The diet went great for the first three weeks. I lost about 18 lbs, 8lbs in the first week. Diets work best when you can establish a rhythm to your life and just stay in the pattern. For the first three weeks, I had done that. One style of discipline carries over to other styles of discipline and everything seems to work in sync. The times when you feel challenged are when the patterns have to break. It makes you nervous and then you have to figure out how to work within that change. It’s not easy, but that’s life.My first real challenge to my new pattern was week four. It was August and time for the family vacation. It wasn’t just the wife and kids this time. It was my wife’s entire extended family. Because if you are going to break a rhythm pattern, why just break it? Why not shatter it? Her brother, two sisters, and their entire families were along for the ride. 19 of us. And where were we going? Why, the happiest place on earth of course, Walt Disney World. Really, is there anything more fun in August than standing in long lines with ten million sweaty people in 105 degree heat and humidity? I think not! It’s the American dream vacation. This year, we will spend August tied to wooden stakes in a hot Costa Rican jungle! In case you haven’t figured it out yet, this wasn’t my first choice. Given the democratic system that exists on my wife’s side of the family, my 1/19th percentage of the vote doesn’t carry even 1/100th of the weight. This is because I am considered one of the ‘non-blood’ out-laws. So the clan choice had been made. We would all trek down to Orlando to visit the House of Louse (my version of Toon-Disney’s ‘House of Mouse’).
I used to be a huge fan of Disneyworld. When my wife and I got married 20 years ago, we actually went there two years in a row without kids. When the kids came along, we went twice again, and then also did a Disney Cruise. So over the past 20 years, we had done Disney quite a bit. I always loved it. But over the past 10 years or so, and I am sure you have all noticed it, they have become a little less about your good time and a lot more about their money. They seem to have evolved the ‘Disney Magic’ into a new trick that consists of moving money from YOUR pocket into THEIR pocket. POOF! And they have become highly skilled at it. They used to be very good at making the trash in the theme parks disappear. Now they did it with your bank account. I think this really started happening as Michael Eisner became more entrenched in the business and the Disney family was pushed out.
In the late 80’s, Disney started the empire rolling again with the re-emergence of their cartoon movie empire. Remember when “The Little Mermaid” came out? It was like seeing a family friendly Broadway show. The artistry, the music, the funny snappy dialogue, it was real family fun. You could watch these movies over and over again. When they were released to videotape (can you remember those?), the kids DID watch them over and over again. Speaking of patterns, they had gotten their own little one going. “Beauty and the Beast” (the first animated movie ever nominated for an Oscar!), “Aladdin”, “The Lion King”, “Pocahontas”…every year you could count on it. Famous stars doing voice-overs, catchy songs you would sing to yourself, it was infectious. The House of Louse was on a roll and really building to something great. They got more TV exposure…their own cable channel! It was endless. Then, as patterns do, the public shifted to other areas of interest. The movies started being OK but not great. They seemed to be the same thing over and over. So Disney shifted gears. Did they get more creative? No. They decided to take the exceptional characters from the backlog of the big successful movies and make new sequels. Only they did not make new high-quality movies for the theater. They went for our wallets. They made crappy sequels with substitute star voice-overs, terrible songs and third rate artwork. They found Mel Gibson’s brother to replace his voice in Pocahontas. His brother?! I didn’t even know he had a brother. Where did they get this guy…some swamp in Australia? They slapped this stuff together and sold it ‘Coming Soon – Direct to Video.’ This was the beginning of the end. It wasn’t about us. It wasn’t about high quality entertainment. It was about the money.
My opinion on Disney has evolved, obviously, to a defensive posture. The game now is, “How can I keep the House of Louse from extracting money from my wallet that is over and above the value they are giving me.” With that in mind, the vacation was on!
