Water

Liquid can be tricky for me. I don’t/won’t drink calories, so that leaves me with water or diet beverages. For a few years now I’ve relied a lot on stuff like iced tea, crystal lite, soda pop and very little plain water.

I went through a HUUUGE soda phase when I first started dieting. I’m a big believer in crutches- we get pain meds after surgery to lessen the pain, I think that if you need a few weeks of soda pop to get you over the hump of craving something, do it. As long as it doesn’t become a lifelong habit, most likely you’ll be ok and the long term benefit of the healthier choice overall will outweigh the short term crutch that may not be part of your long term plan. I used soda for a long time and finally kicked it when I realized how much money we were spending on it- it amounted to some vacation time.
Ouch!

Last summer I switched to crystal lite, but I’m realizing that the sodium, among other things, is just not doing me any favors. My body is a water retention genius and can hold pounds and pounds of water. Today, after eating lots of salt yesterday, I weighed in at 252 in the morning (compared to 248 yesterday morning). This was unacceptable to me. After reading a little more about sodium, I decided to take the next step today- I’m trying to drink water. Exclusively. I could flush my system and hydrate drinking just water. Unheard of for me. Seriously. I did we’ll today- nothing but water.

I don’t like cold or hot water. The best water is water that has been sitting on the counter all day and is room temperature. So this morning, I filled all the pretty bottles my husband has collected over the years with fresh water and set it out to raise to drinking temperature. All day I sipped, guzzled and drank my way through one and a half of them.

This afternoon? 249. Worked like a charm.