Water

The prevailing wisdom for ages regarding the proper amount of water to drink has been 8 eight ounce glasses each day. I remember trying to do that years ago and working hard to get all that water down. I would give myself little incentives to get the water down, like allowing myself a Diet Coke if I met the goal. Over time, however, drinking 64 ounces of water became a non issue. I sipped water all day, and easily got in the required minimum. I even got thirsty for water if I didn't get enough. Water became the easy part of my healthy eating regime.

Not too long ago, I heard the idea to drink half your body weight in ounces of water. That seemed too hard. At 180 that would be 90 ounces of water. I resisted for a while, but then realized that I could work up to it. As my weight came down, the amount of water would come down to, thus meeting myself in the middle. I got down to 163, and easily chugged 82 ounces of water.

Of course, my weight has gone back up requiring more water to reach the goal, but that is not a problem now. (At least the water isn't, gaining the weight is!) Most recently, I've been drinking 100 ounces of water each day with no problem. Of course, summertime in the south helps! Something cold and wet is almost always welcome. ;-)

Yesterday, I drank 100 ounces of water by mid afternoon. I decided a Diet Coke would be good so I drank one adding another 12 ounces. Once that was gone, I still wanted something to drink and found myself near a Sonic at happy hour. I got a 44 ounce diet cherry limeade. I drank that before I left the office. Once I got home, I made myself another diet cherry limeade. I made enough to fill up my empty Sonic cup. I drank almost all of that, I think about 30 more ounces. Then I began to add up all of the ounces of fluid I'd had yesterday and realized I drank more than my weight yesterday!! If I did the math correctly, I drank 186 ounces of something yesterday.

I'm glad for that little happy because I've been having a hard time lately. I'm doing great most days, but I have so many interruptions that having any real weight loss is not happening. I'll lose a pound or two and gain it all back with one meal and the end is not in sight. Within the next three weeks, I have two birthdays, an anniversary, a holiday, a day long seminar with lunch provided, and a four day trip. Once we're back from the trip, I'll have about two weeks to recover before another trip and birthday back to back combination.

I still haven't gotten down to what I weighed before my sister's visit. That compounds my frustration because that weight was up from my lowest this summer. I've got to stop thinking about it in those terms. I've got to stop looking back and look forward. I can get there. It is going to (already has) take longer than I want, but I will get there. No one else has given me a deadline, why should I? I'll do this one day at a time, one meal at a time. I can do this. I can do this.