30 things about WDW Vacation - November wish lifestyle/weight loss challenge

HappyGrape

DIS Veteran
Joined
Nov 1, 2013
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This month we will talk about WDW Vactions! You want to slim down for your Disney Vacation or Christmas Party? Increase your fitness, maintain your weight loss, figure out what is your next move? You want to recall memories or just want to come and say - oh man, I love dole whips or avatarland? Join us. Lets have a great month, talk about things we love/do about Disney and support each other on our journey for happier and healthier lifestyle



All are welcome no matter where you are at in your goal progress. Haven't even set a goal but thinking about it? Jump on in! Months into your lifestyle change? Glad to have you :thumbsup2

So how does this work?

You set your own goals for the month of November. It can be anything related to a healthy lifestyle- weight loss, exercise, sleep, mental health, water intake, etc. What it is and how big it is- that's all up to you. You take charge of tracking your progress and be sure to post here at least once a week. Every Tuesday, I'll update the post below with everyone's progress so we can keep each other accountable.

Every day there will also be a discussion question to get you thinking about how you can achieve your goals better or faster! But, as always, if you have any other questions or concerns that you want to discuss, don't hesitate to address those here as well.

So! Now that you're here, why don't you take a moment to introduce yourself? You don't have to share much personal info if you don't want, but please let us know what brought you here this month.
 
Thanks for setting this up @HappyGrape! I'll be joining in for about half the month- we have a big trip to Disneyland and Hawaii around our Thanksgiving holiday (woohoo!) so I won't be too active then.

That vacation is actually a big part of the reason I'm here! Our big vacation last November was one of those moments when I started to realize that I needed to change my lifestyle. I looked through the photos and realized that I had become much bigger than I used to be. Along with that were coming other issues like back pain and lack of energy. In May I took the plunge and joined Weight Watchers, with the intent of losing at least 25 pounds before our trip to Hawaii in November. Right now, I've lost 22 of those pounds and I feel great! I'm so excited to see progress not only in weight loss but in fitness and overall health. I want this to be more than shedding pounds- I want to create a foundation for my life and my family's that is centered around being healthy and having fun at the same time.
 


I am in too :jumping1:

Also a great bit thank you to @HappyGrape for hosting - I hope someone can spilt some of the responsibility with you - November is crazy for me and I will also be getting ready to host in December :-)

That vacation is actually a big part of the reason I'm here! Our big vacation last November was one of those moments when I started to realize that I needed to change my lifestyle. I looked through the photos and realized that I had become much bigger than I used to be. Along with that were coming other issues like back pain and lack of energy. In May I took the plunge and joined Weight Watchers, with the intent of losing at least 25 pounds before our trip to Hawaii in November. Right now, I've lost 22 of those pounds and I feel great! I'm so excited to see progress not only in weight loss but in fitness and overall health. I want this to be more than shedding pounds- I want to create a foundation for my life and my family's that is centered around being healthy and having fun at the same time.

Well done on almost hitting your goal - and you still have a little time to get there - your trip sounds wonderful - definitely feeling jealous!
 
1st of October! WDW Vacations topic 1 - Vacation planning!


How do you plans your vacations? There is so much to decide on!

1st What kind of vaction you want to have, WDW, Disneyland, Ski, City break. lets say we want a Disney vacations

2. When can you go, and from the times you can go when is best to go. Busy vs quiet, short vs long days, hurricane season, cooler weather or not, food and wine or not, school holidays, transport and accommodation seasonal cost and personal commitments

3. How long to stay. How long can you take off work, how long can you afford to stay, how long would you like to stay.

4. Where to stay? Moderate, Value, Deluxe, Offsite, Vila?

5. Car hire?

6. How many park days, park hopper or not, waterpark? Universal? Others?

7. ADRs? Dinning package?

8. Photopackage?

9. Special Experiences?

10. Must do lists of attractions in each park?

11. What day to visit what park

12 Fast Pass+ list

13. Touringplans or easywdw plans or make your own planning. Alternative plan if you can get your dream fp or ADR

14. Which guide to buy, travel insurance, theme outfit for the kids (year, right! I want some too!)


My head is spinning even thinking about but here is

Question of the day 1– how do you approach your Disney Vocation planning (and if not planning going to Disney, general vacation planning). And yet
I am enjoying the planning – I really love a good plan.

