Will Drinking More Water Help Me Lose Weight?

Ok, I have read several articles that drinking between 6-8 8 oz. glasses of water a day will help you lose weight.  Maybe this is my problem, I have a serious problem drinking much water.  As a matter of fact I am a diet soda-holic.  I have AT LEAST 2 cans of soda a day, usually diet Coke, but sometimes something else.  And to be perfectly honest, sometimes that is my entire liquid intake.  I do try to drink water during a work out, but this probably amounts to a couple ounces a day.  So if I cut the soda and drink just water, and a lot of it, will it help me lose weight?  Well, I am about to find out.  I started a week and a half ago, I figure I will give it at least a month.  On the first day I weighed in at 124.5.  I also experienced a massive headache around four in the afternoon, I could barely see straight.  I'm fairly certain this was caffeine withdrawal.  When I weighed myself on day two I was 126.5.  I think it was pretty likely I had been dehydrated and now my body is chock full of water.  I have been averaging 6 cups a day, some days more some days less.  After my peak on day two my weight has slowly, but steadily gone down.  I weighed in on day seven at 122.5, although today, day 10 I was 123.  I feel great.  I still don't like drinking plain water, but it helps if it is icy cold.  I haven't really cheated much, aside from days that I don't quite make the full amount, I have been allowing myself to drink a diet soda when I eat out (I have to have SOME reward) but I only did it 3 times then I started ordering water.  So far so good.  I DO have a full bladder more often than I used to, but that's a small price to pay if this works out.  I will keep you posted. 

GM Cleanse

I picked this one first because a friend of mine did it and was all glowing about her results.  For more specific diet information you can google the diet name.  I should start this all by saying I know the reason diets work is because of calorie restriction.  The difficulty is maintaining any weight loss, because you cannot maintain the caloric restriction.  I am going into this knowing I will probably rebound.  So I weighed myself the morning of day one.  122.5.  Pretty typical.  Day one is all fruits.  They claim you don't have to starve yourself, but I challenge you to try to feel full on just watermelon, apples and berries.  I cheated once this day, I ate 5 almonds.  And an unholy amount of watermelon.  I also can not for the life of me drink 8 glasses of water in a day.  It makes me feel sick.  But I drank as much as I could.  Morning of day two: weight 119.5.  Ok.  Fairly impressive.  Day two is only veggies.  You eat a baked potato for breakfast.  As gross as this sounds, I was looking forward to it.  I was a poor planner though and put my potato in the oven when I woke up, which means I ate breakfast around 10.  Nice.  I ate every scrap of the potato.  The rest of the day I ate salads and snacked on fresh veggies.  Not too bad.  Although I don't know if they allow beans, but I ate black beans and soy beans that day.  So shoot me.  On the morning of day 3 I weighed in at 121.5.  What?
Oh well.  I am drinking a lot of water.  And eating soy beans.  Today is fruits AND veggies, oh my.  I am drooling over my kids' Frosted Mini Wheats.  I am a carb addict.  I'm no Einstein, but even I can figure this diet is mostly about cutting carbs.  Today is not too bad, I do actually like fruits and veggies.  I should mention however that I have been getting light headed.  Not exactly conducive to working out.  Day Four weigh-in: 120.5.   Going the right direction I guess.  Day four is bananas, milk and cabbage soup.  Sounds delicious right?  First of all I hate bananas.  I ate four today.  That is more bananas than I normally eat in a year.  I don't love to drink milk.  Especially when it is not preceded by consuming a warm chocolate chip cookie.  But I felt good today, I worked out (very lightly) and didn't get light headed.  4 bananas, 3 (yes 3!) glasses of milk and cabbage soup.  Yummy.  At least I didn't throw up.  The soup is what people rave about.  I was unimpressed.  I am going to puree it and see if it goes down any easier.... Not really.  Day 5 I am back up to 121.5, at this point I'm not really surprized since I haven't had a BM since Day 2 (I know, I know, TMI.  But I did promise to be honest.)  Today I eat 20 oz of lean beef (or other lean meat) and 5 tomatoes.  Luckily I love tomatoes.  Cabbage soup to fill me up.  I ate the 5 tomatoes, but I could only stomach about 12 oz of lean beef.  I was full today no problem, my biggest problem with today was getting rid of my cabbage onion breath so my husband would sit next to me on the couch.  Day Six.  121.5.  Really?  I'm surprized now that as little as I feel like I am eating I am still the same weight.  Today I get my first carbs, brown rice and only fruits and vegetables.  I can handle that.  Or can I?  I had some more almonds on day six probably an entire serving (24 almonds).  And I had quinoa instead of brown rice because it turns out I don't have any!  Calorically they are about the same and quinoa has some protein.  I don't think this is a big deal.  I go to bed that night thinking, this diet promises that on the morning of day seven I should be 10-12 pounds lighter than a week ago.  Barring some massive trip to the bathroom, I don't see how this is possible.  Day 7.  Moment of truth.  I step on the scale. 122.5.

