UPDATED!! Last Year's TR added!! Celebrating weight loss with DDP!!

[gellybean]

I totally hear you on the photopass business. I hate pictures of me. When we had our second child, I told my husband that he and I both had to saddle up and get in the pictures, because regardless we'd still look better now than in 40 years!

What exercise regime are you doing that you love so much?!!

I'm doing WeightWatchers online now that Disney-eat-til-you-puke-palooza is over. But exercise has never been a friend of mine.

I actually have a date with a trainer next Friday. UGH! So anything that you find you are enjoying, I'm all for hearing about!

I say go for the extra days in the park. We enjoyed having a day without parks to break it up, but we also enjoyed running in for just a few hours our first day too! It's good to have the flexibility. I can totally see as my boys get older, we're gonna have to have a parkhopper!

Are you on facebook by chance????

 

[michellem1118]

What exercise regime are you doing that you love so much?!!

I actually have a date with a trainer next Friday. UGH! So anything that you find you are enjoying, I'm all for hearing about!

Chiming in because, well, I have an answer. I'm also not a fan of exercise, but I recently bought the Biggest Loser game for the Wii, and OMG! It's awesome. It's enjoyable, and it seems to be just as good of a workout as I was getting when I was paying a personal trainer.

 

[stayhomemom77]

I have this mortal fear of going to the gym. I make all my skinnier friends laugh when I reject their invitations to join them at the gym with "oh no, I'm too fat for the gym." I do get that this statements seems to defy all logic, but there is a method to my madness.

You see, it's been a while since I've been able to keep up with a class and I just couldn't do a whole HOUR of bouncing around without a break. Besides which, I have a justifiable self consciousness of seeing the girls, my big behind and my belly bouncing around while I struggle to keep up. There is a fear of inflicting that on others, but also, there are MIRRORS in many of those places people!! What could be more disheartening to an overweight person than to SEE how overweight you are when trying to work it off.

Anyway, to answer your question Gellybean...I workout with a DVD at home. And I LOVE it. It's called Walk away the Pounds with Leslie Sansone. She has a couple of different DVD's but the one I have has four separate workouts to choose from. One mile, Two miles, Three miles and Four miles and it even came with a stretchy band. I got it at Walmart for like $15 I think. It might even be a bit cheaper in the states.

The pace is brisk but not, "I wish I was having a heart attack so I could stop doing this" hard. You don't have to do any fancy dance moves, everything is simple to follow and she is the least annoying instructor I have ever encountered. I've been doing this workout (steadily increasing the miles each week) since December 27th and I can see some muscle definition under the fat and I'm finding it much easier to suck in the gut as my core muscles have become strengthened.

I like that there are four separate workouts to choose from (lessens the boredom) and it's a great feeling of accomplishment when one moves from each mile to the next. In fact, this week I was due to move from two miles to three and I skipped the three mile workout altogether and have moved on to the four mile. It's 54 minutes long and it's a challenge but once I'm done...I feel so good!!

My sister uses Wii fit and loves it so I'm guessing the Biggest Loser game would be under a similar premise.

 

[2_Eagle_Mom]

I'm in total awe that you've been able to keep up your exercising for five weeks. I'm not a fan of working out (never have been and I don't see that changing). I had two weeks of doing really well on the diet then I had a business meeting for a week without good food choices. I started out each day trying to be good, but by the time the desserts came out at lunch it was all over (I'm a sucker for brownies). I keep telling myself that I need to get back on the wagon, but it just hasn't happened yet.

Regarding posting pictures - it is actually pretty easy. You need to set up an account on a photo hosting site (I use photobucket).

* Upload your photos to that site (you can edit/crop/resize them to make them smaller if necessary - I use medium size because our camera takes huge pictures)
* Copy the Direct Link information, then you select the "insert image" button
* Highlight the text that is already in the box and paste your link on top if it

I always preview the post before hitting submit in case I've messed up something. Trust me - if I can post pics - anyone can.

 

[michellem1118]

My sister uses Wii fit and loves it so I'm guessing the Biggest Loser game would be under a similar premise.

We have the Wii Fit too, and while it's more fun, it's nowhere near as good of a workout as the Biggest Loser game. Your plan sounds good, too, though! Maybe if we ever get our DVD player working...

