I'm baaaa-ck.

I'm exhausted. Disney World is a trip, man. Here is the lowdown.

It is extremely (EXTREMELY) difficult to diet when you are in Walt Disney World. There just aren't very many healthy options (and even the healthy stuff comes pre-made aka drenched in dressing).

I did really well on Thursday and Tuesday, as those were my "in transit" days and much easier to control. So hooray for that, I suppose.

I will say that Disney World is an excellent place to get in your exercise. We were either standing in line or walking for at least 5 hours a day. Every day Dan and I would literally collapse from leg exhaustion. We were also extremely sweaty all day long (yum). So I do think that a good portion of the crap I ate I probably immediately sweated out. At least I HOPE so. P.S. All the parks are SO GOOD for walking! I can never get over how every section of each park feels so completely different from the last. And such good people watching - man alive!

Some things I think I did really well - I had granola bars for breakfast every day. So at least there was one meal that I knew I was in control of. On Friday afternoon I had hummus and lamb for lunch, on Saturday I had a burger w/ apple slices instead of fries and on Sunday I had a salad for lunch. I did have ice cream every day that we were there, but I stuck to things on sticks (and one sugar free butter pecan delicasy in a cone). I also had just a corn dog for lunch on Monday (I wanted one so bad)! If there were greasy things I wanted as bite of, then Dan would order them and I would get exactly one bite! So that was pretty good.

Dinner times were harder. Friday night I had a small steak w/ a baked potato, but I also had mucho alcohol (and we shared a brownie sundae). Saturday night I ordered a salad for dinner, but we also ordered some amazing cuban appitizers (you tell me that you could pass up fried mashed potatoes - because I don't believe you) and of course mucho drinking! Sunday night I had pasta w/ red sauce, but also MUCHO MUCHO drinking. And Monday night for dinner I had chicken w/ broccoli and white rice, but I also consumed a pound of reeses pieces at the movies (couldn't resist). P.S. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist was pretty good in a modern John Hughes way. Dan loved it, aww.

So I feel proud of myself that I didn't eat everything in sight, but other than that there were moments when I felt bloated, or didn't even really like my food, but was too drunk to stop myself. I forgot how much drunkeness has a hand in my bad choices (I really haven't had that much to drink in a long time).

But what I REALLY feel proud of is the fact that my diet was never far from my mind. I wrote down every bad thing that I ate, bothered Dan endlessly about how much walking he thought we had done each day, and by Monday I was craving fruits and vegetables. The strangest thing is that the majority of the food I ate I chose by default, but in reality I was a little sad that I couldn't make better choices - because I wanted to! Granted - that was not my mind set while I was drinking my pomengrate cur or chowing down on ice cream, but I wanted better real food options! So that's progress, right?

Last night at the grocery store the produce smelled so good! I actually completed my shopping, looked in the cart, and realized I had forgotten all my sweet tooth snacks for the week. Everything I had was high in fiber, or a lean meat, or fruit, or veggies, or dairy. And it was all I had even looked at in the store! So that's progress too.

I'm going to weigh in tomorrow night, even though I know that I probably gained on my trip. I figure that it's better to know the damage so I can work extra hard to fix it. I was so close to 30 damnit, but I suppose either way I get my 16 week award. I have made a commitment to myself and to my diet - and life happens! Sometimes you are just in Disney World for a week and you have to eat a corn dog. It's science.

For the record, I absolutely love Disney World and would go back again in a heart beat. But maybe next time I will stay at a hotel with a kitchen in my room, so I can prepare my own food. That would be better, I think.

So close...

I lost 3.8 pounds this week, so I have now lost a total of 29.6 pounds. Woo hoo! This means that, as long as I REASONABLY control myself at Disney, I may have a good chance of hitting 30 pounds next week. We plan on going for long walks every morning at the parks, plus we'll be doing a lot of walking all day anyway. AND we're bringing granola bars and fiber one pastries for breakfast and for snacks to eat throughout the day. So as long as I don't choose the super fried gooey entrees for lunch and dinner, I'm hoping to do pretty well. Either way, lose or gain, I'll still be at my 16 week celebration next week! And I'm going to be in Disney for FIVE WHOLE DAYS! FIVE DAYS AWAY FROM WORK! OH MY GOD, WE LEAVE TOMORROW!