Question 2 - Ho will approach your healthy eating planning for the month?

Why I am asking this question and going with the Vacations planning first is many times, we plan vacations to suit our needs and budget, what we want and when can we get it and adjust the plans to suit us. For example, we look for best day to visit a park. We don’t plan to do MNSSHP in June or Food and Wine in January. Yet when it comes to diet or healthy eating, we sometimes get a plan made by someone else and we don’t try to fit it in our own day or life. We are trying to fit our life to a plan that is not made for us, not made by us or taking any consideration to the fact that what works on one day, isn’t possible on another.

When making plan for this month, let’s think about what we have on! Do you have nights out? Trip? Birthday? What can you do to adjust the plan on days like this so you can enjoy yourself but stay on course? Will you be looking at menus ahead? Will you be trying new recipes? Do you make meal plan for the week? Shopping list?

I will add a picture of one of my old plans later today

Have a super healthy day and lets do some planning!
 


1st, yes, let’s say we want Disney! I do!

2nd, I am in debt and am working to get out of that debt spiral situation. So my real Disney plans are somewhat distant in comparison to some folks. I am in school working to become a massage therapist. I’m in the home stretch. I expect to live here and work on my health, my finances, my massage and palpating skills, and helping my youngest with her life goals for about two more years. I hope and pray to be out of debt and able to move from Central Ohio to Central Florida about 2 years from now. To be honest it’s an enormous amount of debt. But I’m leaning on God and trusting that working on it can succeed.

Having said that, I do still want Disney and Disney is a part of my thinking. I want to visualize that future that I’d like to build as a part of my journey. I *think* I’ll always prefer quiet Disney days over crowded park days. I want to maybe sometimes do long days of walking a lot for the fitness benefit of that on top of the fun but I’m planning on living what the Floridians call a permanent tourist lifestyle where I actually drop in when I feel like it for however many hours or minutes I feel like it, (when I’m not at work.) I love hurricane season because most of the storms are not bad in the Orlando area and yet the parks end up emptier after a rain starts. I can just pop in to soarin or philharmagic and keep touring after. I love cooler weather but I know from when I lived in central Florida years ago that I’ll adjust to summer heat enough that those ultra hot times will be OK too. I’m not sure if I’ll ever do Food & Wine. I love the idea and have always wanted to but no matter how big a foodie I’ve been, I need to be healthier more than I need to be able to indulge. (I’m down a bit more this morning.)

Questions 4 and 5 were about the resorts and car hire. I’ll own a car and have it with me in Florida, of course, if and when I get to move. But I’ve definitelt been a car hire person in the past. I’d love to try out all the resorts and most of all I’ve always wanted to stay at the Poly since I was about 3 (1973) I guess if I’m able to financially I might get a Disney room once in a while even though I live near by, but on the other hand probably not, or at least only very rarely. There’s too many other things to do with my money for my loved ones and for others if and when I’m no longer in the debt spiral.

And some other questions were about similar specifics of traveling to Disney from elsewhere. But I definitley would like to book Dining Reservations occasionally for the restaurants with real chefs who I can get to know a bit and get only real food cooked for myself like I need to do in my lifestyle in order to be as healthy as I can be. I know the Disney catering in general tries to be very helpful and accommodating. I imagine I could get to know one or a few chefs who would love sometimes just cooking whole, real foods and being appreciated as much as I appreciate great cooking.


9. Special Experiences? I expect that I’ll have many and that will be a part of my Disney dreaming and visualizing!

I enjoyed figuring out which day for each park and making touring plans back in 2006. I may do some of that kindle of thing in future.

14. Which guide... theme outfit for the kids (year, right! I want some too!) ...um, outfits...for me! I’ve really enjoyed seeing some Disney inspired theme outfits over the years on Pinterest. I’d love to do some of that!



Question of the day 1– how do you approach your Disney Vocation planning (and if not planning going to Disney, general vacation planning). And yet
I am enjoying the planning – I really love a good plan.

