6000 calories

Cruise ships are very dangerous.

A person can get very fat. The rule of thumb is a pound a day. I've always thought that sounded very high, so I decided to figure it all out.

Take a typical day.

Up for early coffee, and a single chocolate croissant.

Breakfast of bacon and eggs and taters and toast. More coffee, and juice, and perhaps a danish.

I don't put butter or jam on anything, but I do put sugar in my coffee.

Lunch. For me; perhaps two dishes of custom-cooked pasta. A few scoops of ice cream, and two glasses of lemonade.

No more until supper, which consists of a shrimp cocktail, and some other appetizer. Entree? Let's make it the last meal I had on board; big pork dish, with a bit of potato and some veggies. Desert? Creme Brule and chocolate cake.

Add it up. It's about 6000 calories. I burn about 2500 on a low-activity kinda day, so I am about 3500 over.

Every 3500 calories eaten or burned is about a pound of weight gained or lost. The rule of thumb looks to be right on.

There are exceptions, of course.

This time it was a ten-day cruise, so a potential ten pound gain.

Before we left, my weight was 173.4 pounds. My first day back had me up to up to 179.7 pounds. A measly 6.3 pounds gain.

I'm down to 176.1 after 2 days, so only 2.7 real pounds of gain. I was pretty active on this cruise. I ran on the treadmill several times for about 6 miles a go, and 8 km ashore at Hoonah. Helen and I went out dancing most nights. There were also many miles of walking both on ship and ashore.

The excess weight won't last long. We got home just in time for me to go to open mat at Jiu-Jitsu, and on Saturday I was there again, and biked ten km getting to town and back for groceries, and ran 8 km more. Today was lazier; did another 8, km but nothing more.

Haven't been eating anything like I did on the ship.

Every so often I fantasize about one of the lovely 115 day round-the-world cruises. If I gained at the rate I did this time, I just might weigh something around 250 pounds.

I'd rather that didn't happen, so I shall keep world cruises securely within the realm of fantasy.