Can you diet whilst on a cruise?

Firstly, a Happy Healthy New Year to you all.

Yet again, its a New Year which means its a new diet, Bacon has been replaced with Muesli , chocolate seems to have disappeared and the wine rack is bursting…..with sparkling water!   Did you have an over indulgent Christmas, (honestly, who doesn’t).

Well , fear not you can eat low fat and healthy on your cruise and not these steaks every night…….shame!

I’ve been looking into it , and here is what I have found.  The number of places to eat on board cruise ships can be overwhelming and can lead to some serious over indulgence. However, the tide is slowly beginning to turn with more lines offering healthy eating options.  On a cruise there is the chance to eat your way around the world with full cooked breakfasts, full-on lunches, mind blowing dinners, and midnight buffets. The temptation to overeat is enormous and with an ever increasing choice of restaurants, cafes, pizza stands, hot-dog counters, chocolate fountains, room service you can literally eat on board 24 hours a day. But the tide is turning and cruise lines have latched on to healthy eating and made real efforts to encourage customers to eat and live more healthily while on board.

• Crystal Cruises became one of the pioneers of healthy eating when in 2007, it became the first line to implement dishes free of transfats. It’s menus offer dishes low in salt, fat, sugar and cholesterol, catering for dietary needs that include diabetic and gluten-free.
• Princess Cruises are happy to meet your request for low-sodium, low-fat, low-sugar and vegetarian diets. P&O Cruises and Holland America Line highlights healthy ‘light’ options on its menus.
•  Avalon Waterways, colour-codes its breakfast buffet to show items that are low calorie, low cholesterol, low fat, high fibre and high energy.
• NCL have sushi bars and restaurants where fresh ingredients are cooked to order. Special meals are available, including low calorie, vegetarian, gluten-free, no-MSG, low-/no-sodium and low-/no-cholesterol meals, as well as sugar-free and fat-free desserts and kosher meals. Requests for special diets should have been made at the time of booking and at least two months before departure.
• Oceania Cruises has teamed up with Canyon Ranch Health Resorts to offer special ‘spa cuisine’ with the number of calories, plus fat and fibre content helpfully listed against each dish.
• Celebrity Cruises took the concept one stage further with the launch of Celebrity Solstice and its new Solstice-class ships which have a dedicated restaurant called Blu. This is reserved only for passengers staying in the spa cabins and serves so-called ‘clean cuisine’ which focuses on grilled meats served with light sauces.
• This got me thinking…………have you ever wondered just how much food and drink is consumed on an average cruise? Then take a look at these stats for how much food is consumed on average 7 day cruise.

• 24,236 pounds (10,993 kg) of beef
• 5,040 pounds (2,290 kg) of lamb
• 7,216 pounds (3,273 kg)of pork
• 1,680 pounds (760 kg) of sausage
• 10,211 pounds (4,632 kg) of chicken
• 3,156 pounds (1,432 kg) of turkey
• 13,851 pounds (6,283 kg) of fish
• 350 pounds (160 kg) of crab
• 2,100 pounds (950 kg) of lobster
• 25,736 pounds (11,674 kg) of fresh vegetables
• 15,150 pounds (6,870 kg) of potatoes
• 20,003 pounds (9,073 kg) of fresh fruit
• 3,260 US gallons (12,300 l; 2,710 imp gal) of milk
• 9,235 dozen eggs
• 5,750 pounds (2,610 kg) of sugar
• 3,800 pounds (1,700 kg) of rice
• 1,750 pounds (790 kg) of cereal
• 2,458 pounds (1,115 kg) of coffee
• 1,936 pounds (878 kg) of cookies
• 2,450 tea bags
• 3,400 bottles of assorted wines
• 200 bottles of champagne
• 200 bottles of gin
• 290 bottles of vodka
• 10,100 bottles/cans of beer

Maybe a trip to the gym is the answer?………….but honestly I can’t stand those places!   How many of you visit the gym whilst on your cruise or do you let yourself go and think about that on return?  I have some customers who say that when they’re on a cruise they never use the lifts choosing to use the stairs instead. Thats their way of trying to keep fit!

I’m sure I lost weight on my last mini cruise on Marco Polo to Dublin due to the sea sickness, as we bobbed up and down to Dublin and even worse on the way back.  Maybe there’s an idea there for extreme dieting, get a very small rickety ship put her in a rough sea (Irish Sea) and there you go………you won’t have any appetite at all.  I know I ate very little on my mini cruise and there is nothing worse than that feeling of sea sickness!  But to be fair we did hit some extreme weather.

Haydn (wasting away!)