At this point I’m much more laid back than I sometimes sound. And I really am a dreamer. I have time to spare for rolling over a million ideas while I work towards my goals. :)

Question 2 - Ho will approach your healthy eating planning for the month?

I am doing what works for me. I stay as laid back as I possibly can on most “goals” and I work to never beat myself up but to be able to choose to improve if I become unhappy with some aspect of what I’m doing or if it’s not working. Right now I’m still taking a very low carb approach. I eat as much as I want of certain veg that I enjoy without counting the carbs from it, like cauliflower. I love cauliflower and two nights in the last week I cooked and ate nearly a whole head by myself while watching superhero movies with my daughter and snuggling. I stay crazy strict on watching the rest of my carb intake. Like when I want a kombucha I read the label and I split the bottle with my daughter so I get about 6grams of carbs out of that. If I am dying for some grape juice I either skip it or just get one swallow. If my girl is eating an apple or grapes I usually skip it but I sometimes have just one grape or one small bite of apple. I love olives and I do use them when I have cravings. Olives and cheese usually satisfies no matter what I’m craving but lately I skip them as long as I’m not struggling with cravings because they have seemed to mess with my progress or my fluid and electrolyte balance at times. If I keep plenty of healthy fat in my diet and avoid refined salt I can usually avoid the struggles.

This month isn’t Thanksgiving. I plan to lose 10 pounds during the first two or three weeks of November. I hope to lose a bit more after that. I have a fabulous, tasty, pastured turkey on order from a great farmer. I plan to actually stick with my plans for our Thanksgiving here. I’ll have my son and DIL and grandchildren plus myself and Dear daughter. It’s a given that DIL will pressure me to break my plans but I’ve had a LOT of experience now with that and I think I’m up for facing it successfully. She will have to derive her feelings of worth from something other than me eating sugary or otherwise unhealthy foods made by her hands. She can eat them and feed them to other people.

I do some meal planning. Where I am is probably about halfway in between type-A meal planners versus folks who never meal plan, in appearances. For now it’s working for me! I am m going to go film and upload a *********** weigh-in! (If anyone wants to make a wager let me know and let me hook you up with a referral! )
 
Thanks, HappyGrape!

I just did my weigh-in video and I am so glad I did though I was kind of dreading it beforehand. *********** told me I’ve lost 6.68% of the weight I started with and that I’m 13lbs down from the first video! Woot! Woot! So I’ll hope for another 10 lbs over the next three weeks and at least maintenance over Thanksgiving.

:wishsize1

I don’t actually know if I’ve lost a size but I’m so happy that the skirt I wore on Monday was so loose it sagged a bunch and the pants I wore yesterday were a significantly looser fitting than usual! So that flag was the best I could do without money for clothes shopping and without knowing what size I really was before. Every clothes manufacturer sizes differently anymore! I have things that say size 16 and all the way up to things that say size 24, not even counting the clothes that just have comepletley different sizing systems so that they say 3 or some other bizarre number!
 
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Every clothes manufacturer sizes differently anymore! I have thing that say 16 and all the way up to things that say 24, not even counting the clothes that just have comepletley different sizing systems so that they say 3 or some other weird number!
Yes this is SO frustrating! It's taken me until this year to truly get into the mindset of being excited about clothes that fit and not worrying about the number on the tag because it can just be so deceptive.

Also, what is *********** and what does a weigh-in video entail?
 
Question 1: I am a crazy type A planner of all vacations but particularly Disney. I've got spreadsheets on spreadsheets, I use TP to put together plans, I plan out breaks, what I'm going to eat, what I'm going to wear each day, everything! I love it because it helps sort of extend the trip. Planning for me is part of the vacation. My thought process is that if I'm paying this much on a trip, then I want to maximize value. That means not wasted time in general, and especially not wasting time on things that are less than excellent. The downfall of course is when things don't go according to my brilliant plan. It can be difficult to stay positive and go with the flow. Luckily my DH is very laid back and helps me when that happens!

