Category Archives: Disney World

Day 225: Reporting From Disney!

Posted on by

So I’m going to keep this brief because I’m really tired but here are the highlights of today and I promise tomorrow I will have an epic Wordless Wednesday with a video from Disney:

  • Had an awesome breakfast at Cracker Barrel
  • Had leftover mac n’ cheese for lunch
  • NSV: there is a heckuva lot of room on the rides now compared to even last time
  • According to our pedometer, we walked a total of 8 miles today
  • I ordered a child’s meal at a counter service (fast food Disney style) in Hollywood Studios which was sadly still a lot of food
  • I passed my stats class!!!
  • Megan and I shared this massive sundae that I ate on my own when I was in 7th grade.
  • Epoct tomorrow. Dare I say my favorite park. What’s yours? See ya tomorrow.

Day 204: Tuesday Times

Posted on by

Sup yo!

So I went to the doctor and I found out that I just have some weird cold virus that is going around the school. The doc just said just drink a lot of water and to get some sleep and that will take care of it. It’s good to know that I’ll survive, but in the process, I got Megan sick! So we are in a bit of a role reversal where I’m playing nurse now instead of her (that sounded a lot weirder than it was suppose to…) Anyways, the last time I went to the doctor, my blood pressure was really high like 150/80. The nurse was a complete jerk and gave me a lot of crap about being big… but that’s for another blog. Anyways.. again, today my blood pressure was 108/50 and this nurse was thrilled! She was like “what ever you are doing keep it up you are doing awesome!” Then I told here about my weight loss and she was even more impressed. Pretty awesome trip to the doctor. Anyways, good times.

Breakfast: I was in a rush to get to campus to get in for an appointment so I brought a Fudge Brownie Clif Bar for breakfast. The Fudge Brownie one tastes a lot like those no bake haystack cookies that mom used to make. Pretty good 4 points.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch: After being cooped up in the doctors office, I was pretty hungry for good lunch. I went to Pollo Tropical for some chicken and black beans and rice. It had been a while since I had the good ol’ 1/2 chicken combo so it was a good lunch. 13.5 points.

 

 

 

 

 

Snack: Before my marathon of classes, I needed some caffeine to get through. I had a skinny iced caramel macchiato and it was delicious. 3 points. (P.S. this might the weirdest face I’ve ever made on this blog.)

Snack: When I got home, I had matzos and cheese. 2 points

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: Since Megan wasn’t feeling well, she said that she wanted some Pizza Hut for comfort food. We had thin crust pepperoni, onions and tomatoes. It was delicious but, 16 points for four slices.

So I got up to 38.5 points. Ouch! I was going to work out today, but it did not happen. I am going tomorrow morning though and I am going to give the rowing machine a whirl. Should be a good one. See ya tomorrow.

Day 181: Weigh In Day!!!!!!

Posted on by

Why Hello!

It’s been way too long since I have posted and for that I’m sorry. I have gotten a lot of guff (yes, I said guff) from people about missing two posts in a row and for that I thank you. I really appreciate the support and accountability this community provides. It is a key contributor to my success so far and with the century pound mark in sight, your support is appreciated now more than ever. So thanks for calling me out Matt DC. I know you were just giving me a hard time, but it meant more than you know. So this morning I got in the scale with low expectations. We had to eat out the majority of last week due to the insanity of our schedule (somehow this week is going to be more insane. What what!) Anyways, for the few posts I did have, you saw the cheesey goodness that I consumed in mass proportions so I was just hoping to at least maintain (it would have been gained if I hadn’t worked out.) Well, my metabolism must be better than I think. I lost 2.2 pounds! Pretty awesome stuff!!! I am sooooo close to being in the 270’s now. I weigh 280.4 so super duper close. So with this week’s loss, I am 23.4 pounds away from 100 pounds. It’s getting there! Like I said this week is going to be bonkers, but we are going to be smarter with meals so 270’s: see ya soon!

Breakfast: So I made two packets of double fiber oatmeal but had it in the microwave too long. It always feels like when you make two packets, it either has the consistency of snot, or it blows up and gets all over the microwave. Well… the latter happened, and a large portion of my oatmeal was everywhere. (No, I did not eat the oatmeal shrapnel left in the microwave.) It was about 5 points worth of oatmeal. Yumtastic.