I work from 3-5pm today and then tomorrow from 9-1pm and then BAM! Dan and I will be on our way to Disney World.

Here is our Disney Magic plan...

Friday morning we are going to start at Epcot, so we can make dinner reservations. We're going to spend either the whole day there, or split our day in half and spend the afternoon at MGM. But either way we want to be back at Epcot for dinner on Friday night.

Saturday morning we're going to the Animal Kingdom. Saturday afternoon we'll head over to Downtown Disney to do Disney Quest, Cirque Du Soleil, and then we're going clubbing at Pleasure Island (dancing and drinking all night long)!!!

Sunday morning we're going to start at MGM, so we can make dinner reservations. Then we'll either spend the whole day at MGM or again split our day between MGM and Epcot. Then back to MGM for dinner!

Finally we're going to spend all day Monday at the Magic Kingdom! YAYY!

I hate my Period, I eat Pizza

So I felt like I had almost a perfect week. I ate fruits and veggies every day, I made smart choices, and I only used 12 of my 35 anytime points. I also got in a pretty decent amount of exercise on 4 days. AND I was really able to start feeling where I had lost weight this weekend. There was a point on Saturday when I looked in the mirror and could see all these tiny changes that are starting to have an effect.

But Tuesday night I ate sea salt soaked edamame, which I've done the day before a weigh in and been perfectly fine! But I guess it's not smart to suck down a lot of sodium the day before your PERIOD and then jump on a scale and expect to see happiness.

I only gained .6, which is NOT BAD. But I had SUCH a good week. And I felt really bloated in the morning when I woke up, which is the worst feeling ever on a weigh in day. Sigh. Maggie said that weight gain during your period is not a myth and that if affects everyone differently, even a guy at the meeting chimed in and said his wife always gains the week of her period (his wife would have been THRILLED if she'd been in the room). So I'm not going to beat myself up about it. But I was already having a super bad day at work and I was crabby and tired, so it didn't help matters.

To top it off, Dan had a horrible day at work and was also in a bad mood when he got home. It was no good. We've both been craving Dominoes pizza for weeks, so we decided to pull out the old Dining Out Companion to see what kind of damage it'd do. It turns out that 1 slice of pepperoni pizza is 6 points, and I had 19 points left, so we ordered a medium pizza immediately. And I think it genuinely did make us both feel better, which is a little ridiculous. I also gave Dan a really long back rub, which I think much have helped him too. Anyway, I was still hungry after the pizza, so I used 10 of this week's anytime points. The depressing thing is that even after I ate the 10 I was still hungry (and not in the, "I'm stuffed but I still want to eat way. My stomach still had room in it). But I stopped at 10 and I feel good about that.

But this morning I had a grease stomach ache, which I haven't had in almost three months now. So that was a little depressing. I don't regret eating the pizza though, I had the points for it and I didn't go overboard (and I certainly could have). Plus I am of the mindset that you shouldn't deprive yourself when you have been craving something and pizza has been on the brain for the longest time.

So I had a Jamba Juice this morning so that I could fill up on some good fiber and I have both a reasonable lunch and dinner packed for myself, along with some snacks (I'm staying late to see Edward for the second time). I'm also going to take a 30 minute walk on the pier after work today, since I wasn't in the mood this morning. Cold weather totally sucks.

I think my goal for this week will be to exercise every day since I have Disney coming in 1 week! The goal will also be to try hard to not use the rest of my anytime points (I still have 25, but I want to try and ignore them). And just in general to really try and get in at least 4 servings of fruits or veggies every day this week. I want to have a good week before Disney, so I can try to use that motivation towards not blowing the whole week while I'm dancing with Minnie Mouse.

The cool thing is that the week I get back from Disney will be my "16 week" celebration! 16 weeks from the week you sign up they give you a little gift to remind you that you've made a big commitment to yourself. I think it's good that the week I receive mine will be the day after the trip. If I can keep in mind that I'm getting a reward for being awesome when I get home, maybe that will help me choose lite drinks and pasta with tomato sauce instead of all the unhealthy "Goofy" side dishes. Man. I wish they really called them Goofy Side Dishes. That would make everything taste better.