Disney, Food, & Friendship While on GLP-1s

A few days ago, I spent time with another GLP-1 friend I met on the Downsized Cruise in June 2025. This cruise carried over 50 of us GLP-1 users through the Caribbean and allowed us to create lifetime friendships between many of us. We spent time with each other, talking, sharing mealtimes (and meals!), and learning about each others’ before, during, and, for some of us, after, we reached our ideal/balanced/goal weights.

It’s difficult to express what the cruise was like for all of us. Many people had never told anyone else they were on Ozempic, Wegovy, semaglutide, Mounjaro, Zepbound, or tirzepatide. For all of us, it was freeing to be able to talk about our previously fat lives and how we’ve changed over the time on GLP-1s.

 Animal Kingdom Lodge, Walt Disney World

Besides our passion for being on GLP-1s, several of us also learned we were Disneyphiles. That was a delightful surprise! Now, when my new GLP-1 friends wander down to Orlando, I get to visit them in person and not just online.

That’s when Dennis and I met at Animal Kingdom Lodge for a visit and a dinner at Boma Restaurant – Flavors of Africa. I love that Resort! It’s so beautiful and filled with color and life.

Wandering on My Own

I was dropped off at the Boardwalk Resort earlier in the day, while Dennis was at Disney Studios (which I still call MGM because I’m an old-timer). I wanted to walk around the EPCOT Resorts… you know, getting my steps in? I’d already walked three miles that morning, but wanted to walk more. Walking still seems like a luxury to me because of my decades of severe obesity. It’s a joy to breathe deeply, walk with a purpose, and not get winded within two steps. For most of my years at Disney World, I rented an electric scooter and/or walked with a cane.

Looking at that picture, I remember acutely what that felt like to be confined to the scooter. Look how big I was! I couldn’t even put the arm of the thing down because I was so fat. As people around the world have gotten bigger, wider, and fatter, Disney had to super-size the scooters. They no longer have them in this smaller size.

After walking around, I headed towards the International Gateway at EPCOT, wanting to get on the Disney Skyliner and go for a ride. It was in the middle of the day and hardly anyone was around, so I got my own gondola. I always ask for one without the overlay so I can admire the views. It was a lovely day! I kvelled looking at Spaceship Earth, the Eiffel Tower in France, and the rest of EPCOT that I could see from my perch. Once I got off at MGM, I stood staring at the Tower of Terror.

Tower of Terror terrorized me a couple of decades ago. I have proof.

Walking with a Purpose

After breathing deeply, loving that I was able to walk wherever I wanted to with so much ease, I headed towards the bus depot. It was far! Disney has a depot system I had never experienced, so walked the whole wrong way and had to turn around and go back and down the other side. With every step, I kept thinking of how I would never have been able to do this extended walk-around 3 years ago. It really still stuns me, being in this body sometimes.

I needed to take a bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge and laughed to myself about how I had not been on a Disney bus without a scooter. Well, I did ride a bus once with Meghann in October 2024, but was yacking about losing weight and didn’t pay attention to the beauty of being on the bus unencumbered. Yet this time, I was quite aware that I was getting on a bus, alone, without anyone to talk to, and really able to soak in the reality. With the scooter, I had to wait for a bus that wasn’t already full with someone else using a scooter on it. That could sometimes take more than an hour. This time, I climbed up the stairs and sat in a seat. One seat. I didn’t spill over onto the second (or third) seat. Someone could sit next to me and my thighs wouldn’t come near theirs. No one stared at me. No one shot me evil glances that said, “Do NOT sit next to me, fat lady.” I got tears in my eyes realizing the huge (ha!) change from my previous life without Mounjaro.

Once at Animal Kingdom Lodge, I wandered around… walked around. The last time I was there was Oct. 13, 2023, with Dan Engber, a senior editor for The Atlantic, when he did the feature story on me called “Ozempic or Bust” for the June 2024 issue. Then, I was giddy with excitement to be able to walk around and even up and down the stairs a little bit. Slowly. I weighed a miraculous (to me) 252 lbs. That was a loss of 153 lbs. from my highest of 405 lbs. This time, I weighed 124 lbs., 128 lbs. lighter than 2 years ago… 280 lbs. total from my all-time high of 405 lbs. in 2022.

(Please don’t mind the terrible selfie on the right. I was outside and don’t know how to alter pics. I apologize!)

With the visit last week however, I walked up and down the stairs several times. Not just to go see the animals outside. Not just because I needed some water. Not just because I had to run to the bathroom. 

But because I COULD!

Me, Dennis, & Food

I wandered around until Dennis came from MGM half an hour before our Dining Reservation at Boma. We sat, yacking like old friends, talking about everything from Disney to GLP-1s to how amazing our lives are in smaller bodies. We did not talk about what we were going to eat at Boma’s infamous buffet, but we did talk about how we weren’t talking about what we were going to eat at Boma’s infamous buffet! It is surreal to not have food be the Center of the Disney Universe when at any Disney Park or Resort. 

