one exception to this is if I indulge in food that’s really bad, like greasy-spoon Chinese food or a meatball and cheese sandwich. It does me no good to have a snack when I get hungry in the afternoon–it might as well bypass my stomach completely, for all the effect it has. It has to be a full dinner or my body doesn’t acknowledge that I’ve been fed. And once I get that, I’m fine the rest of the night.

So the main thing I have to watch out for is super-sizing my second breakfast. As long as no PHF’s throw chili fries at me, I think that can be done.