Woo hoo - weight loss

[Tuckervill]

Two gallons of water a day is a LOT of water. If you use the now-debunked figure of eight 8-oz glasses of water a day, that's only 64 ounces. Two gallons is 256 ounces!

Too much water--it can dilute your blood and make you sick and even die.

Maybe it only seems like you're drinking that much. Maybe you can try using a water bottle with measurements on it and measure how much you drink on a typical day.

That said, if you don't mind water, don't go to diet drinks--go with tea. There are lots of teas on the market, but most of them have high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener, which isn't good for me. I drink plain unsweet iced tea, except in the morning, when I drink hot Earl Gray with sugar and milk. Sugar is not the enemy--TOO MUCH sugar is.

When I am feeling particularly bored with tea, I have a soda--not a diet soda, and I try to find one with sugar (like Jones Soda) and not HFCS. No harm in an occasional soda. For me, occasional means once a month or less, I think.

Karen

[alpinerabbit]

Yes, all kinds of teas are good to take out the boredom. Try yogi tea chai or lemon&ginger, or peppermint. No sugar.

Sweet tastes promote the release of insulin, which causes glucose (blood sugar) to be stored as fat. This is an adaptive response, because for millions of years sweet tastes have meant that blood glucose levels are about to rise, and when there is excess sugar it ought to be stored for times of fasting, when food is not readily available. Artificial sweeteners have the same effect on insulin: sweet diet drinks will increase insulin and thus the storage of fat. In this case, though, no sugar is provided by the beverage, so the drinker stores away glucose already present in the blood, glucose that is needed for energy. The result is a decrease in blood sugar, and a corresponding increase in hunger. The drinker eats more, and gains weight.