While planning and prepping for any trip to the Walt Disney World Resort, I tend to do all kinds of things to get ready physically; we take family walks, I do cardio workouts all in preparation for the long hours of walking every day while in the parks.\u00a0 Once I get to the parks, however, all thoughts of good health go out the window while I submerge myself in every culinary delight that Disney has to offer!\u00a0 So this got me to thinking, if I were to embrace a healthy eating lifestyle BEFORE my trip, would I feel cheated once I arrived in the World and had to actually watch what I ate?<\/p>\n
Disney is great about meeting special dietary needs for people with food allergies and whatnot but what if I wanted to just keep on track with a low-calorie or low-fat diet while on my vacation?\u00a0 One of the thoughts that comes to mind when I think about this is that you would think that with all of the extra exercise you\u2019re getting while running from one attraction to another, that it wouldn\u2019t matter how much you ate because you\u2019d work it off!\u00a0 If you\u2019ve ever been on a Disney vacation, you\u2019ll know that that just isn\u2019t the case.\u00a0 Most times you\u2019ll come home 3-5 pounds heavier!<\/p>\n
With the wonder of the internet, it\u2019s easy to explore the menus of all of the amazing Walt Disney World restaurants so I decided to take a look at them and plan my dining as I normally would (in my non-diet days) and see if I could still eat there and be happy.\u00a0 Remember, a down-side to dining while on vacation is that you really don\u2019t want to take a doggie bag with you because A.) You\u2019re staying in a hotel with no way (kind of) to re-heat or to eat it again, B.) You\u2019re most likely still riding rides after you eat so where are you even going to store the doggie bag and C.) Who has time to eat leftovers when there are rides to ride??<\/p>\n
Okay, so we tend to stay at one of the value resorts so for the sake of this exercise we\u2019ll choose to stay at POP Century.\u00a0 We can go to the food court for breakfast (the most important meal of the day!) and while my first choice would be the chocolate croissant, that would be a no-no.\u00a0 Instead, there are options like fresh fruit, a vegetable omelets or oatmeal.\u00a0 All good choices.<\/p>\n
Although we know that it\u2019s cheaper to do the \u201cbig\u201d meal for lunch, my family never falls for that so, sticking with tradition, we\u2019ll have to do our counter service meal for lunch.\u00a0 These normally consist of burgers and fries which, again, would be a no-no.\u00a0 In the Magic Kingdom at Cosmic Ray\u2019s there are turkey sandwiches and rotisserie chicken as options along with yogurt and cucumber salads for side items.\u00a0 In Animal Kingdom at Flame Tree BBQ there\u2019s the BBQ chicken salad or a fruit plate.\u00a0 Over in Epcot where food places are plentiful over in World Showcase, you can dine on such things as teriyaki chicken, beef or salmon with steamed veggies in Japan or a Wedge Salad over in the America pavilion.\u00a0 If you opt to eat in Future World, you can\u2019t do better than Sunshine Season\u2019s in the Land Pavilion.\u00a0 The healthier options there are endless with soups, salads and foods from the grill.<\/p>\n
Dinner is always my weakness and the portions are usually huge.\u00a0 Having always taken part in the Disney dining plan I was at first saddened at the loss of the appetizer as part of the deal, but when you\u2019re on a diet, this is a blessing in disguise.\u00a0 One of the best options that I can think of is O\u2019Hana at the Polynesian Resort with its large variety of grilled meats and side orders of stir fry vegetables and salad.\u00a0 I think staying away from any buffet would be wise because it\u2019s hard to have self control (at least it is for me!). \u00a0And finally, skip the dessert.\u00a0 This can be a hard thing to do but in the long run, if you\u2019ve eaten three full meals, you won\u2019t really feel the hunger or need for it.<\/p>\n
Vacationing in Disney does not mean the end of the diet road; it merely means a more creative way of looking at the menus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While planning and prepping for any trip to the Walt Disney World Resort, I tend to do all kinds of things to get ready physically; we take family walks, I do cardio workouts all in preparation for the long hours of walking every day while in the parks.\u00a0 Once I get to the parks, however,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[507,1695,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-walt-disney-world-resorts","category-theme-parks","category-walt-disney-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themouseforless.com\/blog_world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}