Marathon Mom

We had a great day at Disneyland yesterday, right up until Sean got sick and we had to leave early (around 8pm). He was upset because he didn’t end up getting to go his very favorite ride Autopia. But he kept having to run to the bathroom every 10 minutes and there was just no way he could go on it with that… uh… issue. So we left. We did have a very full day and he had a great time other than the major stomach and bathroom problems at the end. I’m pretty sure it’s something he ate, but I’m having a hard time pinpointing what that could have been. All his food was specially prepared. I’m questioning the gluten free brownies that the Chef from Goofy’s Kitchen gave us. I’m wondering if they had some dairy in them. I had told the chef that Sean is sensitive to dairy but not truly allergic to it, so he can have it in small doses. However, I never give him dairy. And the… uh… problem he had last night could very easily have been because of dairy. So, I’m going back to being more strict with NO-DAIRY!

As for me, I went to bed a tiny bit hungry! I totally did not over eat! Yay! No churros, ice cream or snacks of any kind. And I kept it to one plate at the breakfast buffet. That is what we call VICTORY, my friends! Can you smell it? That’s success! Oh yeah, it smells great!!

Today, we are lounging around the hotel room this morning. Sean is feeling MUCH better. We were going to go swimming before we checked out, but it’s a little cold and overcast. Not really swimmy weather. Sean’s bummed about that too, but we are going to head to Downtown Disney after check-out. Do a little shopping, have a little lunch. And then hit the road home. We’ll get in sometime tonite. And tomorrow, it’s back to reality. Yuck. And weigh-in. Double yuck. I’m totally starting some kind of serious program tomorrow. I’ve got to get it back together.

Happy Wednesday y’all!!

UPDATE 9:30PM

Home, Sweet Home. In a precisely 7 hour drive I consumed: a bag of Chocolate Turtle Chex Mix (this is brilliant, by the way. BRILLIANT. I want to bath in it!), a bag of spicy Cheez-its (not as good as they sound), a bag of pepperoni pizza Combos (God AWFUL - still ate the whole bag, sadly sadly sadly) and a bag of Bold ‘n Spicy Chex Mix (an old driving for 7 hours stand-by.) Oh, and approximately a gallon of Diet Coke (not even exaggerating there!) Oh how I can not even wait for that weigh-in tomorrow morning. I wonder how high my scale goes… I have a feeling I’ll be finding out!

Just wanted to add in here that we had lunch in Downtown Disney at the Rainforest Cafe. I called ahead and spoke with the Chef about their menu and what (if any) gluten-dairy-peanut-free items they might have. She spoke with me for about 20 minutes and then said that when we got there to ask for her. When we arrived and gave the hostess my name, she already had a note expecting us. By the time we got to the check in hostess on the second floor (if you’ve been to the Rainforest Cafe, you know what I’m talking about) Chef Maha was standing there waiting for us! She escorted us to our table, spoke at length with Sean about what he would like, and then not only personally cooked his meal, but mine as well! About a minute after our server delivered our food, Chef Maha was back at our table making sure that everythine was satisfactory. And then she personally checked on us TWICE afterwards, just to see if we needed anything else! I am way beyond impressed. Royalty isn’t this well waited upon! I don’t think I can eat anywhere ever again. Ever!

And so I am once again back at Disneyland! Third time this month. That’s gotta be some kind of record for a non-local! Especially since I also don’t have a season pass (though I do have free tickets this time and they had an expiration that was coming up right quick.)

This trip is just me and Sean. We are taking things slower and I’m trying to have a more stress free visit. We drove down yesterday and got in around 5:30pm. We had dinner reservations at Goofy’s Kitchen last night. I’ll go into that in more detail on my regular blog when we get back, mostly focusing on the dining with food allergies experience (it was awesome!) Here I’ll just put that I ate TOO MUCH. I still feel sick and bloated and gross… and we have breakfast reservations at the Plaza Inn in less than two hours. UGH! But both places really cater to those with food allergies, and so that’s where it’s easier to eat.

However, both places are BUFFETS. EXPENSIVE BUFFETS. And I am cheap. And poor. And $31.99 just for ME (not including tax and tip) was more than I spend on food for myself for a week. So, I felt the need to EAT $31.99 (plus tax and tip) worth. Even though I was stuffed. And more stuffed. And then I had a couple of bites of dessert. Cause HELLO, I ate two plates of food, I HAD to have some dessert. I sort of squished in a few bites of a brownie and two bites of this lemon square thingy. I left most of both of the plate. Not because I wanted to, but because I literally could not squish another bite down. And I tried, trust me. Cause I think I only ate about $17.82 worth. I just wasn’t that hungry. ARGH!!!

