Hello, everybody.

I promoted my app LexShell earlier this week, but I’m promoting it again now because now you can get LexShell Pro.

It’s like Rebound Prime, but for LexShell.

I don’t know.

If you need pro features like snippets and SFTP and exposing SFTP in the file browser, 1Password integration, etc., check out LexShell Pro.

Or just keep using the free version, because that’s what I’m doing.

I mean, I got the paid version for free because I know a guy.

Anyway, let’s do a show.

Your daily Lex.

Alrighty, I’m opening up the note because I don’t know what the topic is yet, but I will in a second.

Ryan M., when I requested topics on Mastodon, Ryan M.

said, Favorite cruise ship buffet items or favorite captain’s dinner if you go.

Excellent question.

So on all of our recent cruises, we’ve gone on MSC and we’ve done the Yacht Club.

I’ve talked about this on the show before.

It’s MSC is a cruise line, and they’ve got the Yacht Club, which they call their ship within a ship, where you have the Yacht Club restaurant.

I never pay for specialty restaurants on cruise ships, but often if you get enough status, you get one or two included meals, and I will do that.

I like to use cruise ships in part to try foods I wouldn’t always get to try.

For me, part of the excitement is, and now some of the cruise lines will charge you extra if you get more than one entree or whatever.

MSC, at least in the Yacht Club, does not do that.

But if there are two entrees and I can’t decide, I’ll order two.

If there are foods that I have never had before that I think sound interesting, like some random fish, let’s say, I’ll order it and try it.

Worst case is I don’t like it, and I don’t love food waste, but I’m willing to give myself the ability to try a thing versus paying for it at a restaurant meal at a, you know, regular on-land restaurant.

You would feel horrible if you didn’t eat the food you paid for.

So that’s one thought.

I’m always going to sample cruise ship pizza.

Obviously, pizza is not super fancy, but some cruises really nail it, man, oh man.

Good pizza on a cruise ship is a delight.

I’m especially actually creative or willing to try things with desserts that I wouldn’t normally get, and sometimes you can be delightfully surprised with desserts and flavors that you wouldn’t normally do.

None of this is super helpful, though.

Favorite cruise ship buffet items?

I don’t even know.

This is a hard one.

The other thing I will also do on a cruise that I don’t always do at a bar, let’s say, is try cocktails or drinks that I wouldn’t normally get, because I think that’s fun.

What else can I tell you?

But I’m going to shift topics a little bit, but staying on cruise ships and food, so it’s basically the same topic, just a poor job of answering your question.

I gained too much weight on my last cruise, 10 pounds.

I am still working to lose it.

So where I had been in this build phase, gaining more and more calories, I’ve been in a cut for a month since I got back from the cruise, and that’s not fun.

I am just about at pre-cruise weight, but I clearly overdid it on the cruise, not surprisingly.

I’m willing to get two entrees.

I’m willing to get two appetizers.

I’m willing to get two desserts.

I’m willing to do all those things at the same meal, and I have a bunch of drinks on the ship.

I used to have more drinks on the ship.

I just, I don’t have as much fun drinking and drinking and drinking anymore because I know I spent, you know, nearly two years basically not drinking while I was working to lose the weight.

Not that you can’t account for the calories of drinks, but that it also slows your metabolism.

And if I’m going to do all the work to lose weight, I’m not going to screw up my metabolism at the same time.

So with all that in mind, I, I don’t know.

I overdid it on this last cruise, clearly, since I came home 10 pounds heavier.

And I’m going on a cruise with not just my family, all three kids, but my parents in December.

And I have been thinking, not nonstop, but heavily about how I’m going to handle food intake there, because I still went to the gym on the ship.

I still get in 10,000-plus steps every day on the ship and still manage to pack on 10 pounds.

I think actually that a whole lot of it was the drinks, because we’re there with friends, and when they had a drink, I would have a drink, and then another drink, whatever.

And, like, that’s clearly not helping.

It is extra calories, and it is slowing you down.

I would have really protein-forward breakfasts, which is good, but then I would just keep eating breakfast.

Like, here’s my egg whites, and here’s the smoked salmon, and here’s a protein smoothie, because they give me one of those on the ship.

But then here’s a croissant, and here’s this muffin, and here’s this other thing.

Like, it would just be too much.

They had soft pretzels at breakfast.

I had to have one every day.

Not great.

I mean, the pretzel’s good, but the eating it wasn’t.

So I’ve been thinking about different strategies.

My trainer, Ursalon, who was on one episode of this very podcast, was like, You could try intermittent fasting, by which he basically meant skipping breakfast.

If you do that, then you are freeing up all those calories for dinner if you can go breakfast-less, which in theory I could do.

And I think discipline changes once you’re on the ship, but I’m thinking about it all the time, basically, because I want to be ready.

It’s easier to lose discipline when push comes to shove and you’re on the boat.

So I’m actively thinking about that because I don’t want to come back 10 pounds heavier again.

That said, if you’re not worried about that, and/or if you’re good at losing weight, and/or if you’re so low weight that who gives a shit, whatever, I am super stoked to have you eat as much as you want on those ships.

Like, to me, and honestly, this is why I’m stressed about it, not I’m just going deep on this topic, because a lot of what I love about cruising, I love being on the water.

I love the choose-your-own-adventures of the days.

I love seeing all the places, but I love the food.

I love the fact that I can eat whatever I want whenever I want.

Shifting that mindset, because I don’t love gaining 10 pounds when I don’t want to, is hard.

And I’m working on it.

I’m working on thinking of how can I differently enjoy being on a cruise when it’s not all about eating everything.

So, yeah, that’s my ongoing thought process.

Now you know.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion.

LexShell is at lexfreidman.com/shell, and have a wonderful rest of your Tuesday.

Goodbye.

Lex.