“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.”
–W.H. Auden
With all the diets out there in the ether, more often than not they preach about water. Drink more water! Drink 8-10 glasses of water! Did you know there’s even a weight-based formula for the exact number of ounces YOU should drink daily.
Get ready for today’s math lesson. Using the Random Fact example, that comes out to 12.5 glasses of water (where a standard glass is 8 oz). Picture this. You’re dining out and the waiter pours you thirteen glasses of ice water. To give you a different visual, a 2 liter bottle of soda is about 67.6 oz. You’re looking at opening two bottles and drinking most of it. Now, add to that all the things you already drink during a day — coffee, juice, energy drinks, tea, soda, coffee, coffee…and don’t forget your coffee. I’m being dramatic visually, but for many people the reality of consuming so much water is overwhelming, and if you’re looking at losing 50 lbs or 100 lbs, the number of ounces just goes up and up. It is disheartening before you even begin.
Since it’s my blog, I’ll be the example. At my heaviest, I weighed 389 lbs. That’s a perfect weight…if I were 9 feet tall. For BMI obsessors, that’s a BMI of 23.4. Like I said, a perfect weight. However, I am not a female giant. I stand at a meager 5′ 3″. Based on the formula above, I should have drunk 25 glasses of water each day. (You thought 13 glasses was bad, huh?) If I slept eight hours at night, that left 16 hours to consume a glass of water nearly every 40 minutes. Thinking back to that time, I knew I drank a lot of water, but 25 glasses? Unlikely.
I also drank super-sized iced teas and large iced mochas, coffee to wake me up in the morning and cocoa to comfort me at night. Around that same time, two of my colleagues separately stopped drinking soda and energy drinks and began drinking more water. Both men dropped 25-30 lbs in only a few weeks with no other changes to their daily lives. You can say I was hit by the epiphany lightning again. But in addition to understanding I needed to drink even more water, I finally realized that my bigger problem was something different. It was really all the other stuff I was drinking. More specifically, it was the sugar in my iced tea, the sugar and cream in the mocha, the creamer in my coffee, the sugar in the dreamy cocoa and the dreaded soda.
So I took control of what I drank and made different choices. Instead of getting the flavored raspberry tea, I ordered plain iced tea with no added sugar. Instead of coffee, which I had to sweeten and cream just to gulp down, I switched to tea that I could easily drink without either. I eliminated the cocoa at night and switched to having a yogurt for dessert. I also switched to drinking diet soda when I opted for a soda. Over time, even those choices changed. I stopped drinking soda and never keep it on hand. I don’t regularly drink coffee or even tea. Truthfully, today I always have a glass (or bottle) of water near me. I carry it in my purse when I go out. I carry it when I go walking. I just carry it with me all the time.
I highly recommend you assess what you’re drinking on a daily basis. I’m not talking about that glass of wine on date night, or that beer when you meet colleagues after work. I’m talking about EVERY DAY! What are you drinking every day? What do you add to it? Are you drinking energy drinks because they keep you awake while you study or sit at your work desk? Are you drinking espresso drinks with multiple shots? Are you drinking a six-pack (of anything) after work? Do you drink several super sized colas each week or maybe each day?
Start with ONE CHANGE! Pick one thing and change it. Decide and choose. I don’t recommend making a cold turkey change with everything you drink tomorrow. But, simply one change. Maybe order a medium cola instead of a super size. Maybe only add one extra shot to your caffè latte. Stick with that change for a month and see what happens. While you’re at it…keep a water bottle with you wherever you go. You might surprise yourself how much you can actually drink.
See you next time!
~~Annette~~
My pink water cup right next to my laptop as I finish typing this. 🙂
