Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Hooray for The Disney Diet!!!

         We have now officially lived in Kissimmee one month.  I love living here so far.  One of the best things so far is the Disney Diet I unwittingly found myself following LOL Since there is always a good reason (or no reason) to go to one of the Disney parks, it has been easy to stay active.  Staying active has made it to where a lot of days I only have time for one good meal.  Like I said we have been here only one month, yet I am already down around 12 pounds. That is so awesome and I love it.  I wear a Fitbit that keeps track of my steps daily.  If a person walked fully around Epcot it would be 2.78 miles.  Around the Magic Kingdom is 2.17 miles.  Strolling around Hollywood Studios clocks in at 1.39 miles.  Exploring Animal Kingdom adds up to 2.27 miles. Finally shopping Disney Springs will accumulate 1.83 miles.  That is straight up, purposeful walking.  It doesn’t account for the meandering that also happens back and forth LOL.  I’ve never gotten out of a park with less than 5 miles counted on my Fitbit.   Since moving here it has counted for me 158,125 steps which per Fitbit equals 67.13 miles. So, I thought I would share just a bit of Disney diet encouragement to any who might like it.  When we go to Disney it is not for the purpose of getting a workout, it is just a bonus.
           We still snack, but instead of Mickey Bars we get a Dole Whip which has less than 100 calories per serving, and is fat free. When we are thirsty instead of grabbing a soda or latte, we get free ice water from the restaurants.  When it is time to eat instead of a regular adult entrĂ©e, we chose a kid’s meal. A lot of times it has enough food to fill you up, plus comes with a free drink and these snack packs of apples, grapes, or carrot sticks. Each meal scores you two snack packs. We just throw those in my little cinch sack and off we go.  When we are standing in a que, and need a pick me up, one of those snack packs is great.  All around the park there are healthy options to choose from.
            Our newest favorite is pickles and the popcorn buckets.  My new goal is to find all the collectible ones. Being in my 40’s it has seemed almost impossible to lose weight, but the Disney Diet seemingly has changed all that LOL.  I am excited to see the miles and steps add up on my tracker, and the pounds and inches fall off this year.

Monday, January 2, 2017

Strangest Chocolate Cake Ever LOL

Megan's Cake (Yummy looking huh?)
          So my friend keeps posting pictures of this chocolate cake she makes for all birthdays, special occasions, and days that end in "Y" LOL  needless to say I have been teased with images of this yummy looking cake a lot.  Finally I had enough, I begged for the recipe, and she gave it to me.  I was so excited.  I was finally going to make me this scrumptious looking chocolate cake.  I grabbed my daughter and off to the store, bubbling to her how I was going to bake her the most amazing chocolate cake ever.  What did I get in return??? "Mom I don't like chocolate, can we make vanilla instead?" now just imagine me banging my head repeatedly against steering wheel and you know what I looked like at that point LOL  it was either make that amazing chocolate cake and eat it all by myself (tempting) or just figure out how to tweak the recipe and turn it into a vanilla cake.  So that is what we did LOL  The base for the cake is really a chocolate cake mix with chocolate pudding mixed in. This new one was made with vanilla selections.
Staci & my Tropical Vanilla Cake
 The cake also called for veggie oil, well I am trying to do things a bit healthier so I substituted coconut oil. The recipe wanted sour cream so what did I use? Mango greek yogurt LOL For moisture it called for plain water, so of course that meant pineapple flavored coconut water. My decadent chocolate cake had morphed into a tropical vanilla cake. I still baked it in a bundt pan, and then made real buttercream frosting. OMG that stuff is too sweet. Since I was making it up at this point I swapped out vanilla extract for orange extract in keeping with the tropical flair LOL. Now my cake was my first attempt at doing things the homemade way, so it is far from perfect looking, but the important thing is: MY STACI DECLARED IT TASTED AWESOME!!! So I am happy.  I guess one of these days I will run a marathon and be able to make and eat the chocolate cake all by myself.  Until then it is doing things Staci's way, which ended up being a lot of fun.  If my friend ever posts her recipe I will update this post and link to hers. Hear that Megan???? I need a blog post with recipe now LOL