 

 

 

 

Lunch: After church, we needed to eat somewhere pretty fast so Megan could meet up with her friends for their study marathon. We ended up going to the Panera next to our house. Panera’s food is deceiving because you expect it to be healthy since it’s fresh but then it’s more points/calories than you hope. Regardless, it’s delicious so we still go there :). I had the half asain sesame chicken salad and half a Mediterranean veggie sandwich. It was really good and the salad was huge for just being half a salad. For the salad, the sandwich and the yummy baguette, it was 14 points. Not bad for how good it tastes.

 

 

Snack: While I was studying, I had 3 points of pretzels. That’s 30 pretzels. Holy cow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: So this was a little different. While Megan was studying with our friend Catherine, I was at my small group and they had gotten dinner. By the time I was done it was 9:00 so I was starving. Megan texted my with news of leftover Chinese so I headed over there. I had Megan’s left over orange chicken with rice and an egg roll. I was good at the time. It took me back to my favorite super cheap Chinese place in Abilene where you could get a mountain of food for about $4. While the savoring moment lasted for a while, I still have the sodium taste in my mouth as I’m writing this. Not good. So it was high in points, and I have no real way of figuring it out, but here is what I know: I’m not the same guy I used to be. A meal like this was what I ate at least 3 times a week and it didn’t phase me at all. Tonight, I tried to go back to my old self and it wasn’t near as good as I remember. That’s so encouraging to me. To me it means that it would take a lot to get back to where I was, and that’s how I want it.

Snack: We went to Publix to get some groceries including watermelon and Cinnamon Toast Eggos which I have never had. They were delicious and  2 points.

So today wasn’t the best, but I have learned from my mistakes and I plan to work hard this week to lose a good chunk of weight. It’s going to be an interesting week. Bring it on. See ya tomorrow.

 

 

FSU WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SWEET 16 BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 137: Friday Funerino!

Posted on by

It’s finally the end of the week. Pretty awesome. The weekend couldn’t have come any sooner too, today was just a comedy of errors. I’m not going to go in to the details or anything (nothing bad) but it was just a bizarre day. Alright, nummy nummy food time!

Breakfast: I had a heartier breakfast than I usually have because I finally bought some milk. I had a bowl of Kashi Berry Deliciousness for 5 points.

Snack: I’m not one to eat when I’m stressed, but today I made an exception. I bought some WW cheese pizza bagels bites so I microwaved a batch of those bad boys when I was working on something for my internship. They are 5 points for 4 which isn’t that bad and you feel like you’re eating junk food so it’s a win-win.

Lunch: A while back, we had bought some Morning Star Pizza burgers and they were awesome so I bought some because they are easy to cook and really really good. I cooked up 2 patties (because they are only 2 points!) and put them on some bagel thins (so you could say I had Pizza Bagels twice today. Guffaw.) With some chips it was a 9 points lunch.

Snack: Through out the day, I had 3 points of trail mix. I also had a 5.5 point wafflewich before a class meeting.

 

 

 

Exercise Squared: I broke out a really good sweat on the Wii Fit Plus earlier. You can do a custom work out to focus on different areas and you decided how long you want to go. I did a lot of different exercises for 30 minutes. I gained 5 exercise points.

Then after my meeting, I decided to go over to Leach to go for a run. I’m still really sore after Wednesday and I haven’t worked out since so it was good to get a good stretch out (and it helped me avoid doing homework) For the first time, I put the treadmill up to 6 miles per hour. Pretty awesome. Anyways, it was a pretty good run and it was 7 exercise points.

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: I decided to be adventurous and make some breakfast burritos FOR DINNER (and that’s why my middle name is Danger.) I cooked some egg whites and warmed up what was left of the black beans a rice. I didn’t have a clue how it was going to turn out but it wasn’t that bad! For 2 burritos it was an 11 point dinner. Pretty good stuff.

So overall today I got to 38.5 points (yikes) but I did work out twice and I haven’t used any weekly points this week so I’m good. See ya tomorrow.

Day 119: Weekend Recap and New Goals Edition

Posted on by

I’m back. What a great weekend. It was awesome to get a way for a few days before life gets really interesting. My advice to you: Hotwire is the best thing in the world. We stayed in a condo bigger than our house for really cheap. So worth it. Anyways, we walked easily more than 10 miles all around Disney this weekend (in some cases, jogging/swimming through the torrential downpour today) and we ate pretty sensibly. We packed lunches, ate a lot of trail mix and carrots, and drank a lot of water. We did eat out a few times, but we shared entrees most of the time which cut down the calories and the cost. Overall, a pretty awesome weekend.

