Saratoga Springs!

Today, Mark and I are checking in for one night at Disney's Saratoga Springs resort.  I had borrowed some points to book us into Bay Lake Towers for a Disney wedding in June.  Then I found out the reception was at the Boardwalk Resort, so I switched over there.  That left me some extra points which had to be used up by the summer or they'd be lost.  So we are treating ourselves to a night over there to use those points.

It's chilly this morning, but the afternoon will be 79.  Our plan is to check in around lunch time and lounge by the pool until around 5.  We have a dinner reservation at their sit-down restaurant called The Turf Club.  After dinner, we hope to take a walk over the new bridge to Downtown Disney, soon to be called Disney Springs. Tomorrow we will spend the day at the Animal Kingdom. It's going to be barely 70 tomorrow, which is great for walking around the park and viewing the animals.  We have SOJC choir tomorrow night, so we'll stay at Animal Kingdom until time to eat dinner and then head to the synagogue.

Should be a fun little two day get-away.

Of course, this brings its own challenges. I am eating breakfast as usual both here and in the studio room tomorrow morning.  We are packing our breakfast to take with us.  We are also packing today's lunch with us to eat around the pool.  That's good, but then there's dinner in a restaurant tonight plus lunch and dinner in restaurants tomorrow.  Never my strong point. 

Since this new year and the start of my "stay healthy" resolution, I have not eaten out in a restaurant.  Tonight will be the first attempt.  When I was losing weight before, of course I had to eat in restaurants many times that year.  There are several things I used to do to make that work for me.
First, we often chose specific restaurants that I knew would provide healthy options.  We chose Subway for lunch to get a salad and Denny's for diner for the Senior Tilapia dinner.  I rarely went to a fancy restaurant.  That's part of the problem here in Florida!  We frequently go to so many GREAT restaurants.  I now need to learn how to do that successfully.

Today my plan for these restaurant meals is to say NO to the bread basket first. Mark never eats it anyway, so when I let them put it on the table, I usually eat two rolls or even more.  And of course I put a pat of butter on each one.  That's a lot of calories right there that I could eliminate.  Second, no mixed cocktails.  They are full of sugar. If Mark is having straight whiskey on the rocks, I can join him in that.  One shot of whiskey is only 96 calories.  I could also choose a glass of wine, but not BOTH!  Finally, say no to dessert and appetizers.  Those are just useless calories. 

That's easy to write down, but it's hard for me to do.  I love having mixed drinks AND wine at dinner. I LOVE bread and butter.  I LOVE appetizers and dessert.  Who doesn't?  So that's my challenge for the next two days.  I need to take it one day at a time, one meal at a time.  I need to pat myself on the back and try to feel good about myself when I make the right choices and walk away from the restaurant knowing I made the best choices for my health.

My goal is just to stay healthy and take it one day at a time.  Yesterday I did extremely well.  I did everything I was supposed to do. I logged all my foods in (1309 calories) and did my weight routine and took a walk (161 calories burned).  Unfortunately, that resulted in a gain of half a pound.  UGH.  This is why I should NOT get on the scale every morning.  Still, I know why I gained a little. A half pound can just be water retention. I looked back at the foods and delved into the sodium contents.  I had a packaged soup for lunch, tuna in a can that was not the same low sodium kind as the previous days, and some tortilla chips with hummus (planned and counted, but still...), so the sodium levels were over 1,000 mg higher than the previous day.  Yes, that's it.  I should have known when I wasn't getting up every hour to pee over night.  LOL!

I do not plan to take my computer today, so there will be no blog tomorrow morning. I'll write one Thursday afternoon and probably post some pictures from the trip as well.   Thursday morning we have our monthly NARFE meeting in Plant City, and since we have to leave at 8:45 a.m. to get there, I will not be able to write a blog until we get home in the afternoon.  I promise I will write one then.