There are no calories at sea…Yeah right!!

How many times when you are on your cruise have you heard people say this?

I was curious to find out how true this is as people always say they put weight on when they are on one in fact my customer who I spoke to last night said she put 5lb on in a week  but doesn’t know how.

Now I have only touched the tip of the iceberg on this but its still food for thought, no pun intended. (no calories in that )

Drinks for a start are one of the worst things for calorie content, we all have a drink or 3 in the evenings at least so if your tipple is a cocktail then you could be adding to your calorie count by a good 2,000 calories which is as much as a food intake for a whole day, this is shocking and if you do this every day well it speaks for itself.

Have a look at this but you better be sitting down

Ready to be shocked I know I was, Here is the list of the calorific content of some of those delicious drinks…

Mai Tai – a typical one can ‘cost’ as much as 620 calories as it is made from white rum, dark rum, orange curacao, lime juice and orange syrup!

Frozen Margarita – anything from 500-700 calories!

Piña colada – that evocative drink reminiscent of balmy nights is surely delicious. Its calorie count depends on size but could get close to 600 calories!

Mud Slide – a slippery 556 calories!

Long Island Iced Tea – (the classic demonstration of how multiple spirits adds up to a calorie-rich drink) 430 calories at least!

Bahama Mama – tastes like it sounds but you’ll drink 350 calories!

Sex on the Beach – (go on, you’ve always wanted to try it but never dared to ask) … will tot up to 330 calories!

All of which make the more typical Vodka & Tonic or Gin & Tonic quite ‘cheap’ at about 150 calories a time!  Oh, and remember a rule of thumb calculation would tell you that men should consume no more than around 2,500 calories and women 2000 calories a day…depending on how active you are, of course!

I heard that if you consume an extra 3,500 calories it adds up to a pound of weight, wow that’s some going but probably easier than you think.

So drinks are sorted and you have now decided to be good and have a G&T so what about dinner I hear you ask

Chef’s Table Dinner…

Many cruise lines offer a Chef’s Table concept — an exclusive meal, paired with wine and sometimes combined with a galley tour and access to the head chef. One Cruise Critic editor tried it out on Crown Princess and declared it was “the most food I’ve ever consumed in one sitting.” He pressed the chef for calorie counts: canapes (750 calories), goat cheese souffle (500 calories), asparagus and lobster risotto (500 calories), raspberry sorbet with Grey Goose (100 calories) and a dinner plate of lobster, veal and vegetables in butter (2,000+ calories). Add in wine, Champagne and bread, and he estimated a meal of 6,000 calories. You might never need (or want?) to eat again.

Buffet…

Breakfast features plates of bacon, fluffy pancakes and French toast, sugar-topped muffins and glazed pastries. Lunch is a smorgasbord of pizza, oily ethnic stir-fries and deli sandwiches. Dinner offers all-you-can-eat meat, chicken and pasta, not to mention a large array of dinner rolls and carb-filled sides, plus, cheeses, cakes, cookies and ice cream. And you can refill your plate again…and again…and again. Without willpower — or a dinner theme — buffet eating can quickly get out of control.

Try This Instead: Resist the urge to pile your plate high. Fill it half full with fruits and/or vegetables (all buffets have salad bars and fresh fruit), skip the bread and look for entrees without a ton of sauce or oil. Take one small piece of dessert, not 12. Drink lots of water and give yourself a few minutes to rest before going back for more…you might find you’re not actually hungry anymore.

That is just based on 2 options but when you are faced with the likes of Sorrento’s on the Royal Caribbean line who serve fresh pizza until 3am would you just walk past ?  of course not, A night in the club after few drinks having danced the night away then Sorrento’s is the only option if you pass it on the way back to your cabin, in fact I am betting you made a detour to go past it. it’s the perfect ending to the night but be careful as one slice will not be enough, it all boils down to the fact that you can never go hungry on a cruise ship.

I suppose the motto of this story is it is YOUR holiday and if it is what you want to eat or drink then have it, life is too short to worry about a few pounds and most weight gain from a cruise usually comes off pretty quickly once you get home and get back to normality again. Just don’t pack your tightest clothes!!

Just for the record I love a frozen pina colada but it gives me awful brain freeze so I can easily limit them as nice as they are, other than that I usually have a malibu in a long glass with ice and diet coke, lasts me a while as well.

I love fresh salmon so like a pasta and salad with this or some cooked chicken but it would be so easy to pile it high as it all tastes so wonderful, funny thing is though I never have desserts or a starter in the buffet only a main so I should maybe plump for that more often.

Has anyone else put on more than 5lb on a cruise?