So tonight marks the end of my second official week on my new life-style journey. This week has been exceptionally better than last week.
My biggest revelation to myself this week is that I have been chronically dehydrated for the better part of my life. Prior to this mind shift, I was lucky to have a glass of water a day. My liquid diet consisted of Mountain Dew and Diet Coke. Maybe I would throw in a Diet Snapple occaisionally, but it was mostly Mountain Dew. This week I made a goal to drink 6 8 ounce glasses of water a day, or 48 ounces per day. I hate water. When I get to about half a bottle I start to gag at the thought of having to swallow it. I am happy to report that for 5 out of the last 7 days, I drank all of my water. I have been AMAZED at how much better I've felt! I haven't been as sluggish, my skin has looked better, and the best part, I haven't been hungry.
A little tip - drink your water with and/or after a meal. I've always been told that if you feel hungry to drink some water because sometimes your body confuses being thristy with being hungry. Whenever I've tried to just force water down, it always made me hungrier. Well, this week, I found out that if I drink my water during and/or after a meal it really fills me up. The up side to this is I don't eat as much during the meal, and I'm not inclined to snack afterwards.
A smaller, but equally exciting revelation this week is that I've noticed myself pushing my plate away once I start to feel full, without really thinking about it. For too long I have been a member of "The Clean Plate Club." I blame family who always made us kids clean our plates before we could open presents at Grandma's house on Christmas Eve. But I digress, it's always been hard for me to let food go to waste. It's just too good. I ate quite a few meals at work this week, both breakfast and lunch. I would eat as I worked. An hour or so after I had originlly heated up the meal and brough it to my desk, I noticed I had slid the plate up by my computer monitor so I could work, and every time there was food left. Now, granted, I would usually finish the food later, but I wouldn't eat it until I was hungry.
The scale has been moving this week, which makes me happy and keeps me motivated. Tomorrow morning is weigh-in. I'm hoping for around 3 pounds, but will be perfectly happy with just 1. That is my acceptable rate of weight loss after all.
Have you tried adding tea to your water? They make them with no sugar now and taste really good! (Liptons green tea is really sweet tasting, with no sugar!) That might help you get the water down? Or freezing the water and drinking it through a straw as it melts? Or my Mom's favorite a large gulp of water and a sip of dt soda as a chaser LOL. My Mom hates water too and these are things she does to get it down.
ReplyDeleteCONGRATULATIONS!!! I am so proud of you for drinking water. My husband is also learning to drink water :) I too have been trying to push my plate away as soon as I feel full and am now doing it without too much thought and with less regret. My next step is to not put as much food on my plate as I do my husbands.......he burns way more calories than I do so I don't know why I would ever think we could eat the same amount of calories, etc.!
ReplyDeleteHad to laugh at the "clean your plate club" comment. We were just talking about that last weekend on our Girls Weekend... That's how we were raised but we are big girls now (no pun intended) and we know better now.
ReplyDeleteOne trick to not eating as much food is using a smaller plate. I've started doing that. We tend to use paper plates becuase I hate doing dishes. We have 2 sizes; the normal size for Kevin, and the smaller size for me. I get to fill up my plate so I don't feel deprived, but I'm not eating near as much as Kevin.
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