Regent Seven Seas Explorer - Healthy + Happy

August 17, 2016

Shelby Donley

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How to turn a luxury cruise into a healthy endeavor - really!

First of all, it helps when you have a renowned health and wellness brand like Canyon Ranch onboard, but after days of indulging on escargot, and the best intentions of ordering the “good items” on the menu, like seaweed salad instead of dim sum. I realized I needed to "up the ante" , and my Regent Explorer Cruise could really be a wellness cruise if I so desired. I exercised a moderate amount of restraint and got creative with all of the sources at my disposal. Here are my tips for what you can do to disembark the cruise better than when you boarded:

Get committed to a fitness regimen. On vacation who wants to feel part of a schedule? So, I decided I could do a 25-minute per day interval training in the fitness center. 25-minutes - quick and easy on the state of the art equipment. With interval you do not need much more time, but a heart rate monitor helps!
Tap into the Canyon Ranch onboard classes such as spinning, a class just on abs, or a boot camp!
Get creative with your cuisine. Sure you could go to the "made to order" pancake station, or you could focus on the foods that provide you with fuel and make you feel great:
1. Yes! They have a green juice bar in the mornings (and my suggestion is it should be offered throughout the day). Make sure you order the juice with lots of green spinach and celery, using the fruit sparingly only to offer a mild sweetener. Honeydew is great!
Use the stairs - always (except when my heels exceed five inches), but really this makes a difference.
Integrate some fitness into your ports of call. For example, we opted for a bike tour of Barcelona. As we booked this privately we could direct our guide for a more aggressive ride.
The Canyon Ranch menu - it’s actually really good and offered in the main dining room throughout the day. You can even treat yourself to desert!
I like to use the walking track as a light weight lunge course. You can supplement your 25-minute interval training with 10-15 minutes of lunges with light weights. Don’t be surprised if just this small bit of exercise will make a difference.
Snacks: 3X per day in between, such as sliced apple, go to the bar and get 1/4 cup nuts, hot tea (anytime), banana and please DO snack because it will keep you from overloading in the dining room when all of a sudden you think, "I can enjoy tempura lobster, I haven’t eaten all day!" Wrong! These cruises are active so keep the food coming as suggested above and you will likely love yourself more when it is all over. Allow yourself one indulgence per day and savor it!
Do one physical thing after dinner such as…. a few laps on the walking track after dinner in the moonlight, play 25-minutes of paddle tennis, dance in one of the live music venues, play bocce ball!
Enjoy a glass of wine or two, not a bottle. Hot herbal tea after dinner easily curbs the "after dinner/just one more" habit.