Slimming World on Board A Cruise Ship

Don’t Let  A Cruise Holiday ruin a year of your life!

A bit of  a dramatic claim I know , but rewind back to June of this year my husband and I had been planning the trip of a lifetime. A 5 Star incredible cruise experience on board The Celebrity Reflection around The Greek Isles.

We were fortunate enough to have an ALL Inclusive drinks package which I know a lot of you are taking full advantage on with Royal Caribbean and Celebrity’s recent drinks promotion.

We had both just spent the past year on Slimming World and had hardly taken any days off plan in the past 12 months.

Things were going well!

Between us both we had shifted over 5 stone in weight and felt truly at our best in over 8 years. The problem is, I didn’t want to “fall off The wagon” so to speak and completely undo a year of hard work and effort.

We are all or nothing kind of people and research has shown on a 14-night cruise most travelers actually put on up to a stone in extra weight.

How do I make sure I really let my hair down and enjoy my holiday as well as make sure I do not put on weight.

I spoke to some friends and other slimming world customers, Their insights were really important and became the benchmark for my healthy choices on board the cruise.

The Slimming World Plan on board!

We made the decision to be exactly 80% on Slimming World Plan whilst on board but allow ourselves 20% of each day to be naughty and enjoy whatever we wanted in moderation.

Actually, the plan was to hit the gym hard everyday, but that Never happened. Instead, we took the stairs every time we were within 6 decks of where we wanted to get to on board in direct replacement of taking the lift. We always walked off every meal around the running track on pool deck. You will be surprised just how many steps you do on a cruise holiday with some days my pedometer recording up to 25,000 steps. ( I wonder if it was broken)

When it came to drinks, Well we did our best. Those cocktails by pool-side with music playing are so appealing but they are unbelievably calorific with a Pina Colada wracking up around 600 calories. I simply could not allow myself to do this. I decided to stick to cocktails like Mojito’s which are Rum based and a lot fewer calories.

My drink of choice was A Malibu with diet coke actually several but its really good if your counting calories to stick to white based drinks. such as malibu, vodka, bricardi or gin.

When it comes to food these ships are so well set up to cater for everyone’s healthy choices but you have to be disciplined.

For breakfasts In the main dining restaurant, Opus I found it was a lot easier to get Healthy Poached Eggs for breakfast with wholemeal toast.

Lunches instead of going to the grill restaurant for burgers and chips we always went to the main buffet restaurant and stocked up on “Free & Speed Food” for anyone on slimming world you will know this not to be food that you don’t have to pay for but actually food that is calorie free to enjoy on plan without counting syns.

Here we were able to make really healthy choices and enjoy fresh salads with Balsamic vinegar and lean cuts of the freshest meat. We made the decision to limit our carbohydrates and always have at least a third of our plate as fruit salad or vegetables.

The other big trick considering all that sunshine and exercise was the decision to have a minimum of three liters of water per day. This really helped to keep us both hydrated and is a proven weight loss trick.

I remembered we were on holiday so fully enjoyed the moments where I made the choice to be naughty and enjoy a nice drink or desert but generally the 80-20% rule was employed perfectly.

The result…

When we got home two weeks later I had gained 3lbs of weight and my husband 4lbs. That may sound a lot but trust me based on other cruise holidays we had experienced we were really happy with a slight gain and felt really proud of ourselves for the healthy choices we had made on the cruise.

Are you on weight watchers or slimming World?

Are you guilty of letting your hair down too much on a cruise?

I would love to hear how you reign in those moments of temptation or over indulgence whilst on board to not see it hit you hard on the scales.

Share your stories with me here.