 

[stayhomemom77]

I’m afraid that last year we sort of went Disney commando. We didn’t mean to, but we stayed off site and at the time, I was under the impression that this was our only chance to do Disney, so I thought we had to try and do it all. I was lamenting that we hadn’t managed to get onto the Dumbo ride, as it was the one thing that my son had been talking about ceaselessly for three months before the trip. This was during our drive home and my husband countered an earlier statement of “better make this count cause this is our one and only Disney trip” with the comment “well it’s not as if we won’t be going back.”

I think I sat in silence for a full five minutes as I absorbed what he had just said. He did make me promise that our next vacation would be a “grown up one” meaning that it would be something more geared to our interests (like Vegas or New Orleans or New York City) which I’ve since smashed into a million pieces. (The promise, I mean). Oops!! It seriously WAS unintentional!
Anyway, so we were off site last year. Now, our hotel wasn’t terribly far away from the parks but we didn’t want all the bother of walking all the way back to the car to take a break in the middle of the day so we stayed at each park as long as possible and then left for the day.

This meant that my poor long suffering daughter, who LOVES to swim, only got to use the hotel pool twice the whole week! What kind of animal takes her kids to Florida and then never lets them go swimming? Not that they ever complained (although she did ASK to go swimming every day)…they were great.

So, our first park was AK and since the hours are the shortest at this park, we made rope drop and stayed until closing. We saw everything we cared to, took ice cream breaks and let them play in the Boneyard for a LOOOOONG time. We had the kids in strollers for the week so we could go at a grown up pace and it worked quite well for us. The only people complaining of sore feet and being tired (by day three) were mom and dad. We left the park at five and had dinner at our hotel.

We had six day park tickets, so AK and HS were going to be one day only events but Epcot and MK were going to get a second visit. So we went to AK and HS on the first two days where we figured we’d have the most energy. That way if we were dragging our feet later in the week, it wouldn’t matter so much.

HS was day two and again we did everything we cared to and then headed home for dinner. We had a late dinner since we had dined at Hollywood and Vine at 2 pm for lunch. Our pace was fairly brisk but we still took time to sit and see the Block Party bash parade (something we hadn’t done at AK) and watch the ducks. They also played in HISTK for a bit too which was a break for mom and dad. We didn’t stay after seven thirty at any park but Epcot. Illuminations was the only fireworks display we saw last time.

MK was day 3 and day 6. We did the majority of what we wanted to see on day three and just did repeats of the favourites again on day six. We did the parade on the last day too but didn’t have it in us to stay past 4 pm and this is why Jaq didn’t get to go on Dumbo. I had taken back pills during the parade for an old back injury that had reared up and started screaming at me. Although I was okay once the pills kicked in (in terms of pain management) I really was pooped and we agreed to just pack it in for the day. We have this great pic of me posing with the kids while waiting for the parade to start, AFTER the pills have been popped but BEFORE they had started working. I have this tight grimace in place of a smile…it’s awesome!! I placated the disappointed kids with a trip to the pool…the water felt nice on our poor tired bodies and the kids never once complained.

Epcot was on days 4 and 5 and I have to say, I LOVED this park. I didn’t expect to, but I LOVED it. It’s my favourite Disney park, and not for the World Showcase, but for Future World!! I just had so much fun at Epcot. Again, we took breaks to let them play at the little exercise play area near Canada and had stops for refreshing drinks and ice cream so we could cool off.

I guess you couldn’t call it Commando per se but we did everything we wanted to at the park and stayed for Illuminations before heading out. That way we were able to get a bit of a late start the following day and still have enough time to do our favs at Epcot once again and finish off all that interested us in that park before heading back to the hotel for the day.

Up Next: It’s gotta be better than last year! (Part 2)

 

[stayhomemom77]

Okay, this is me now. I'm not going to show a picture of me at my starting weight because, well...I'm just not going to. This is down 25 pounds from my starting weight and so, I'd like to lose 25 more pounds (or more) between now and our departure...a mere 10 weeks from now.

So, even down 25 more pounds from here you can see that I'm still going to be big but less big...get it?

 

[stayhomemom77]

Thanks for all the help by the way. Now I can post pics and do clickable links...cool!!

 

[stayhomemom77]

I can proudly claim that we learned a few things from our first trip…family vacation rules, if you will.

