Post Cruise nutrition
So the goal was to work out twice a day while at sea and once a day while in port. I worked out twice the first day at sea and once the rest of the time at sea. So not bad. The first day as sea it was crowded, but after that, getting your cardio machine of choice was easy.
The other goal was to break even or loose weight on the cruise. My handicap was taking my starting weight right after swimming. Saturday was an easy practice, but water loss was likely a pound. From that weight I gained, 5 lbs, and have lost, in the three days I have been back, 4 lbs, assuming that working out before my first weigh in accounts for one pound, then I gained four pounds of water weight on the cruise. Thats the difference between a low sodium diet and a cruise diet. It is unlikely that I have burned the 14,000 calories that makes up 4 lbs of fat in 4 days.
The french toast wasn’t that good on this cruise in the buffet, so by the end of the cruise I had cut breakfast down to eggs, sausage, nut roll and oj. Next cruise, I will be heading to the dining room to get breakfast. Breakfast is usually served from 6:30 to 8:30 in the dining room, which is before most people, including us on all previous cruises, get up in the morning. This cruise we had to wait for the full breakfast buffet to open one morning at 6:30.
Brook made fun of me for being picky eating from the buffet. If I didn’t like something, I would take one bite of it, and drop it on my plate. I have to burn those calories, so why would I eat a pastry that is supposed to be light and flaky, when it wasn’t flaky? Any guesses on who gained more on the cruise?
Lunch was pretty standard. A slice of pizza, a hamburger or a hot dog and a salad. I ate from the buffet a couple times, but lunch was very light for me. It might not look it, but one slice of pizza or a hamburger without fries is not all that bad. Typically, you see people with two or three slices of pizza, hamburger and fries AND a hot dog, its easy to see how people gain an average of 2 pounds a day.
Dinner, the wonderful five course meal! I had a half a bottle of wine with dinner each night, three bottles and two glasses of wine to get me through dinner for the week. There were only two courses I didn’t eat, out of the 35 servered, but I didn’t order any extra courses. Your waiter is more than happy to bring you two desserts, or two servings of rack of lamb. Last cruise, at least one person would order an extra course in our group a night and I wasn’t left out. Next cruise I need to branch out more and order things that I might not like. Its a good place to experiment, and if I can find one thing every night that I don’t really care for, then that is less time in the gym.
I am back to the large breakfast, large lunch, small dinner meal plan. Lunch is a little smaller now than prior to the cruise, it was difficult to eat everything that was packed and now it is more manageable.