I worked Mediterranean cruises for 5 years. The women who ate the most always walked off the ship looking lighter.

If you saw the video, you know how that night ended. A cocktail napkin with a name written on it, and me ordering at the next port.

People keep asking me what else those women said that night. So here is my diary from that sailing, port by port, and the 7 things I learned on that cruise.

1On a 7-day cruise, everybody gains weight. I mean everybody.

Unlimited pasta, bread, wine, cheese and dessert, 24 hours a day. The buffet never closes and room service runs until midnight. By the end of the week, nobody is holding back.

You can see it on their faces when they walk off. The puffiness, the bloat, the look that says "I'll deal with it when I get home." I see it every single sailing, because I'm the one watching them walk on and walk off.

2The Greek and Italian women ate the most and looked the best

Usually in their 50s, sometimes their 60s. Loading their plates at breakfast. Ordering the full pasta course at dinner, plus the bread basket, plus the wine. Getting dessert and not sharing it.

They did it every night for seven nights. Then they walked off the ship looking better than when they boarded:

Meanwhile, everyone else was swollen and stuffing their suitcases.

3Eating less didn't fix what I was feeling

For years I told myself it was genetics. Mediterranean genes. Lucky women. That's what I said to feel better while I hid my belly behind my staff uniform.

Because I'd watch them eat twice what I ate, and I was the one who felt heavy. I tried all of it:

Every sailing, different women, same result. And I kept feeling heavier after every meal, however small.

4Three women, one small bag, two softgels each

I was clearing tables. A woman, maybe 57 or 58 and gorgeous, sat with her girlfriends. The whole table was wrecked: plates everywhere, three bottles of wine deep.

She opened her purse, pulled out a small bag, popped two little softgels and put it away. One of her friends did the same. Then the third. Same bag, right there at the table, like the most normal thing in the world.

I couldn't help it. I walked over. "I'm so sorry, I have to ask. What did you just take?"

She grabbed my hand with a big smile. Her friend pulled out a chair for me. Then she looked at me the way your auntie does when she knows something you don't:

I was standing there in my uniform, getting called out by a woman who had just eaten enough pasta for a family of four. But she wasn't being mean. She wanted to help.

5She said the real question is what happens to your food after you eat it

Her version was a lot more colorful than this, and some of it was village wisdom rather than science. So when I got home, I looked up the part I could check. The basic idea holds up.

Your gut is home to trillions of microbes, and they help break down a lot of what you eat. When that community is in balance, digestion tends to feel easy. Researchers have linked a less balanced gut to more gas, bloating and that heavy feeling after meals.

That was me after every crew meal. And it explained why the women who looked after their gut every day could enjoy a week of pasta and still walk off feeling good.

Millions of women blame the bread, their age or their willpower. Very few think about supporting the gut that has to handle the food.

6Their secret was two old-world oils from their side of the sea

She held up the bag. "Two oils. Oregano and black seed oil. This is our oregano, sweetheart. It grows on our hills. Our grandmothers used it, our mothers used it, every woman in my village uses it."

The first oil is oregano oil. Oregano grows wild on the rocky hillsides around the Mediterranean, and its name comes from the Greek for "joy of the mountain." It has more than 2,000 years of traditional use for gut and immune health. Its best-known compound is carvacrol.

The second is black seed oil, pressed from the seeds of Nigella sativa. It has been part of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean wellness traditions for centuries, and today it's one of the most studied botanicals in the supplement world.

She was fussy about one thing. "Not the cheap oregano they sell everywhere." Many oregano softgels don't say how much carvacrol is inside, and most leave out black seed oil completely.

Her friend leaned over: "We've been trying to tell you people for years. You just won't listen." The whole table watched me write the name down on a cocktail napkin.

7Those women had a habit their mothers taught them, so I started one too

I ordered at the next port and started taking two softgels every morning before my shift. Here's how my first month went. Everyone's body is different, so treat this as one person's diary, not a promise.

I laughed and told her nothing happened. Then I ordered her a bag too.

Here's what I understand now. Those Greek and Italian women weren't lucky, and they didn't have special genes. They had been looking after their gut every day of their lives, with two oils their grandmothers knew about, while the rest of us blamed the bread.