Rule #1
Let the kids go in the friggin’ pool once in a while!!

Okay, so not only have we decided to set aside a resort day for each of our two resorts so we can explore DTD and SSR on the one day and AKL on the other but since we are staying on property, we’ll be coming back to the hotel when we feel we need a break and hopping into that pool to cool off. Gotta love that bus system!! Essentially this means that we are getting six day base tickets once again and doing the same thing as last time (AK, HS once each, and MK, Epcot twice each).

Since there are only a handful of things that we didn’t do last time that we are interested in doing this time, it won’t be necessary to worry about opening and closing the park…something that has always been a time honoured tradition in my family. I come from a family of seven and when you have to pay for park ticket for 2 adults and five kids you make the most of the time you have. I think I have successfully let go of this (genetic) mind set and can be open to a much more relaxed and gentle pace and I really think the table service meals are going to be a key ingredient in helping me feel more rested throughout the day.

Rule #2
Don’t spread the driving evenly over two days.

Okay, so as I mentioned we are driving down again just like last time. Last time, we divvied the 18 hour drive up into two even chunks of about nine to 10 hours each (counting stops). It was a nightmare!! The kids again, were great…no complaints or problems from them as they had their DS’s, the DVD player and other various items to keep them occupied. Besides piping up to tell us that they were hungry or had to go pee, we didn’t hear much from them on the ride.

We made it from Windsor, Ontario to Lexington, Kentucky on a single tank of gas and only had to stop to pee once during that time. This part of the trip took about six hours and we gassed up and ate at McDonald’s in Lexington before heading out once again. This part of the trip seemed to pass fairly quickly and we looked forward to ending up in Dalton, Georgia a mere three hours hence. Well, this didn’t quite happen the way we had hoped. First of all, it’s more like 4.5 hours from Lexington to Dalton (something I hadn’t paid close enough attention to on my mapquest map). And for some reason…not traffic or construction or delays or anything…but some reason, the remaining six hour trip seemed to take twice as long as the first half.
I dunno where the extra hour and a half came from….we weren’t stopping that much for the bathroom and we ate dinner in Dalton but I nearly cried in relief when we finally got there. Frankly, I think I was just bored. DH never felt it was necessary for me to take over at the wheel and when it’s a straight shot down the I-75 you don’t really need to do much as a navigator. I guess I thought it would be rude to read a book while he was driving (although he likes to keep the chat to a minimum on unfamiliar terrain so his reflexes stay sharp) so I seriously had nothing to do.

Having said that, it seems idiotic to think that we are going to attempt a 15 hour drive this time around when the 12 hour trip seemed endless but I think this time with accurate time and distance estimations and an activity bag for Mommy, I’ll stay sane enough to make it through. I’m also going to try and insist on driving the first shift. I don’t mind driving from home to Lexington and then he can have the remaining miles all to himself. I’m also trying to convince him to leave at 6 am (something he is loath to do) so it looks good if I take the first shift and let him doze. I keep trying to remind him that we have the border to deal with and if we leave at seven we’ll be stuck in the middle of rush hour traffic.

Up Next: Part 3 of It’s gotta be better than last year.

 

[michellem1118]

May I make a suggestion? Even though you're staying on property, please consider getting up early and hitting the parks for rope drop... especially if you plan on afternoon breaks at the hotel anyway. We did this for the first time on our December trip (we're *very* relaxed travelers usually), and even though we were there during the busiest week of the year, we saw EVERYTHING (except some shows) in each park within ~4-5 hours of arrival, and then had the whole afternoon each day to relax. Especially if you want to ride some of the bigger attractions, this will cut your wait time down considerably!

Also... we've found that when we drive (which we don't do often, because with just 2 of us, it costs just as much to drive as it does to fly), the drive is easier if we have a really long drive the first day, then a much shorter drive for day 2. It's about 15 hours driving from here, we try for 10-11 on day 1, then ~4 on day 2. It makes that 2nd driving day much easier.

 

[stayhomemom77]

Thanks for the tips Michellem1118!!

We are planning to do rope drop for at least half of the days. I even changed around some of the ressies so that we could be in the MK early!! Last time the only rope drop we actually made was the first day but most of the other days we were only a few minutes late.

Thanks again for the tips.