Short Term Goal: as you may recall from Thursday, I broke my 300 pound goal (hooray!) so this weekend I thought a lot about what my new goal is going to be and I think I’ve figured it out. On March 5th, we are planning on doing the ESPN The Weekend 5k at Disney (we still haven’t registered, but we are going to soon) and by then I want to be down another 20 pounds, so 279. It’s only 47 days away, but I’m hoping to blow it out of the water. It would be pretty awesome because I haven’t weighed that much since… middle school? I think setting up these mini goals really helps you keep your eyes on the prize. When I think of how much weight I need to lose it’s really overwhelming and frankly terrifying, but when it’s chopped up like this it makes it a lot more manageable. So that’s my short term goal.

Longer Term Goal: When I was a senior in high school, my computer teacher Mrs. Merritt wanted us to write down some goals at the beginning of the year and put them in an envelope. Mine was to lose 100 pounds. I had my mind set on it that this was going to happen, but then I started to tell people and they were like “are you kidding?” “That’s a ton of weight!” (actually, it’s way less than a ton stupid) and “Well… good luck with that.” So I just gave up on it really soon. Really, it wasn’t anyone’s fault but mine. I would exercise, but at that point I was eating 2 double cheeseburgers a day from McDonald’s so it wasn’t going to happen. Anyways, I had my mind set on losing weight, but I didn’t have my heart set on it too. Weight loss doesn’t work unless you give it your all where it becomes a part of your identity. It has to be top of mind all the time because that is when you’ll make the smarter decisions. It’s easy to mindlessly eat chips but if you know it’s the wrong thing, you’re able to eat only a serving. So I say that to say this. This time, my heart and mind are all in it for the weight loss win. [Takes deep breathe… not the computer, me] I’m going to try to lose a total of 100 pounds by April 27, 100 days from tomorrow. I have 100 days to lose 43 pounds and I’m going to do it the healthy way. I’ll still eat all my calories and I’m going to keep exercising. The way I look at it, if I don’t make it but I’ve still given it my all, then I’ll still win. So here’s what I need from you, dear reader. KEEP UP THE AWESOME WORK! You guys are so awesome!!! I feed off of your energy and support. Want a workout partner? Call me up! Want to go running? Call me up! You need a partner for a pie eating contest? Call someone else. But seriously, you guys rock and I thank you all for being so supportive. I really couldn’t have done it with out you.

Alright, so that’s that. March 5th and April 27th: prepare to be dominated. See ya tomorrow.

So… About This Weekend

Posted on by

Nathan MacDonald.

You are below 300 pounds for the first time since you were 13 years old.

You have lost almost 60 pounds in 4 months.

And you have a hot wife.

What are you going to do next?

 

I’M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

(Actually, this was planned a while back.)

 

Since it’s a 3 day weekend, we are going down to Orlando and hitting up Disney. Should be a blast!!!!

Anyways, not sure of the internet situation at our hotel, but I’ll try to keep you posted. If I don’t talk to you again, have a great weekend! See ya then.

Day 115: Birthday Edition!!!!!!

Posted on by

[As I’m writing this it’s 12:04 on  the East Coast so it’s still my birthday in the majority of the country!]

So… I know why you’re reading. You want to know if I did it. WELL I TOTALLY DID!!!!!!! I worked hard this week and it showed. I woke up this morning tired and then I got on the scale and after that my day was great! I still have a looooooong road to hoe, but everyday I’m getting in the right direction. For that I have you, dear reader, to thank. Thank you for all of your love and support.

Breakfast: I just had a bowl of cereal and milk 4 points.

 

 

 

Lunch: So after a crazy escapade of trying to find a parking spot that involved me actually driving back home to catch a bus back up to campus, I met up with Adam and some of the AFC folks for lunch on campus. I went with some Pollo Tropical and it was so good. They have some of the best rice and black beans I have ever had. This is the best kind of fast food in my opinion. I didn’t eat the roll so it the plate was 11 points.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh yeah, I was walking by this fountain on campus and it was partially frozen over. It was really cool so I thought I would show it off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: I had a free bowl at Genghis Grill since it was my birthday so I went out with a few friends. It was a blast. I might have went a little overboard but it was so good. I did a surf and turf with marinated steak, imitation crab, scallops, and chicken along with a bunch of veggies and brown rice.

 

 

 

 

So we aren’t going to be able to be able to weigh in on Sunday so we both weighed in this morning. In this short week, Megan and I dominated! I lost 3.6 pounds and Megan, who had been struggling with a plateau, lost 4 pounds!!! It’s been a pretty awesome short week. Thanks again for all the support and birthday wishes! See ya tomorrow.