Question 2: Outside of our vacation there isn't a whole lot going on this month that I need to plan around for meals, so I can stick to my usual method of cooking once or twice per week and using the leftovers as lunches. My current philosophy is that I need breaks from my diet occasionally so I don't plan on eating particularly healthy on our vacation. I'm not using it as an excuse to eat absolutely anything and everything I lay eyes on, but I won't be adhering to my WW points guidelines on those days. I've found that this really works for me. I know it doesn't work for everyone (this goes along with what you were saying @HappyGrape about trying to follow a plan that doesn't make sense for you). If I say that I'm never going to indulge, then I know there will come a breaking point where I will indulge and feel guilty about it. When I make the decision ahead of time and say "this week is an indulgent week" then that becomes my choice and gets rid of the guilt. It also makes it much easier because not only have I set a starting point, but also an ending point. So day one back from vacation it will be back on track for me!
 
DoleWhipDreams, it’s just a program that allows people to wager money on themselves and their weight loss goals and then get a real financial payoff if they meet the goal on time. I learned that I had to take the weighin video through a feature on the app. Making a video just with my iPad or phone camera and trying to upload it does not work. I also had to learn the formula for doing the video. It has to be a specific length of time and include a specific set of views/angles of myself and a view of my scale showing a number after I step on and it settles to a final answer. The first time I’d heard of this program from penny pincher magazine I was not really interested because I couldn’t have afforded to lose any money and I’ve had failures with goals beforehand. But a little over a month ago I woke up knowing that now is the time that I will lose the weight and I thought of that and decided I’m willing to put in the risk (and then reap the big payoff at the end!)

Of course not everyone does make their goals (how awful would that be to lose the money?!) but apparently plenty of people do make it. And they do allow people to extend the timeline once basically doubling it if they don’t make the goal in their first try so those folks can actually still get back what they put in at least or perhaps more than they put in, haven’t done the math.
 
I say that I'm never going to indulge, then I know there will come a breaking point where I will indulge and feel guilty about it. When I make the decision ahead of time and say "this week is an indulgent week" then that becomes my choice and gets rid of the guilt. It also makes it much easier because not only have I set a starting point, but also an ending point. So day one back from vacation it will be back on track for me!

Love this attitude, and agree! You need to be honest with yourself about what yourself and being honest and having flexibility completely gets rid of guild. It's much easier to deal with going back on track without feeling guilt - it's all part of the plan
 
I love WDW planning. My husband are both kind of nuts when it comes to the planning. So here is how our planning goes.

Question of the day 1– how do you approach your Disney Vocation planning (and if not planning going to Disney, general vacation planning).

1. The first usually happens fast. it always goes right to WDW. We have dreams of other places but this is always where we end up.

2. Picking a time is usually easy as well. For awhile we went Labor Day week (1 less day the kids would miss school) and we always get the free dining package. Our last trip we went in June after school was out. We booked the free dining bounce back.

3. Hotel -- We do tons of research on the hotels. Our first time we stayed Deluxe (maybe a villa. it was a 2 bedroom) at Saratoga Springs. My dad paid for this trip and rented DVC points from a friend of his. Then our second trip we stayed at All Star Music. We need it to be cheap and we were not planning on being in the hotel. The last 2 have been at a Moderate (Coronado and Port Orleans Riverside). We decided on these because we wanted to take breaks in the day and spend time at the pools. We originally wanted Caribbean Beach instead of Coronado but the free dinning sold out too fast so we settled for Coronado. This is my favorite resort right now. My plan is to hopefully be able to stay at all the resorts once.

3. We like to stay at least 7 days. Our next trip I am trying for 10 days since we won't be back until everything is open. We will need more time. We usually get 6 day park hoppers. Our last day we don't plan anything and do any last minute rides that we did not get a chance to do.

4. We drive down from Northeast Ohio so we have our car. If we didn't drive we would take Magical express to the resort. We always just part the car and not move it for the week and take Disney Transportation. It is enough stress for us to just drive to the resort on Disney property. Once on property there tends to be a lot of yelling between my husband and myself on trying to find the resort. It is much better for us to leave the drive to Disney.

