The Miracle Drink
Shame on me!  I missed my weigh-in yesterday because I had to be up and out the door by 7:30am.. Today I paid the price.  The scale was back up to 159.7, probably because I hardly drank any water at all yesterday and topped off the night with an Irish coffee and a salty cheese sandwich.  The fact that I hadn't eaten all day didn't help me at all.  My body only responded to what I DID eat, and it was the wrong thing at the wrong time, which threw my system completely off.

Water is just about the greatest gift we can give our bodies.  When we go all day without drinking, as I did yesterday because I was so busy running around town for 12 hours, our bodies build up toxins that just sit there making us feel worse.  The body is, after all, like a miraculous machine, which needs coolants and lubrication as much as any other engine.  If you fail to quench your car's thirst for coolants and oil, it will eventually burn up and quit working.  Our bodies are the same way.

Don't wait until you're thirsty to drink water.  Start with small sips throughout the day....just enough to refresh your mouth.  As you swallow it, feel the coolness trickling down your esophagus and distributing itself through your digestive organs.  Within seconds you'll also feel it affect your brain, bringing added alertness to your thinking processes.  I've found it to be better and quicker at reviving me than a bottle of 5-Hour Energy or an espresso.  Plus, it doesn't give me the shakes or make me irritable...and it's a lot cheaper than any other elixir!

When I told my massage therapist last week that I was stiff and sore every morning when I got out of bed, she asked me how much water I was drinking.  I fibbed and said, "About 64 ounces a day," when it was really more like 40 at the most.  She told me to drink more water, and that I was probably dehydrated.  I do recall that when I weight 142 pounds I didn't hurt anywhere....and those were the days when I was drinking nearly two gallons of water each day.  Hmm...maybe there really is a correlation!

Anyway, water is one of the keys in my 11 concepts for Bucket List Weight Loss.  In fact, it's #11.  I guess maybe I saved the best and easiest one for last.

This is fixing to be a rough week, weight wise.  I'll be doing all the baking and food prep for a large party next Sunday, so I'll at least be tasting things that aren't good for me while I'm in the kitchen.  To prepare, I'll mentally rehearse my day each morning right before I get up  I'll plan to be hungry, to drink water, to exercise, to walk the dogs, and to care less about the food I'm preparing than the people for whom I'm preparing it.

It's getting to be a rough time of year for all of us who are trying not to gain weight.  Keep reminding yourself that Christmas is not about cookies and fudge.
It's about the birth of a savior.  The gift of Christmas is just as great whether or not we have spritz cookies and chocolate covered pretzels.