 

 

 

Day 110: The Tale of Two Exercises

Posted on by

It’s been a pretty tiring day, but the lack of homework makes it okay. (The lack of homework actually means the lack of doing any.)

Breakfast: I was going to play basketball at noon so I bulked up with some peanut butter and waffles. It’s such a great breakfast before any kind of exercise. Hooray for 8 points.

Exercise: Basketball was great. It was a heckuva lot better than the last time we played when it was 20 degrees outside. We played 4 on 4 half court and I made a few decent shots. Overall, basketball is a lot easier than it use to be (a lot less wheezing and begging for death.) That was 13 exercise points.

Lunch: After bball, my friend Kyle wanted me to try his favorite salad at Chick-Fil-A really bad so we picked up Megan and went over there (I’ve never seen a guy so ecstatic about a salad.) We all had the Chicken Tender Salad and I went with Fat Free Honey Mustard. The salad definitely lived up to the hype. It was 15 points so a little high but really filling.

Exercise Round 2: Megan really wanted to go for a run but I was pretty tired. I went anyways :). We decided to start up Couch to 5K since there is a 5K at Disney during ESPN The Weekend that’s 8 weeks away that I really want to do. The first workout wasn’t too bad (and would have been a piece of cake if I hadn’t had played basketball earlier in the day.) I’m really excited to see how it affects my time. We’ll see how it goes. Anyways, I went 2.2 miles and burned 4 exercise points.

 

Dinner: We had chili and watched the Seahawks defy the odds and whip up on the Saints. It was fantastic and 8 points. A lot of food for not a lot of points.

So I had another good food day in my effort to finally get down below 300. (I’m so close!!!!) Anyways, I got to 31 points and with the exercise points I was well under. Other than my snafu on Thursday, it’s been a pretty good week. I’ll definitely have to keep it up! Before I go, I just want to give a shout out to my Parents and my Sister who tore up their 5k today! My parents shaved off more than 10 minutes on their times from the Turkey Trot and my Dad even won a prize for his age category! I’m so proud of y’all!!!!

Weigh in on Sunday. Bring it. See ya tomorrow

Day 45 \Halloween Edition//

Posted on by

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

I hope everyone is having a great Halloween (hopefully not eating too much candy ;-)) We finally made it back to Tallahassee after an awesome weekend of Disney adventure. This morning we went to Animal Kingdom, rode Expedition Everest 3 times, and then window shopped at Downtown Disney.

 

 

According to the pedometer, we walked 4.3 miles which which leads me to believe that our estimation yesterday might have been a little under because we didn’t walk near as much today and Animal Kingdom is a lot smaller than Magic Kingdom or Epcot. I’m not really sure how to calculated that in to exercise points, but I bet it was pretty good.

 

 

 

 

Breakfast: I just made a turkey sandwich which was 4 points. Nothing too exciting, but by then I was started to get sick of breakfast bars.

 

 

Lunch/Snack: After going to the Animal Kingdom bird show and seeing three different kinds of owls (including a great horned owl that flew 6 inches over my head, I love owls by the way) we found a shaded area and ate our sack lunches. I had another 4 point sandwich, a bag of carrots (freebies) and for a snack a little later I had 3 points worth of almonds. When we left the park I had a Kashi 2 point cereal bar which are good but not super filling.

 

 

 

Dinner: I never know what to say when I have been bad points wise but the meal was so delicious that I don’t really care. Is that bad? Anyways, since man cannot live by bread, turkey and mustard alone, we stopped in Gainesville (enemy territory) and somehow found a Chipotle, the best burrito place on earth. We wanted to do something healthy so of course we did the exact opposite. I had the burrito bowl (bowl with no tortilla) with: chicken, lime cilantro rice, black beans, roasted corn salsa, sour cream (dumb choice), and cheese, then Megan and I split chips and guacamole. The thing is, without the cheese and sour cream, it would be a pretty healthy bowl, but the two really bad things is what ties it together. It was fantastic, but I caught myself going into shoveling mode which I haven’t done in a long time and is what has gotten me in to this mess. Luckily I caught myself and slowed my chewing down a bit. So anyways the burrito bowl was 17 points, half of the chips was 6 points and half of the container of guac was somehow 1 point. Like I said earlier, I feel bad about it, but I feel don’t feel guilty about it if that makes any sense. I’m not going to let myself get down about it because that can be dangerous and can lead in to more gorging so I’ll just stay good the rest of the week.

