Cruising Tips

I was responding to someone's question about tips for cruising while on Medifast/Take Shape For Life, and it dawned on me that I just needed to write a blog about it because many of us will be taking vacations such as this.  So here goes:  Tips!

Tips for your cruise (*Warning, contains references to food!):

*Buy an amazing water bottle that you love.  Carry it with you everywhere, and refill it often on the cafeteria deck, the ice/water machines are always available for guests to use any time day or night.

*Take the stairs everywhere instead of the elevator.

*After every meal, walk around the ship 3 times.  =)

*Find the Spa/Gym the first morning and hop on the scale first thing.  Every day get an idea of where you are on that scale, so you can monitor yourself and hold yourself accountable.

*Take all of your Medifast Meals so you can have 5 per day, and have 1 wonderful Lean and Green at dinner in the fancy restaurant.  They always have healthy "spa options" and will change anything up that you ask them to. 

A note on the last one, I have been on 5-6 cruises, but only one of them as a fit and healthy person (the last one).  I assumed it would be difficult heading in to my last cruise to find healthy options and to keep my health a priority, but when I got there and really looked around I realized I had developed new eyes.  Those fit and healthy things, those tools I needed, had been there ALL ALONG, even on my prior cruises, but I had never SEEN them because I wasn't LOOKING for them.

Amazingly enough, there are plenty of fit and healthy people who like to cruise, and the cruise lines know this and do provide healthy options!  You just have to be looking for them!

Do you know what I had seen previously?  Before developing a fit and healthy mindset (thanks TSFL and Dr. A!)?  I saw food.  Lots of it.  I organized my days AROUND food.  Unlimited soft-serve ice cream and endless lemonades and high-sugar cocktails BETWEEN meals, then endless breakfast buffets of waffles pancakes eggs benedict whipped cream strawberries soufles bagels toast fresh fruit yogurt fruit salad croissants sausage bacon ham hash browns scrambled eggs with catsup and you could go back with a new plate for seconds or thirds...then endless lunch buffets of pizza hamburgers indian food chinese food creamy soups ham tri tip deli meats monte cristo sandwiches cake pie ice cream sponge cakes puddings trifles jello salads hot dogs and you could go back with a new plate for seconds or thirds then dinner in the fancy restaurant where you could get 2-3 appetizers so you wouldn't have to choose, then 1-2 entrees if you want rationalizing you didn't have to eat ALL of them then death by chocolate cake and kahlua-laced coffee or irish cream with your dessert.  Then go to bed, and start over the next morning UNLESS that night was the midnight chocolate buffet.....

Just typing that paragraph brought me back to the despair I felt on those first cruises when I was morbidly obese. 

When I went on my last cruise, last year, at a healthy weight, my eyes were seeing different things.  Firstly, it was not lost on me how many "former Me's" were on the cruise.  Morbidly obese individuals carrying trays piled high with plates full of more food than could feed a family of 6.  Huffing and puffing, pausing while walking, holding the rail for support, sweating and turning red.  Legs rubbing together, feeling hot and miserable, but eating eating and always eating.

My heart broke for them, because I have BEEN THERE.  I know that when I was morbidly obese and on a cruise, my only pleasure WAS to eat because I couldn't participate in anything else, I couldn't scuba dive.  I didn't feel comfortable in the gym, nor did I really belong there at 272 pounds Class IV super-obese.  I couldn't go in the pool because of course I didn't even BRING my swimsuit, I didn't even OWN one.  The excursions always left me exhausted, even though the only excursions I COULD do were SHOPPING ones.

This last cruise, my brain saw the stairs.  My brain saw the healthy options on the menu, the options that had been there all along.  My brain was content having my 5 Medifast Meals a day and ONLY having to worry about getting 1 Lean and Green in which I knew I could always get at dinner in the restaurant.  I had heard advice that the 4&2 was a good option while on a cruise but I did not find that so, since the breakfast and lunch buffets never seemed to have good lean protein for me to have which didn't include deli-meats.  I could always get a side salad from the salad bar, and I usually did that, but my wonderful Lean and Green was always at dinner.

I remember every night of my last cruise, finishing dinner and feeling WONDERFUL!  Just satisfied from my Lean and Green, and thrilled that I was going to bed healthier than I woke up because I was on plan that day. 

Life is different when you are taking care of yourself.

Rinse and Repeat!