Pre-GLP-1s, Disney Vacation Planning has always centered around food. Even when I was going to a park or resort once month, I would start with my Dining plans and work whatever else I wanted to do around those. On the Downsized Cruise, the Disneyphile GLP-1-ers all talked about how we used to do that. Where we were going to eat commanded the physical direction our day was going to unfold. Chef Mickey’s for breakfast? That’s a Magic Kingdom Day. Did we want to eat in Mexico for lunch one day? That day would be for EPCOT. We talked about the Disney Dining Plan and how much food was available with that expensive investment… but how much fun it was to be able to “splurge” (aka binge) while at Disney World when buying it.

What’s Included:

• 1 Quick-Service Meal
• 1 Table-Service Meal
• 1 Snack/Nonalcoholic Drink
• 1 Resort-Refillable Drink Mug

What you don’t eat on one day, rolls over to the next day. Then, “two table-service meals will be redeemed from the dining plan for each person dining at a Fine/Signature Dining experience, select Character Dining experience or a Dinner Show.”

pausing for effect

Do you see what I’m doing? I’m remembering all that food. Those restaurants. Those “experiences.” Yeah, they were fun times with family and friends, but food and wine were center stage. I’m supposed to be writing about time with my friend Dennis, and I’m emotionally salivating over what I no longer want, need, or desire. In my pre-GLP-1 life, I would have been physically salivating while writing this. I would have been scouring the menus, looking at pictures of the foods, dreaming of what it would be like to be there right now, fork in my hand and drool dripping down my chin.

Yet, I have no salivating happening. I have not pulled up one restaurant (except for links in this post), one menu, one picture of food. These medications have removed my/our obsession with food. Looking at food is like looking at a piece of art; it’s pretty, but I don’t necessarily want to eat it. Some might find that sad and even pitiful. I know I would have absolutely thought that pre-GLP-1s! It would have horrified me to think I might not want to gorge on food, or drink wine the sommelier recommeneded from Artist’s Point (the fine dining one, not the Snow White one they have now) or the Brown Derby… or, goddess forbid, California Grill!

I have to say, though, that being able to walk endlessly without hurting, without inconveniencing anyone, far outweighs the former gluttony I had with Disney foods and wines. And that doesn’t even begin to cover all my obesity-related co-morbidities that have faded into my past because I have taken control with my life via Trulicity and Mounjaro.

🎶 At the Buffet 🎵
(sung to the tune of “At the Ballet” from A Chorus Line)

Sitting here almost a week after dinner at Boma, I cannot remember one thing on the buffet except for chocolate chip cookies. That is only because I stupidly drizzled crème anglaise on one and it gave me a stomach ache and diarrhea the whole next day. Beware! When you don’t eat sloppy, drippy sweet creams on sugar-laden cookies with chocolate chips anymore, be ready for those nasty “side effects” of not eating what your body wants and needs.

Food is nutrition, not entertainment!  (<<— my belief anyway)

This not remembering what I ate happened on the cruise as well. The food was fine and I got several things made specifically for me, but the only thing I remember was the wonderful Caymus wine I had… one glass an evening for 3 nights… the first alcohol I’d had in over 3 years. Thinking back over my fat adult life, I remember McDonald’s fries more than any exquisite dinner I had ever eaten at a Disney restaurant (and I have eaten many dozens), with two exceptions. One was at Napa Rose at the Grand Californian Hotel at Disneyland Resort in Anaheim. The other was at California Grill, but that dinner was made delightful by our server Walter, the great Opus One wine, and the fireworks over Cinderella Castle more than the food.

Reflections

Pondering all of this, it’s really quite odd to not have my life focused on food anymore. My mind is free from the Food Bully (what others call Food Noise) and I am able to write with a clear head, walk while listening to books, and, best of all, able to think. It’s even weird for me to be writing so much about food right now, but with the cruise eating behind me, dinner with Dennis a sweet memory, and still not ravenous like I used to be before GLP-1s, it feels right to reflect.

Still so many things to consider. I’m starting a new life in a new, healthy body and it bears pondering. 

What do you think about food while on GLP-1s? Do you even think about food much? Some people talk about missing it. Why would that be? Do you miss eating buckets of chicken and boxes of fries? Eating whole pans of brownies? Stuffing yourself full as if every day was Thanksgiving? You didn’t do those things? That was just me? 

Talk to me in the comments. Do you think about things like this, too?

If you are interested on going with us on a GLP-1 Downsized Cruise in 2026, sign up now! I am not affiliated with “The Downsized,” or the cruise, just an avid viewer and believer in GLP-1s and the camaraderie between like-minded folks.