5. We always do 1 table service a day with the dining plan. We always try some new restaurants and go to a few that are our favorites. I try to eat some new things too. This last trip I did try a lot of new things. Mostly sauces that they put on things. I would get it on the side though. I still do not like them but I tried. I try to only eat a little bit of the dessert but I don't stress if I don't eat it. I am up a 6 am (I think that is the time) and have all of the ADR's book right at the opening time. We do make some changes as time goes by as we find others that look good.

6. We get the photo package now. We didn't on the first 2 trips. I love getting the pictures. The family hates me for this. If I see one of the photographers I have to stop and get a picture. Even if they are out side of the park trying to fix their camera. Yes I did this as we left AK. I saw him and asked for pictures. I didn't realize at first that it was not a normal spot. We got a good picture of us in front of the park with the AK sign in the back ground.

7. We have done some special stuff too. it depends on the year and money. The first trip since we only had to pay for extras we did Bibbity bobbity boutique for both kids. We didn't do anything for the second trip. The third trip we did Bibbity bobbity boutique for my daughter, Pirates League for our son and they both did the pirate thing that is at a few of the resorts. Parents are not allowed and they go chasing a pirate. They get a treasure chest of goodies at the end. By far this has been their favorite thing. While they were doing this I got a massage and by husband hung out at the Beach Club lobby and read a book. This last trip my daughter got her hair wrapped. We were going to do this the previous trip but missed out on it so we promised we would do it on the next.

8. For each park we write down our 1 must do for each of us. We make sure that these rides get done. We do buy Touring plans and then tweak what plan they give us. We factor in our breaks and what i have read. We also add in the fastpasses that we get and where and when dinner is (always a table service) Lunch is on the fly for when ever we get hungry. Sometimes we might even skip it. Breakfast is always at the resort quick service.

9. I look at all the charts out there. Kenny the Pirate, Touring plans, WDW Prep school and any others I can find. What makes this hard is they are all different. I write down what each have form each day and pick the most common for the lightest day.

10. I keep a binder with everything we are doing. Each day will have the plan and and reservation numbers we need. This helps us to keep track of everything.

Question 2 - How will you approach your healthy eating planning for the month? For the months that have trips I try to eat as good as I can before and after we get back. On the trip don't really keep track of what I am eating. I try to eat healthy but I also don't seek it out either.

So our next trip will be over the summer. We are going on a Disney Cruise. My husband really wanted to go on a cruise again and we wanted to broaden the horizons for the kids. This trip is killing me though. There is no planning to do. I keep looking at stuff because I feel like I need to do something. I already know what excursions we are going to do and other then that there is nothing else to plan.
 
So our next trip will be over the summer. We are going on a Disney Cruise. My husband really wanted to go on a cruise again and we wanted to broaden the horizons for the kids. This trip is killing me though. There is no planning to do. I keep looking at stuff because I feel like I need to do something. I already know what excursions we are going to do and other then that there is nothing else to plan.

I feel you! We went on a Disney cruise last November and there was so little planning to do! There were parts of it that were nice but mostly I was sitting around thinking I was missing something :P
 
First November goals: my three foundations for the month are going to be Thoughts, Food and Exercise.
For THOUGHTS: I'm going to stick with Gratitude and Kindness, because I think these are both really important and will be transformational when I master them.
For FOOD: I'm going to stick with high water consumption, and low gluten, dairy and sugar consumption.
And for EXERCISE I'm going to stick with the 10,000 steps per day goal. Hey, November is looking a lot like October...

QOTD:

Planning vacations.... my planning and touring styles for WDW have changed a lot over the years. I used to do short 4 day trips of commando style touring: this was way way back when all you needed was a hotel room and airline ticket, I don't think I even bought park entrance tickets before arrival. Any pre-trip research was done via travel books and I would get a new book each year. My current planning/touring style is pretty laid back, partly because I've been so many times there isn't the urgency to do EVERYTHING any more, I'm not ride or attraction driven, if I don't get to something I know I'll be back and I like to relax and just be there more. I now take longer trips, usually around 7 days. Pre-trip I'll do a couple ADRs and will also do my FP+, but rarely right at the 180/60 day marks. I'm a little resistant to how technical its all become, so I try to do as little as possible. While at the parks I start at or close to RD, and have my FP+s booked mid-morning then head back to the resort for a mid-day nap and a freshen up, then head out again in the evening to whatever suits me at the time, which is usually EPCOT... so I have a combination of planned time and unplanned time. I do try to do a few new things each trip.

