Book a Cruise for Weight Loss

Many people are wary of taking a cruise because they are concerned about weight gain. This fall, I have managed to gain 10 lbs despite the fact that I did not take a cruise. Maybe I should have taken a Thanksgiving cruise or planned a Christmas cruise. I might not have so much weight to lose right now.

Initially, that statement sounds kind of backwards. However, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. For the last few year’s I’ve had Thanksgiving cruises planned. This was actually a big motivator for me to keep my weight down. I wanted to look nice in my formal gowns, and I didn’t want to have to worry about taking excessive weight off after the cruise. For the most part, I ate a low carb diet, which was actually the easiest for me to stick-with it. The most effective version for me has been the Atkins version of low carb, but when I became concerned about the high levels of saturated fat and kidney stress, I switched over to a version that was closer to the South Beach version of a low carb diet. In addition, I tried a good 6 months on Nutri System. Nutri System wasn’t very effective in helping me lose weight, but I didn’t gain on it either. However, I really have to say that the best motivator for me to stick to a strict diet was knowing that I had the terrific food and service coming up on a cruise. I wanted to be able to enjoy that food and service and still look my best too.

This year we didn’t take a holiday cruise and consequently I didn’t have that same motivator to keep the weight off. I had put on about 5 lbs before Thanksgiving. Now that I have been eating holiday leftovers for about a week, I’ve put on about another 5 lbs. This is despite the fact that I have put in a lot of extra time doing some walking, elliptical exercise machine, and dancing. So now, I feel like instead of loosing those “last” 5 lbs, I now have 15 lbs to loose. The worst part is that I have no cruise booked yet as my motivation. We threw-out the last of the left-overs yesterday, so hopefully I’ll be able to start an effective diet today and lose enough weigh so that most of my cruise clothes will fit me again by my next cruise. I’m going to try simple calorie counting, but if that doesn’t work it will be back to the low carb South Beach Diet.