I mentioned in another thread that I was going on a cruise and several
people asked for details, so I thought I'd start a new thread.

First off, I'm going on the 4 day Royal Caribbean cruise out of Miami on
April 19th.  It's my third cruise, last year we went on the 5 night one
from Tampa on Carnival to Cozemal and the year before we did the three
night one to the Bahamas from Port Canaveral on Royal Caribbean.  My
in-laws live in Florida and fly us down to see them each spring and then
kick my husband and I out so they can have some alone time with our
three children (ages 13, 11 and 4 right now.)  We manage the indignity
of that by going on a cruise!  We love cruising - it's a great
combination of getting away, going somewhere and just hanging out by the
pool.  It's also economical: we meant to go spend a week-end in a hotel
this time but the cruise was actually cheaper!

But, to get back on topic, there was a world of difference between where
I was at in my head on the first two cruises.  On the first cruise I was
weighing in at my absolute peak, over 240.  I waddled, my feet got sore
on long walks, and I mostly just bellied up to the trough.  I recall
asking for second entress so I could try everything at dinner (and of
course cleaning my plate.)  I don't recall going dancing or even seeing
the inside of the workout facilities on that first ship.  All my clothes
had elastic waistbands.

A year later I went on my second cruise and I noticed that the entrees
offered were actually portion-controlled pretty well - so a single
entree WAS a meal.  I tended to eat more carbs than usual, but really
not a ton more - like Jayjay mentioned having an english muffin along
with her normal breakfast.  I'd have a slice of pizza for my
mid-afternoon snack, but I would have had a snack then anyway.  And I
didn't pig out at any point - just ate frequent small meals.

I also really participated in the exercise options.  They had resistance
machines sort of like the ones at Curves, and the treadmills faced the
water and it was quite lovely running on them, especially as we were
leaving port.  I went up running on the track on the top deck, too, and
really enjoyed the breeze alternately pushing and pulling me.  It was
like running up and down hills.

I've lost another 30 pounds since my last cruise and I'm looking forward
to wearing shorts occasionally instead of just fat-lady capris.  My
husband says my running shorts look nice on me, by which he means they
cover up the most troubling part of my thighs adequately.  :-)

I would tell people who are planning a cruise to plan to eat small meals
because they come frequently, but that turns out to be a good thing for
blood sugar maintenance and feeling sated without over-stuffed
afterwards.  It's hard to find whole grains (I eat 100% whole wheat
bagels at home, for example, and couldn't get that there) but it's okay
to eat a bit of refined rice once in a while.

Plan on getting in workouts, though, it's suprisingly fun to join a
class or figure out how to use the strange equipment.  Don't plan on
learning anything from the exercise staff - they seemed even more rank
amateurs than the staff at my home gym.  In fact, they were mostly sales
people hoping you'd buy some fat-dissolving lotion or something.

So I'm sitting here dreaming about cruising.  I've been buying clothes
on ebay at 2 in the morning when I get done with work.  It's not a bad
thing to have floating around in the background of my brain.

Dally, back to work now