Now I also had a diet to consider here. I couldn’t just throw away three weeks and kill the progress I had made. There were people in the diet class who had done exactly that. They had gotten out of the normal pattern and just said, “I will go back to my old habits for a week and then return to the diet.” One thing about this diet that I had agreed to up front…this was a life-style change for me. I wanted to change my habits and that meant ALL THE TIME, not just when it suited me. I decided to look at this positively. I brought a box (24 count) of powdered shakes. I figured that I could carry them in the park and mix them with water and that would be lunch. It would be phenomenally cheaper than the “cheese” the mouse would be trying to sell me. I could go with salad at dinner and then add the meat protein when I got back to our condo. Also, exercise was a critical component to the diet. If you have never been to the House of Louse, know this. You will walk. And walk. And run. And sweat. And walk. In the heat, you will cover about 5-8 miles per day in those parks. Run here, run there…”my ‘Fast Pass’ is for the Tower of Terror and it is on the other side of the park…RUNNNNNN”! If I had one concern it was this…”how do I endure this on 900 calories per day?” My doctor told me I should bring an extra shake for each day. Really? ANOTHER 160 calories? Thank God. I thought I was going to have a problem here.
We had all rented condo’s in Orlando. If you have never done this, you should look into it. It is as cheap as hotels and a lot more comfortable. There are also an amazing number of deals out there if you turn vacationing into a science, like my wife’s side of the family. The first night, a Friday, we stayed on Disney property at one of their park hotels. The condo stay started on Saturday night, so we needed one night at a hotel. It was OK. A small hotel accommodation with a lot of Disney art sprinkled around for effect…I think Tinkerbell does that stuff while people are sleeping. I did notice that the place wasn’t as clean as it had been my previous visits. Very few employees were around to smile and make sure everyone was ‘happy.’ It cost about $130 for the one night. The best part of this was a parking pass for the theme park. The theme park parking was free. Yippeee! We had our first savings of the week! We saved $10 for parking.
We had the 5 day base ticket. 4 Adults for $231…each. I know what you are thinking, because I thought the same thing. I have a 5th and 6th grader with me…where are my “Children’s” tickets? Oh no. Not at the House of Louse. They have slightly different standards. They consider you a child only if you are actually so small that you cannot go on 95% of the rides. They consider that to be the 5-9 year old range. So I have to tell my 10 year old son that he is now a “man”. “Go hunt something…like the stinking ‘Money Grubbing Mouse’ running around the theme park. Bring it back in a body bag”.
The whole family decided they would go to the same park the first day, the Magic Kingdom. It was the last decision all day that would be made peacefully ‘together.’ Did you ever try to do something like this with 19 people?
“Do you all need to sit together on the ride”, asked the attendant.
“Welllll, no…not really”, someone would reply.
The attendant did not have to be a linguist to know that that was double-speak for, “yes, can you go extremely out of your and all the other patrons’ ways to get all 19 of us together?”
I had sucked down my shake in the parking lot and had been running from ride to ride with the mob known as my extended family. The whole time, I was making sure I was fully hydrated. Around 12:30 in the afternoon, while I was in a mad sprint from Space Mountain to somewhere in Frontierland, the park started to lean sideways. Or was it me? Nope. It was the park. So when the park leaned sideways, so did I. And then back again. This was interesting. Usually you have to actually be ON a ride to experience vertigo on this level. Time to sit down and have my lunch. Yessiree, the vertigo was going to be cured with a 160 calorie fixer upper. Lunch was the breaking point for ‘family time.’ Starving sweating people who have different budget constraints for park spending have a knack of completely forgetting the democratic processes that got them to this lovely place. My daughter and I stopped at the first outpost we could find in Frontierland so she could get a hot dog and soda and I could mix my shake. Everyone else was scattered somewhere between our spot and Thunder Mountain. Thank God for cell phones.
The diet was fine after that. We went on many rides, had our fun, and left the House of Louse at about 5PM. We were tired (me, more than usual), hungry again, and out of patience. I didn’t want to see another extended family member until Christmas. If we hadn’t committed to 5 days of this, we might never have returned.
TO BE CONTINUED!
Next: Vacation and Diets - PART TWO
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