First Cruise & I need advice on navigating the food maze

Ha! Just back from a cruise, and I had the same concerns as you.

Remember that you only have to eat when and what YOU decide. If it's a buffet, just go once, and dont overfill your plate. Choose lots of salad, easy on the dressing and mayo.

If its a sit down meal served to you, you may get some choice over what is served, and again, you dont have to eat everything on the plate.

Check out if there are gym faciliteis on baord, and remember to pack your trainers.

And have fun - where are you going?

We have taken a couple of cruises. We always took the stairs instead of the elevator and walked around the deck to walk off all that we ate also the ships have a fitness center that you can use too. Have fun!!

At the buffet, look for the people that will prepare the food for you instead of grabbing what it put out in bins. It may take a while to stand in the omelet line, but you can get something prepared for you... scrambled egg whites, egg substitute, poached eggs etc.... less grease than the mass produced things and you can watch them make it.
There is generally a stir-fry line too for dinner where I would go and load up on the veggies with a little protein and no sauce.

If you are in the dining rooms you can order whatever you want and as many as you want... if something sounds good, but when it comes it is not prepared how you wanted or how you thought, don't be afraid to order something else! If you would rather have 2 or 3 appetizers (sometimes I would order multiple servings of the same one) then order that.
Sometimes something sounded good to me, like a creamy pasta, but I certainly didn't want that as my meal so I would order my healthy option and the pasta... both dinner, but you can order what you want. A bite or two of the pasta satisfied that "I want to treat myself urge" then I could eat my healthy meal.

They will also often have low-cal options marked on the menu and will generally try to offer a low-cal option in each category (appetizer, main and dessert). I'm not sure what they define as "low cal", but they should be healthier than the others.

Have fun!!

I'm booked on my third cruise in August next year. It is my goal. To loose weight and continue logging until then. The moment I step foot in the airport I am having 2 weeks off!

If you seriously don't want to do what I am doing then I guess its going to take a lot of will power and try and think about what and when you would be eating at home. Someone above mentioned pizza at 2am in the night. Seriously this is true! As bad as it sounds, and probably one reason I got fat, it is so easy to have a nice slice of pizza at 2am before you go to bed washed down with a tasty hot chocolate.

Breakfast is hard unless your heavily into fruit and yoghurt for breakfast when all the cooked stuff is been shovelled out in front of you. I don't know which cruise liner your going with but I know Royal Carribean serve breakfast in other restaurents on some ships that promote healthier eating.

If your in the main dining room most options are served with some sort of sauce which can be high in salt so have a good look at try and imagine what it might come out as. If not ask your waiter, they are pretty helpful.

Have fun, I can't wait for my cruise but it cant come soon enough!

I was concerned when I went on a cruise but I actually lost weight.

I didn't go to buffets.

I got up every morning and either walked the track or worked out in the gym before the day began.

I ate breakfast on the deck, typically eggs, and english muffin, or some yogurt.

Never ate lunch because most of the time we were in port walking around, shopping, or on an excursion.

And I ate dinner in the dining room every night, I ate what I wanted and ate dessert every night.

When I returned back I had dropped about 5 lbs.