When I go to the beach it's always to the same town and same hotel, so planning amounts to putting gas in the car and throwing stuff in a suitcase the night before. This year I've also started doing my crafting travel... for the spring retreat, aside from signing up and buying my airline ticket, all I did was coordinate ground transportation. For the trip to Nashville I did more research and planning, mostly to decide what to do in the few hours I had open. When I'm going someplace new one thing I like to do is to use Google street images to check the area out and when I'm driving somewhere new I plug Google maps in... so I'm certainly not adverse to travel technology its just that for some reason at Disney I feel like I'm being forced to use it. Last trip I was having trouble with the MDE ap, so I got a printout of my plans from the front desk and loved it, so I'm going to do the same this trip.

Planning for the month... oi that's the BIG question, isn't it? When it comes to my health I don't plan things out ahead of time: I think about what I want to do/not do, but I rarely make an actual plan on how to get there. This month I have my WDW vacation 11.10 to 11.17, followed by American Thanksgiving on the 23rd. My Niece is doing Thanksgiving this year and they are almost vegan, so her menu is going to be nice an healthy, with the exception of a couple pies. Eating at WDW is both a very good and very challenging thing... good because there are so many choices and challenging because there are so many choices. I have two personal ADRs - one at Teppan Edo and one at Spice Road, which are both very good choices. Then there are two group meals planned, one at 50's Prime Time and one at Cindy's Royal Table, neither of which are particularly good for food choices. I guess my plan going in will be to stick to the monthly food goals as much as possible - low dairy, gluten and sugar - but not stress over it too much. I will also pack my chia seeds and rice milk so I can do my own breakfast in the room. Drinking water and getting steps in will be easy-peasy, and I always walk around feeling how lucky I am to be able to take a trip like that, so gratitude and kindness will come easily as well.

Oh, and it's Wednesday - woohoo! Halloween was a lot of fun, I probably had the normal amount of kiddos, about 6 groups, but they all came between 7pm and 8pm, so it felt nice and busy and they were all young and super cute and the parents were all in happy moods so it was really good. So far this has been a calm week at work, always appreciated. And as mentioned yesterday, I'm in the two week vacation countdown!
 
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I'm in for this month as well!

Goal: Track 25/30 days this month

We are going to do some Food and Wine Festival this Saturday so I will plan that as an indulgence, and I know Thanksgiving and the Friday after I will want to enjoy the food I only get once a year. That gives me two unplanned days to go off plan. :-)

Question 1: Depends on the vacation really...

Weekend jaunts to Disney-- I have a basic guideline for what we are doing, but often toss it and let the magic take us where it will. This mindset only works bc we are so lucky to visit enough not to feel the need to squeeze in everything. However, if it's not as common of a trip like Big Trips-- SO much planning!!! I usually print out a weekly day planner and fill it out, then rearrange, then replan, until I get a final schedule. Then I make folders for tickets, maps, etc. I got married overseas and left directly for our honeymoon afterwards, so that trip even involved a huge binder full of daily schedules, maps, and tickets! :rotfl: As nuts as it was, that was the easiest most organized trip we had!

Question 2: I just started a new system of life planning that I think/hope will make this aspect of my life a bit easier. I ditched my monthly calendar and got a weekly calendar that has 4 big rows for each day. Each row is for something different -- events, meals, chores, miscellaneous. This gives me much more space to plan out my meals (even breakfast and lunches!) rather than trying to cram a dinner menu on a 2in x 2in square that's sharing everything else in my life as well. I have been planning out the weekly meals on Sunday and it's been working well (for the past 2 weeks since that's how long I've been doing this... we will see if it's sustainable Haha!)

I am also finding that spreading out housework throughout the week is keeping me better about my meals as weird as that is. I guess it's keeping my mind free of the clutter of organizing when I am going to do what. The time spent doing housework isn't all dedicated to the weekends, so I have time on the weekends to go through recipes, plan, shop, and prep my food for the week.
 

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