And now we are going to go thru this all over again. I don’t think the Plaza breakfast is quite as expensive, more around $25. And there are waffles in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head, which we all know makes them taste better!! (oh, btw - those Mickey Mouse waffles… they’re gluten-free! yep, the same waffles that EVERYONE eats are gluten-free!! This is NOT ACCURATE! The info I was given my last visit was incorrect!! The regular Mickey Mouse waffles are NOT gluten-free!!! NOT GLUTEN FREE!! I’d hate to think that anyone allergic to gluten had read this and then eaten them thinking they were safe. They are not. The chef will make some special upon request! You’d NEVER know it. NEVER!! I love Disneyland! LOVE THEM!!)

So, my goal with the Plaza Inn breakfast buffet extraordinaire is this: only eat what I absolutely LOVE. If I take a bite and it’s not uber-delish, then I’m not eating the rest of it just cause I took it. I know it’s wasteful and that goes against every fiber of my being. But right now, I’m amassing a LOT more being-fibers and I can’t keep eating just out of guilt. So, I’m saying TO HELL WITH IT! And I’m going to be wasteful! So take that, MOM!!!

BTW - Sean has been awake since 5:30!! OMG. I am exhausted and we haven’t even started today yet! Park opens at 9, but we head over at 8 since we have early entry because of the breakfast reservations. I feel so special!! It’s open til 10pm. I don’t think we’ll make it til close this go around. Sean wears out easily. I’m bringing his inhaler and epi-pen. His nebulizer is staying in the hotel room. Any exertion is really triggering his asthma these days. I’m just hoping we have an incident-free day!

A.M. weigh-in: 157.4

Took the kids to see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (click HERE for link to my movie review blog. It was really good and the kids LOVED it!!) Ate half a large bag of kettle corn and half a small bag of Skittles. I’ve done seriously worse at the movies, so I’m almost counting that as a victory. Screwy, huh?! I’ll take my victories where I can find ‘em at this point!!

Today I’ve had:

Breakfast - large bowl of sugar-free oatmeal
Lunch - spicy tuna roll sushi
Snack - way too many pita chips with hummus (that’s still healthy, right? it’s not just a fancy version of chips and dip???!!!)
Dinner - uh… haven’t gotten that far yet!

I’m working right now, but out of here in a little over an hour. Tomorrow I’m taking my two little ones and meeting a friend in the City (that’s San Fransico to my non-local readers.) She’s in visiting with her family from Salt Lake and I haven’t seen her in ages! Her two boys are right about the same ages as Sean and Skye, so it should be fun… and by fun I mean interesting!! I’m taking the ferry over from Larkspur so I don’t have to deal with parking (so totally NOT fun in SF, especially down by Fisherman’s Wharf, where we’ll be hanging out, of course!) I think we’re going to spend the day at the Aquarium of the Bay on Pier 39. I’ve never been to that particular aquarium and it looks AWESOME!!

The biggest problem with spending the day in SF is the FOOD!! OMG the food down on the Pier is to die for! Big sourdough bread bowls filled with clam chowder. Preztel dogs and salt water taffy and a whole store of just CHOCOLATE (Ghirardelli Square is just up the hill.) At least we’ll be doing a good bit of walking!!

Then Monday, Sean and I head for Anaheim. Yep, it’s another trip to Disneyland. It’s a lot trickier with Sean because of all his food allergies (gluten, casein and peanuts.) However, Disney is THE PLACE to go with a special needs kid!! We have Monday night’s dinner booked at Goofy’s Kitchen in the Disneyland Hotel. Tuesday morning we’ll be dining with Minnie and Friends at the Plaza Inn on Main Street inside Disneyland. Both of these restaurants are fairly expensive, but having my child eat a “safe” meal customized just for him and served by the chef, well you can’t put a price-tag on that!! It’s going to be another magical trip!!

A.M. Weigh-in: 159.8

I am dangerously close to crossing over into the 160s ON MY HOME SCALE! Which means, Dear Lord what would last night’s WW weigh-in weight have been?? Of course, part of why I couldn’t be there is what attributed to this number - I was at Disneyland. Again. I’m just posting a brief check in and I’ll update with some pics later. I’m way behind on work. But I am BACK ON TRACK as of this morning. Oh yeah. Plus my aunt asked me if I’d be willing to go on a singles cruise with her, which I totally would. So there’s some extra motivation. Back to work. More later!

QUICKIE UPDATE 5:01 PM

Working later than usual tonite trying to get caught up. I’m heading straight over to the gym after work. Food today:

Breakfast: diet coke, packet of Spongebob fruit snacks (Skye was generous enough to share on the way to preschool!)

Lunch: Healthy Choice Chicken Margherita Cafe Steamer Bowl
Snack: Slim-a-bear ice cream bar
Dinner: Jack In the Box Southwest Grilled Chicken Salad with 1/2 the dressing

Total WW points: 18 (my daily total is 20, so I’m calling it a day!)