 

[stayhomemom77]

Well, I've done it!! I'm not sure if I reported it here but I had been toying with the idea of switching our SSR dining plan from regular to deluxe. It would have been too much food and too much money to switch the ENTIRE trip to deluxe but I thought that we could swing the extra bucks for the 2 night stay. I just got an email from our DVC member and he has confirmed that the change has been made!!

Who hoo!!

So, of course...the dining reservations needed to change as well as some of the park days so after a ton of moving things around...here is our current (and hopefully final) itinerary:

22 Daytona/Resort/DTD
23 MK/Resort/DTD
24 Epcot
25 MGM
26 MK
27 DTD/Resort Day
28 AK
29 MGM
30 Epcot

And the dining plans are:
22 Cap'n Jacks
23 Crystal Palace, Tony's, Planet Hollywood
24 Teppan Edo, Le Cellier
25 Sci Fi
26 Cinderella's Royal Table
27 Sanaa
28 Boma
29 50's Prime Time Cafe, 'Ohana
30 Coral Reef, Chefs des France

Man, I'm full just thinking about it!!

 

[SimmerBaggins]

I have to say, your thread today motivated me to do not one workout, but two!

All that talk about photos, and workouts, and weight-loss...(sigh). When we went to WDW last year, DH and I had lost some weight earlier in the year, but we had put on a few pounds right before we left. So, I look back on the pictures, and my calves look okay, but my thighs and stomach don't.

We want to lose weight before we go to WDW in June, but curbing eating habits is tough...working out, for me, is normally easier. I look at your ADRs and think about all the food we ate last year, and this year it scares me a little -- it is a LOT of food.

I kept telling myself that we were "burning it off" with all the walking that we did, but I don't think we burned as much as we could have...or were as frugal with the calories as we could have. I especially like your plan for the desserts -- but for anyone, they are really great temptations, and a great amount of calories!!

I wish you all the luck in getting to your goal, and sticking to your plan, and then coming back and staying on track. That's the toughest part: know that after one dessert or one day of "being bad", you can immediately switch gears and be right back "on track." Don't get discouraged and tell yourself, "well, I've already ruined my diet, so I might as well _________." Keep it up! Maybe we should begin a section of "Eating Well at WDW!"

 

[stayhomemom77]

More changes.

Meals for:

22nd Turf Club
23rd 1900 Park Fare, Crystal Palace, Planet Hollywood

And we are going to get the eight day passes. Even if we don't use more than seven days...for an extra $12...

Anyway, here's hoping that it's the last time anything changes...

 

[michellem1118]

More changes.

Meals for:

22nd Turf Club
23rd 1900 Park Fare, Crystal Palace, Planet Hollywood

And we are going to get the eight day passes. Even if we don't use more than seven days...for an extra $12...

Anyway, here's hoping that it's the last time anything changes...

THREE ADR's for the 23rd?!?! And two of them are buffets? Wow, you guys will be STUFFED by the end of the day!

I think it's definitely worth the extra $12 for the 8-day passes. It gives you more flexibility for not much more money.

 

[stayhomemom77]

Yeah, I'm guessing we won't be that hungry for dinner. Breakfast is at 8 am, lunch is at 1 pm and then dinner is a bit late for us (7:15 pm). We'll cancel it if we're too full from breakfast and lunch but we don't typically gorge ourselves at buffets so I think we'll be okay. Me and the kids eat A LOT of fruit at buffets and I'll just let the hubby know not to fill up because another meal will be in (whatever many) hours hence.

We're doing the deluxe plan for those two days only and I wanted to squeeze in a couple of character meals while we had the chance. We want to use of some of the extra snack credits on suckers and stuff for souvies for the cousins so we likely won't use them for ourselves for those days.

Thanks for chiming in about the tickets...hubby still thinks it's unnecessary but I think it's wise for just in case. I don't care if $12 gets wasted, and honestly, we might even go for just a couple of hours so it could come in handy after all. Better safe than sorry, I say.

 

[stayhomemom77]

Rule #3
Let the man have his day at the beach!!

It had been proposed last time that we go to Daytona Beach either before we got on the cruise liner or after we got off of it. Well, we didn’t have time to do it before the cruise and during the cruise DS got congested and his puffer got left in the car so we had to take him to the ship’s medical center to get him taken care of. (Needless to say, rule #4 should be, don’t let your husband repack the bags because he’ll move your son’s puffer to the wrong bag and it won’t make it onto the ship!!) So, after such an ordeal on the cruise when we finally got off (we had to wait FOREVER for some non US citizens to check in before they could begin the disembarkation process—three hours LATE) we just wanted to head back home.

