Vice Grip (from SparkPeople - Friday, 2/12/10)

The adult human body is made up of about 60% water.

My daily fluid intake has not been.

When I started tracking my food about two weeks ago, I told myself that I would, for the first week, do two things. First, I would add more fruits and vegetables to my diet. Second, I would drink 8 8-ounce glasses of water per day. These seemed like easy "tweaks" to make in my daily routine, until I remembered something. I am a soda drinker.

That doesn't mean "I drink soda." Not like most people do. I mean, I am a capital "s," capital "d" Soda Drinker. I realized, rather abruptly, that until two weeks ago, other than a half of a cup of water at bedtime, soda was almost ALL I drank. Exclusively. And not that pansy DIET soda, either, thank you very much! Nah, that stuff'll KILL you! No, nothing but the "good stuff" for me!

Full-sugared, fully-caffeinated bubbly concoctions, usually starting by 9 o'clock in the morning. Ending, if I was being conscientious, about twelve hours later. I use a metric ton of ice in my sweat-proof 7-Eleven mug, so I rationalized that I wasn't actually drinking that much soda. But, having now measured it, I have determined that - even WITH my ice - I can cram a good 16 ounces of insulin-packed frostiness into my favorite plastic accessory. (220 calories, in case you're counting - and I AM, now) This I would fill, and refill, and refill again, usually, on a "good" day. Hmm...the resulting calories from 3 of those cups actually come close to a pretty evil number - apropos, I think.

So, the water flush began. Like ingesting a foreign substance, I choked it down that first day. I make a killer herbal iced tea, and have allowed that to count for about half of my daily "non-soda" fluid intake, which alleviated some of the suffering. I spent half of each day feeling like I was going to explode into a scale model of Niagara Falls. I got up in the middle of each night for, well, obvious reasons.

Here's the miracle part. Ready? It's only taken less than 2 weeks to not only get used to my new regime, but to EMBRACE it! I have spent years complaining that of all the vices I have put behind me, soda was the one that would have to be pried from my cold, dead hand (which could have proven prophetic should I have stayed the course). Has the frosty lure of the Mountain of Dew completely loosened its vice grip on me? Well, this isn't THAT much of a miracle story - yet, anyhow. But, I have put new parameters into place for myself:

NO soda until I have ingested at least FOUR glasses of water (or herbal tea)
NO soda before noon, and
NO cheating: I log what I drink. Period. All eleventy-jillion calories of it.

What this has done is caused me to naturally reduce my sugary-soda intake to about 16 ounces a day. And, if I feel I "need" it, a (gasp!) DIET soda at night (Diet Cherry Dr Pepper is my new buddy). Best of all, it has created in me a DESIRE to drink water - such that if I am "under" my goal at a certain point in the day, I feel it like a stranded dude in the desert with nothing but Saltines to eat.

I'll take my "miracles" where I can get them. Big OR small. For ME, this is big. Soon to get even bigger, I'll wager.