Still so much to do to get caught up on things. Still need to up-load pics. Workin’ on it!! Later, chickies!

PICS FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE

A.M. weigh-in: 157.4

Had a great day with my mom and sis yesterday. And then last evening with the kids. I blogged about it with pictures HERE. If you want to skip straight to my review of Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, click HERE.

Today is my day to get things finished up at work. Tomorrow I have the knee MRI follow-up appointment and will FINALLY get to find out what the plan is from here on out. I’m anxious to get that over and done with. It’s seriously cramping my style!

Tomorrow afternoon, we leave for Anaheim. My mom and I talked my sister into coming with! We are so excited - we’ll be driving to Roseville to pick her up on our way down. When we’re at Disneyland on Wednesday, one of my childhood best friends who now lives in Temecula will be coming up to meet us in the afternoon. It’s going to be one very busy day. Then we’re driving back that night after Disney closes at 8pm. Talk about a whirlwind trip - we’ll be gone about 36 hours. Yikes! I think I’m too old to do this! At least we’ll have plenty of drivers to take shifts. It’s only about 7 hours away, not horrible.

Tom Hanks is on Good Morning America right now. Watching him sitting in the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile singing “Oh I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner” - that just totally made my day!!

I’m determined not to eat my way through SoCal again! It won’t help that my mom and sis will TOTALLY eat their way through SoCal - its all they talked about yesterday at lunch! Cream cheese filled pretzels and churros were mentioned repeatedly. I better bring my sweat pants so I’ll have something I can fit into on the way home!

UPDATE 7:49 PM

The worst thing I did today was eat three Slim-a-bear 100 calorie ice cream bars. Not in a row. Like one at 11, a second at 2 and then a third one at 4:30. Still, 300 calories for ice cream bars in a day - not the worst thing I’ve ever done. Heck, not even the worst thing I’ve done this weekend, not by far! I had a Healthy Choice bowl - a cajun style thing with chicken and shrimp. And then for dinner a Lean Cuisine panini. A banana and 1 packet of sugar-free Quaker oatmeal. That’s a damn good day… now if I can just keep from noshing any more today. Tomorrow I am so looking forward to… and dreading. I just know I’m going to eat and eat and eat… especially since knowing my mom, we’re going to hit at LEAST 3 In-n-Out Burgers on this trip!! Animal style fries… ooooooohhhh, my mouth’s watering just THINKING about them! And they are the worst - like 1000s of calories. THOUSANDS! Heaven help me!

Or is it that I should be committed?!

A.M. weigh-in: 155.4

It’s amazing that I actually lost weight considering the amount of BBQ chicken pizza I consumed yesterday.

TOM showed up this morning, and I can already feel the return of my (relative) sanity. My hormones make me CRAZY - this is so not right!!

I’m bound and determined to start blogging everything I eat: the good, the bad, and the churros!!

I pulled a muscle in my shoulder at Disneyland - is that a sign of old age, or what?! Between that and my knee, the gym is out right now. I have my knee MRI follow-up appointment next Tuesday, hopefully I’ll get green-lighted for surgery in the next month and this will all be a distant memory!

Weight Watchers tonite. I’m taking a pass on the weigh-in. It’s up, way up - but it’s not accurate due to bloating, etc… and I don’t want to get all bummed out. So I’m going to the meeting, but it’ll be another 2 weeks til I weigh in again (I’ll be at Disneyland next Wednesday for Skye’s 5th birthday!) Things will be settled back into a more normal range by then. I’ll take that one when it comes. At least I’m not bailing on the meeting completely.

Breakfast: banana, 1 packet lower sugar oatmeal
Snack: 1/2 c hummus and 2 c. snap pea pods, handful movie-theater type popcorn
Lunch: Smart Ones fajita chicken pizza (awesome! Very flavorful!!)

I’m going to see Ghosts of Girlfriends Past tonite. I love Jennifer Garner (and Matt ain’t too hard to look at either!) I am determined not to have a snackfest at the theater!! NO NO NO!! But if I do, I WILL blog it. Maybe I’ll shame myself into some type of self-control if nothing else!

UPDATE 2:40PM

Snack: WW peanut butter bliss bar

I’m totally out of Diet Coke and need to make a run… am seriously considering going thru McD drive thru for Diet Coke and an ice cream cone. Soft serve is mostly air, right??!!

UPDATE 4:49PM

Snack: McD ice cream cone - totally eaten and very satisfying.

I’m looking at it like this: it was one of those cravings that I would have stewed about all day and ended up eating a box of Junior Mints and probably some nachos at the movies cause I didn’t get the ice cream cone earlier. Craving is appeased and I’m getting work done instead of sitting here still obsessing about it.

