Switch To Water

I love, love honey buns, coffee rolls, apple pie, and cheesecake--forget about it!  When I pass by a Trader Joe's or The Cheesecake Factory, my mouth waters and I sometimes shakes.  Both of them have cheesecake that brings me to euphoria when I beginning eating.  When I'm finished, a blanket of sadness covers me because I just consumed about 700 calories.  Most of the time when I indulge, if I'm home, I drop to the floor and do as many push-ups as I can; it helps, but only a little.  I'm still stuck with at least 660 calories in my body that plan to say as long as they can.

I realized there was no way I was giving up cheesecake and my other favorites.  I wanted to lose weight, and stay athletic as best I could; gobbling down cheesecake and other nonsense was not going to help me with my current diet, so something had to go.  I didn't want to change my diet completely and starting boiling everything I ate or eat smaller potions; starving yourself is very hard and I don't believe that it is very healthy.

The only reasonable solution was to change my fluids.  The soda, the energy drinks, lemonade, and the coffee I drank had to change.

My body didn't need those kinds of beverages; it only needed the water that was in them.  Even though I mentioned coffee, I'm not a big coffee drinker.  Once in a while I would get one of those crazy coffees from Starbucks, but for millions of people, they live and breathe Starbucks.  It is good stuff, but even more than soda, lemonade, and energy drinks, Starbucks' coffees have tons of calories. Based on the size, there are about 275-650 calories (and more) in some of them.  That is 100 calories more than a Big Mac; I have to say it, that's crazy!

So, my liquids had to change, and I changed to water.  But the question that I had been missing for a long time was, how much water should I drink a day?

Now, I read more than a few articles about water and the medium intake was about a gallon.  Putting down a gallon of water a day is no easy task, whether you are exercising or not.  Before I decided to adhere to the advice of many, I might have been getting a total of 40-50 oz a day of fluid--I rarely ever drank straight water.  One article informed that if you're pee is not clear during the day that you are dehydrated--I checked a few websites and clear is okay, but a light yellow is good.  

Since then, I have been drinking about 140 oz and day.  I cut out the sugary drinks almost completely and I feel a lot better.  I pee like crazy now, but I don't mind so much.  I'm losing weight, which I like and I'm still getting to enjoy my sweets, but only three times a week.

For those that need their Starbucks, try just plain black coffee. That only has 2-5 calories, therefore, instead of that ridiculous coffee you can get one of their sweets; can't go wrong with the apple fritter, only 420 calories.  

Mr. Felder