Although we had been to the beach on the cruise, I guess DH hadn’t let go of the trip to Daytona so he requested last month that it be added to the itinerary this time. He has so few requests and puts up so patiently with all the Disney “mania” that this is a definite must do. Frankly, I could care less. But since last time my DS spent the beach time curled up on a beach chair sleeping and my DD loves the beach, I feel compelled to make it there this time around.

This was the REAL reason we decided to drive most of the way on the first day. Although everything I said in rule #2 was absolutely true, it’s because I don’t want to sacrifice any time at Disney that we are leaving only four hours from Valdosta to Daytona on that second day of vacation. We should be there by lunchtime…we’ll have a couple of hours to frolic in the waves and sand and then we are packing up and heading to SSR. Originally, we were going to dine at the Whispering Canyon Café that night but in the last week I’ve decided that we should stay at the resort.

This actually worked out great, since we decided to juggle our meals around (yet again) and add a lunch on the first Epcot day at Teppan Edo. I’m a bit nervous about it though. We don’t do the park hopping thing right now… our kids are just too small and we feel like too much time is wasted when we move from park to park. Unfortunately, this means that we have to double up the TS meals when we are at Epcot in order to fit them all in and try out as many of the restaurants as we can.

So it’s now lunch at Teppan Edo followed by dinner at Le Cellier and then on our second Epcot day we are lunching at Coral Reef and having dinner at Les Chefs des France. I spent an inordinate amount of time perusing the menus on allears so that I could have a game plan on how to approach the orgy of food to be consumed not once, but twice in a seven day period.

I can eat. Let’s be honest, you don’t get to my size without being able to eat, but this sounds like too much heavy food even for me. I’m thinking that I should get the sea scallops at Teppan Edo so I can get steak at Le Cellier and still enjoy it. And I’m thinking lobster ravioli at Coral Reef and Chicken at Les Chefs des France. After all, we have to drive for four hours after this meal…I don’t want to be uncomfortable.

Up Next: What do I need for my trip?

 

[stayhomemom77]

On February 1st, I started packing for our April 21st departure!! I guess saying that I started gathering things would be more appropriate. I have the kids hats, the ponchos and various other small items thrown into a storage bin and I pulled their shorts out from storage and put them with their little Mickey backpacks. I’ll keep adding, of course as things are purchased for the trip.
After that was done, I started the Disney binder. Now, the toner in the printer is empty was empty and I had to wait TWO WHOLE WEEKS before I could replace it, so I couldn’t fill this binder up too much…but whatever I did have ready got hole punched and added to the binder in the appropriate section.
I also started making lists. Lists and lists and lists. Mostly in excel…I love excel…and since I couldn’t print them, they had to stay in my computer and not in my binder for a bit but they were prepared just the same.
So, what lists you ask? Well, besides the obvious packing list and the list of food item for consumption on the trip down and back, there was…
Shopping list (categorized by pay period and store)
Budget
Itinerary
List of Dining Plan Snacks
List of Must Do’s for each park
SSR Information List
AKL Information List
DTD Information List

And there will be more this week!! We leave seven weeks from today!!

I'm STILL messing with the dining reservations but I think eventually I'll just run out of time.

I can't wait for advance check in!!

Diet and exercise are going well but the weight loss has definitely slowed. It's still coming off but not as fast as I had anticipated and although I should definitely make 40 pounds...I may not get a whole lot farther than that. Ah well, that's enough to celebrate!!

More details to come...

 

[Jitzy]

I am totally impressed by all of your plans! They sound like so much fun.

You will totally love SSR. We've stayed there before and I love, love, love their gym! It is extremely awesome. You should try to fit that in to your schedule, maybe while the family is at the pool, you could run in there for 1/2 hour.

 

[stayhomemom77]

Hey!! I never even thought about the gym!! When my hubby and I went away for Valentine's weekend we hit the gym at the hotel and it's the first time I've EVER done that. It was great...I'm gonna do my best to squeeze in a workout at least once on our SSR stay!!