Today, I totaled out at 36 points which is 3 points over but I still know better than to eat 24 points in one meal. Awe well, c’est la vie right? Like I said yesterday, no weigh in today so we will tomorrow. I was naughty and weighed on Thursday and I’m hoping that number hasn’t gone up. I guess we will find out soon enough. See ya tomorrow.

Day 44 Disney Edition

Posted on by

When you wish upon a star…

I’m pooped. Really pooped. Today, we had a blast walking (a lot) around Magic Kingdom and Epcot. So here’s the deal, I somehow left the pedometer in my hotel room (I have no freakin’ clue how) but I did some research online and looking at the distances around the parks (yes… someone has actually posted them) and it’s safe to say that we walked at least 10 miles. Pretty nuts. Tomorrow we are going to Animal Kingdom in the morning so I will definitely bring the pedometer (it’s right next to my phone and wallet so I won’t forget it!) Also, one more housekeeping item. The weigh in will be on Monday not tomorrow. We don’t have a scale here and since we weigh the first thing in the morning, we will just do it then. Now, on to business.

Breakfast: I just had an apple (2 points) and 2 servings of almonds (2 points.) Like I’ve said before, that is such an awesome combo and it really gets you going in the morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch: Like I was saying last night, this trip is all about saving money and saving calories (well it was, but more on that later.) We packed ham sandwiches, oranges, carrots and kashi bars. It was hard to eat a squished sandwich with the dare I say sexy aroma of turkey legs wafting through Frontierland, but I got through it. The sandwich was 4 points, the orange was 1 point, the carrots were freebies and so was the gallons of water I drank. As my facebook status stated last night, Orlando water is terrible so we brought some purified from home (so smart) and keeping hydrated at Disney is half the battle. Oh yeah, and later for a snack, I had a 3 point Kashi bar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epcot Food & Wine Festival (sans the wine): So the Epcot World Showcase was packed for it’s International Food and Wine Festival (which we didn’t know about but was a pleasant surprised.) There were different food pavilions throughout the park so we each picked a dish to try.  Megan decided to get a roasted corn and cheese empanada from the Argentina pavilion. It was really good! I got the perogie and keibasa with caramelized onions from the Poland pavilion. It was over priced and the portion was too small to split but it was also really good. Points wise, haven’t a clue. I was proud of myself though because the Canadian pavilion had Nanaimo bars which are so amazing but sooooo bad for you (main ingredient: butter icing.) After much temptation, I stood my ground (it helped that the line was too long at that point lol) and absolved from the desserts there.

 

Dinner: This evening, we hit up our favorite counter service (Disney term for a fast food stop) Tangerine Cafe. I had the lamb and chicken plate with hummus, tabouli, a cold cous cous salad and a piece of crispy bread. It was so good after walking around all over God’s green goodness. (Oh yeah, and like 4 glasses of ice water. Hooray for hydration!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dessert: After walking around Disney, we thought we should go walk around some more at the Super Target by our hotel. Luckily, there was a Starbucks inside the Target so I got the standard Iced Grande Chai Tea Latte (4 points.) (While we were in the Starbucks area, someone stole our cart that had stuff we were going to buy! Lame.) After the caffeine kicked in, we re-got all the stuff that we had already gotten. Then later, someone else took our cart again!!! What the crap! Stupid tourists. So we had to go get everything AGAIN! AHHH!!!! Anywho, one of the things we got was a two pack of the WW ice cream cups. The Peanut Butter awesomeness was 3 points. They had some other ones that were 2 points also. We were both really impressed with it so I think we will get them again.

 

 

So today was a little nuts not really knowing how many points the Epcot food was (I looked for third party posts but surprising no one has any. All of them say if you drink a lot of water, stay away from the sweets and walk the whole time you will be fine) but the points that were countable was 19 points. Between walking everywhere and my the 18 flex points that I had left for the week (they will reset tomorrow,) I’m not too worried. I realize that’s a slippery slope to just think it’s fine but sometimes it’s an unfortunate necessity. Disney should have that information available, but I’ve already ranted about that.

Oh yeah! So we stopped at the hotel office so Megan could run in and get directions while I was chilling in the car. I’m sitting in the car minding my own business and this lady who was not Megan opened the door and tried to get in the car. I was like “Hello? Can I help you?” She looks at me with a terrified look she go “BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” Then she slammed the door. I laughed so hard that Megan said she could hear me outside the car (as I’m typing this, I’m still laughing out loud about it.) See ya tomorrow.