All-inclusive, Egypt, for 10 days, things could have got messy, though it is a family holiday so not too messy. Being that it was a family holiday, we were at a family resort, and I guess these days being at a family resort means access to things like candyfloss and popcorn. The temptation is everywhere.
On our last all-inclusive holiday, at Stella Island, I definitely went over the top. I don’t know how bad I was because I wasn’t weighing at the time, but because the food was so good, and it was an adults only resort so the alcohol was flowing, I know I wasn’t good. Hell, there were days we would go for breakfast, then mid morning go down to a little poolside bar that served some amazing food, not because we were hungry, but because what they served wasn’t served at the other restaurants and I wanted to have it. We would then go for lunch and later on tea, whilst having cocktails throughout the day. I didn’t go crazy with the alcohol, no getting drunk or anything, but thinking back to how many calories I consumed just in pina coladas is scary. They served made to order omelettes and made to order pancakes at breakfast, I’ll have both thanks. The food really was incredible and I very much enjoyed it.
I don’t think I am being unfair in saying that the food on this holiday wasn’t anything like what we enjoyed at Stella Island, it was fine but that is all it was, certainly nothing to write home about. There were a few different restaurants on site, offering different themes and cuisines, including a Mediterranean, an Indian, an Oriental, an Asian, a couple of Italians, a French, and a generic, as well as a bakery, a burger place, some snack bars and a couple of fish/seafood places that we’ll just pretend don’t exist. Honestly, the variety on offer each day was very limited, to the point that the kids had chicken nuggets, chips and pizza pretty much every day, not that they were complaining. Even for me there wasn’t a lot to get excited about, which wasn’t a bad thing because it meant it was generally easier to eat what I needed to rather than stuffing my face and eating what I want to.
One of the few things worth getting excited about was the bakery, and the baked goods at breakfast and lunch, occasionally. Basically, I don’t know exactly what it was, but they had a soft cream cheese that reminded us of the cheese in a Tuc sandwich. Anything that they put that in was heaven, especially this little pastry square with a dollop of cream cheese and a sprinkle of grated cheddar on top. Luckily for the scales they only did these a few days whilst we were there. They also had freshly made omelettes at breakfast, 2 eggs, a tiny sprinkle of cheese, and your pick of fresh veg or meat. I stuck to cheese, tomato, onion and pepper omelettes for breakfast, at least until we discovered the Egyptian bread, at which point I started making Egyptian omelette pockets. Yummy! I will be getting a pizza stone so that I can make Egyptian bread at home.
Lunch was never too difficult to be good because there was rarely anything overly exciting. It was probably worst when we found the fresh pizza stand in the waterpark. There was constantly a queue at lunchtime, but they were the best pizzas on site so worth the wait. They weren’t big either so whilst it was easy to eat more than one it wasn’t too damaging. We tried the burger place for lunch and the chicken burgers nearly made us sick, whilst the beef burgers were better but also very disappointing.
Tea was OK, but rarely anything I felt the need to stuff my face with. Pasta one or twice, a lot of chicken with vegetables, and just once grilled cheese hot dogs that I wish they had done more often. Chips and pizza were served pretty much every day so the temptation was there, but I was able to resist, trying as best as I could to eat a variety of things, and trying anything local that was on offer. Puddings were also easy to resist, nothing really caught my eye, except for these little chocolate eclairs, and a bowl of slop. Obviously it was slop, it tasted just like chocolate angel delight, but has a slightly runnier consistency, it looked awful but tasted amazing.
I think most of my calories came after I realised they did chocolate milk, and then some when the best waiter in the world began bringing me chocolate milk with rum! Speaking of the waiter, Geezer, what a guy. I don’t often go out of my way to leave positive feedback but for this guy I did, filling in a feedback form telling Pickalbatross to pay this man. Such a genuinely happy guy who made our holiday better just by being there. Anyway, Geezer was a little naughty, in that we would order a round of drinks, I would order one rum and coke, then our drinks would arrive, plus 3 extra rum and cokes, followed by whatever sweet treats were on offer that day. Vikki didn’t miss out either, bringing her a few different fruity cocktails despite her repeatedly saying she didn’t drink. He wasn’t doing it to take advantage in any way, he just really seemed to want to make sure we had everything we could want, which included copious amounts of alcoholic chocolate milk.
The hotel was massive, so whilst I never found myself in the gym, I did remain very active, having multiple days of hitting over 20,000 steps, swimming a decent amount, over 1 mile in a session one day. I would have swam more but the pools weren’t really made for lap swimming, and whilst the pools that we frequented weren’t busy, they were busy enough that I didn’t have it to myself most of the time. My watch died after a few days so I wasn’t able to track all of my activity, but I know we remained fairly active all week, struggling towards the end with painful lower body joints and sore feet, but doing what we needed to.
All in all, I think I did OK with food, I enjoyed myself and don’t feel that I went without at all, but I didn’t eat to the point of regretting it. I could have been more active, but when I am carrying the wait of 2 people around it puts a lot of pressure on my legs and feet. Again, I am happy with what I did and haven’t spent a minute kicking myself for not doing enough. All that is left now is to face the scales when I get home and see if I am close to what I think. Wish me luck.