How to Maintain Weight Loss on a Cruise
Cruises are amazing vacations! I loved cruising so much that I lived and worked aboard cruise ships for 5 years. Even though I no longer work in the cruise industry, cruising continues to be one of my favorite ways to travel.
One of the best parts of a cruise vacation is the infinite selection of gourmet food available 24 hours a day. However, if you are navigating your weight loss journey, you may fear that you will forfeit all of your progress by taking a cruise. As a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner, my patients ask me about weight loss and weight maintenance every day, so I’ve gathered a few useful tips. If you are someone who works really hard for months to lose those pounds and inches only to gain it all back over a short weekend getaway, continue reading!
Related: The 13 Must-Have Cruise Accessories and How I Saved $1000 on My Cruise
In this post, I want to show you that you can enjoy your vacation without giving up on your weight loss. I will explain 8 things you can do to avoid losing your weight loss progress while cruising. Don’t worry—I’m not going to recommend you spend you entire vacation sweating at the gym or counting calories and restricting yourself from delicious meals.
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Hydration
Water is essential for health and can promote weight loss and maintenance. Water should be your primary source of hydration on your cruise, and you need to drink large amounts all day. Plan to drink even more when out in the sun by the pool or on excursions. The mistake I see cruisers making over and over (and the mistake I’ve made myself) is drinking excessive amounts of coffee drinks and soda. You bought the cruise beverage package, so you need to make the most of it, right? I did this too, and drank soda non-stop all day for 7-days—yikes! Soda, coffee drinks, and fruit juice smoothies contain huge amounts of sugar and will absolutely sabotage your weight loss progress on a cruise. Diet soda is not a healthy substitute because it replaces sugar with aspartame. Scientists have been warning us about all the health consequences of aspartame for several decades now. Diet soda also has phosphoric acid which steals calcium from your bones, so diet soda is no better for you than regular soda.
Coffee drinks, soda, and smoothies are also expensive on cruises. Save money and calories by bringing a reusable water bottle from home and try to drink mostly water throughout your cruise. This CamelBak Eddy is my pick because it’s lightweight, and I can easily shake up my Plexus Slim without any water leaking.
2. Plexus Slim
Music: Intro, Jeff Kaale
If you don’t like the taste of plain water, I have a solution for you that can actually help you maintain weight loss. It’s a drink mix-in from the amazing company Plexus called Plexus Slim Hunger Control. Plexus products honestly changed my life, and Plexus Slim played a key role in losing my Pandemic weight. I now enjoy my “pink drink” daily— even when I travel. Bringing Plexus Slim on my last cruise encouraged me to drink water throughout the day, and I believe it helped me not gain weight on vacation. Learn more about my Plexus story here. Check out my Plexus store to learn about products and current promotions.
3. Limit alcohol
This may be an unpopular opinion among cruisers, but if you’re trying to maintain your weight, you MUST limit alcohol on your cruise (and at home). Similar to coffee drinks and smoothies, fruity cocktails have excessive amounts of added sugar. Even if you’re drinking pure alcohol, it is still a source of empty calories. (Alcohol has more calories per gram than carbohydrates!) Did you know that alcohol blocks your body’s ability to burn fat for up to 3 days?!
I understand that when you’re on vacation, you may want to treat yourself to a frosty beverage by the pool or wine with dinner. However, I encourage you to think of each alcoholic beverage as a treat, and not overindulge when you’re trying to maintain your weight.
4. Strategize the Buffet
Cruise ship buffets are very impressive! Rows upon rows of different options offer so much variety and countless yummy treats which can be a major downfall for those trying to maintain weight loss. With my sweet tooth, I can easily fill up my entire plate at the dessert section. My other weak spot is the bread section with warm muffins, soft rolls, buttery croissants and more. Trust me—this is how I gained weight when I worked on cruise ships!