Dinner: Eating Right Butternut Squash Ravioli frozen entree

Food SHOULD be done for the day. Really. I don’t need to eat any more. I will be strong at the movies. Matthew McConaughey is yummy enough!

UPDATE 9:47PM

I decided that I was being a total chicken-shit and weighed in at Weight Watchers tonite. At first, I really wished I hadn’t since I hit a new all-time high of 160.2!! But now, I’m really glad I did cause it has fired me up. I’m sitting here right now wanting to go graze in the kitchen even though I’m not at all hungry, just tired and a little restless. And then I see that number in big glowing red numbers in my head and I just down that grazing instinct real quick. I’m going to hold on to this for a while. Maybe this was finally the kick in the ass I really needed!!

A.M. weigh in: 156.4 - I will heretofore be referred to as the girl that ate Disneyland!!

I am totally exhausted and trying to get caught up on work. The parents aka store owners are on vacation and so I’m in charge of the place right now too. I don’t allow slacking so I guess I better get to work before I bust myself! In the meantime, here are some pics from the trip - Tad’s 13th Birthday at Disneyland.

The Tad-man aka official teenager

Iron Chef Cat Cora!!!

I was supposed to resist this - not bloody likely!!

Waiting our turn in the Tower of Terror!!

In California Adventures, where we spent most of the day!

I can not figure out how to get the pictures and tags to line up right. How frustrating. I now hate my new layout!!! This looks stupid!

UPDATE 5:00 PM

I’m skipping Tae Kwon Do tonite and taking the older boys to see X-men Origins: Wolverine instead. This makes me a good mom but a lousy student, so I’ll call it even. I am bound and determined to only have a Diet Coke at the movies. No snackage. I’ve done enough of that all weekend. Yikes. I ate so much crap just on the drive to LA, that I actually threw up that night at the hotel. How sad is that? Here I am, nearly 40 years old and I still eat junk food until I puke. No moderation or self-control whatsoever. Even my 13 year old knew when to stop, but not me. You’d think I’d learn from this, and I supposed I did sort of. I didn’t end up vomiting Saturday night. I paced myself a bit better all day at Disney, but man I ate a LOT! My body weight alone in churros!!

And I pose to you all this question: why does food in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head taste better than regular shaped food? Cause it totally does!

A.M. weigh-in: 151.4 (I really never thought I’d be HAPPY to see that number, but I totally am!! I was becoming convinced that I was never going to get below 153 again!)

Last night, Sean and I had our first Tae-Kwon-Do class. It was a private orientation so it’s the only time we’ll be in the same class. From here on out, we’ll be in our age appropriate classes.

I’m totally psyched. I’ve always wanted to learn a martial art. I love the discipline of it. And I think the self-defense aspect will be a definte plus. Sean’s teacher recommended it for him. She thought it would be good for him to get involved in a sport, but we worried that a coordinated team sport like soccer or football would be too confusing for him. T-ball was something else she mentioned and I considered. But then she said martial arts and that set of a few bells for me. Totally perfect for Sean, cause it’s working as a team with a group, but it’s still a solo type activity. And it requires discipline and focus and has very set rules. All things he needs to work on and master (as do all of us, of course!) So this seems like a perfect fit for him. And since I’m also learning, I’ll be able to help him as needed. Just win-win all around!

So, I didn’t go to the gym yesterday. I was late in to work because Sean got an award at school yesterday (trustworthiness) and of course, I attended the awards ceremony. That’s the whole reason they even give out awards like this, to help with self-esteem and all that stuff. Sean was VERY proud and just thrilled that I came. So mission accomplished!

Then I had to leave early for the Tae-Kwon-Do class. So I couldn’t squeeze out the extra gym time. But since we did 30 minutes of TKD that involved punching and kicking, I’m totally counting that as my workout time! I’ll be back in that gym today, for definite! The scale is finally starting to inch it’s way down and I’m feeling good and STRONG!!

Besides, next Saturday I’ll be at Disneyland with Tad, celebrating his 13th birthday! He’s my rollercoaster guy, so we’ll be hitting all the good ones like Indiana Jones and The Tower of Terror!! It’s going to be AWESOME!! And I’ll totally be eating not-healthy food, like Churros and ice cream with mouse ears, so I’m keeping that in mind and zeroing in on eating super healthy for the next week. I had sushi for breakfast, I’ve already got my grilled chicken salad for lunch and a big bag of red grapes for snackin’!! Healthy Healthy Healthy!! Also, having sushi for breakfast seems like such an indulgence, but really, it’s a smart healthy choice. I should do it every day! I’ve always been one to eat non-traditional food for brekkie anyway, so it fits my personality and lifestyle like a GLOVE!!

UPDATE 12:35 PM

Just got back from an hour at the gym. 30 minutes on the treadmill and 30 minutes of upper-body strength training. Gosh, I feel really good right now!