Strategizing the buffet means filling up your plate with healthy proteins and fats as well as fruits and vegetables first. For breakfast, I consciously fill up my plate with eggs, bacon, and fruit, and eat those FIRST. Then, I eat a small portion of a starchy carb or dairy whether it be a waffle, breakfast bread, or yogurt LAST when I’m nearly full. For lunch, I have to remind myself not to head straight to the cheeseburgers, fries, rolls, and pizza. Instead, I fill up my plate with fish, veggies, and fruit. I live in a desert, so I take advantage of all the seafood and tropical fruit I can pile on my plate.
The buffet’s variety and endless options can actually aid your weight management by offering you lots of healthy choices that still taste good. When you think about it, the buffet provides the healthiest meals of all the cruise dining venues as long as you strategize it!
5. Don’t Order Room Service
I know it can be tempting especially if your cruise offers free room service, but it’s better to avoid it altogether. Why? Because the room service menu is almost all greasy comfort food, soda, and sweets. Look at the menu if you’re not convinced—the items that are consistently offered through cruise ship room service are burgers, quesadillas, personal pizzas, chicken fingers, cookies, and cheesecake. Breakfast isn’t much better with croissants, danishes, and donuts. Of course, some cruiselines offer salads, but who really orders a salad from room service?! Cruisers also tend to order room service late at night—another surefire way to sabotage weight loss! Finally, ordering room services encourages you to eat and then, lay around in your stateroom. You can find food almost anywhere around the ship at all hours—venture out of your stateroom and avoid ordering room service!
6. Take the Stairs!
Cruise ships are now taller and longer than ever. With thousands of cruise guests, you can waste a lot of time waiting for elevators. If you’re working on your weight loss, turn this into an opportunity. Try taking the stairs at least part of the way. I’m not telling you to run from Deck 1 to Deck 16 every time you want to go to the buffet or the pool. Once in awhile, try walking up or down a few flights of stairs. It will make a difference!
7. Get Active Onboard
A cruise ship is a floating city providing so many opportunities to be active. First of all, every cruise ship I’ve ever seen has an impressive gym. They also offer fitness classes, but these usually have fees that can be pricey. Since I’m a bargain chaser, I enjoy finding free activities like deck parties, dance classes taught by the cruise staff, and pool aerobics.
Latin Dancing after dinner in the Piazza of the Discovery Princess
You can also get moving by simply exploring the ship or walking the deck. This Royal Caribbean cruise had an organized morning walk around the upper deck.
It also feels great (and helps your digestion) to take a walk in the ocean breeze after a heavy four-course dinner.
8. Bring your work out with you
I started at-home digital workouts in 2020 and haven’t considered going back to the gym since. I love that I can bring my digital workout with me on vacation. I also like that I don’t have an audience in the privacy of my hotel room or cruise stateroom like at the gym. Yes, cruise staterooms are small, but moving the coffee table can give you just enough room to stretch out.
This is all the space you need to get an effective workout with Yoga Burn
I love the Yoga Burn series because you don’t need equipment or a lot of space to get an effective fat-burning workout, and you can take Yoga Burn anywhere. Yoga Burn is a beginner-friendly, at-home workout that you can do whenever you have a couple minutes of free time. Click here to see if Yoga Burn is right for you.
Weight Maintenance After the Cruise
If you are looking for a weight maintenance plan when you return home from vacation, the Custom Keto Diet is a winner! If you’re tired of fad diets and roller-coaster weight loss and gain, take the quiz to see if the Custom Keto Diet is a good match for you. Multiple times throughout my life (and especially when I lived aboard cruise ships), I packed on weight from eating non-stop carbs and working sedentary jobs. I have finally found a nutrition strategy that maintains my weight and has eliminated my need for relentless high-carb snacking. When you reach your 40s, your nutrition becomes a lot more critical because you can’t “exercise away” poor meal choices. I’m now the healthiest I’ve been in a long time in my 40s and have the energy to keep up with my active daughter. If you’re ready for a realistic, sustainable way to get and stay in shape, check out the Custom Keto Diet. You have nothing to lose but unwanted pounds and inches!
Now, you have several simple steps that will help you maintain your weight loss progress on your next cruise. Let me know some of the ways you promote your health while cruising. I hope to see you at sea!
Onboard the Discovery Princess