Weight loss

My husband and I decided we are done having kids.  Although this sometimes makes me a little sad, it has given me new motivation to lose my last few pounds of " baby weight".  I have tried a lot of things.  My youngest will be 4 in November, so that has given me 3 years to try all different tactics.  Although I was back to my prepregnancy weight (125) a year later, I have never been very fit, so I wanted to work on it.  I was also thinking, my body is amazing, it gave birth to three kids, lets see what else it can do!  I slowly ramped up my work outs.  I started running, which I hated, trying to work up to a 10K.  6 mos. later I ran the Bolder Boulder, in an average amount of time, but I felt good.  I also worked in some strength training.  At this point I was probably working out 4 days a week for about an hour.  My husband encouraged me to take up cycling (his passion) so I did.  Two years post partum I reached my lowest weight ever, 118.  This was while I was doing the p90x 90 day lean plan, and trying to follow that diet.  In the next year I increased my workouts to 6 days a week.   You may think I'm crazy, working out this much, and I kind of was.  But bear in mind that I am 5'2" and my BMI is in the middle of normal.  For my height, normal varies between about 105 and 135.  During that year, I trained for and ran a half marathon and did two 100 km bike rides.  Despite my increased workouts I was back at 123.  My husband assures me that's because of my increased muscle mass.  Maybe so.  I scaled back my workouts about 6 months ago and cleaned up my diet a bit, did another half marathon and metric century bike ride, and I am still hanging out around 123.  So with all this ridiculous background information, I'll get straight to my point.  I would like to lose about 8 lbs, and would like to trim off that last little bit of belly flab, this has proved pretty difficult, and I feel I've tried a number of things.  I am already pretty fit, I am going to experiment a little with some fad diets and see what happens.  I will not take any weight loss pills, I will be honest about my results and I will maintain my current physical activity (4x/week).  This is all in an effort to save everyone else the trouble.  I am so selfless.

Saving You Money

Ok. So when I originally changed the title of my blog I had all these grand plans about what I was going to do with it. And then I never did anything at all. The idea was that I was going to save other people time/money/embarrassment by relating my relevant experiences. I also thought vaguely that if I could condense some things down to a paragraph or two that everyone OUGHT to know, but most people don't I could help them save face. Which is why I chose the title. So here goes. If you know me, you know I'm a night owl. I love the peace and quiet after my kids are in bed. Most often I just watch tv whilst my brain turns to mush. After midnight there are a lot of infomercials. I ALWAYS wonder "does it REALLY work like that?" So I figured for those of you out there that wonder too, I could tell you what I know. The Shamwow's efforts at soaking up urine out of carpet are meager at best. The first use was better that after it was washed, but nothing a Bounty paper towel couldn't handle. I cannot in good conscience recommend the Slap Chop either. After "mincing" some garlic with it, I had to do some mincing of my own with a knife. And it still smells like garlic because it is difficult to clean. I was going to throw it away, I was so mad, but I experienced my usual guilt at throwing away something that was still in the strictest meaning of the word usuable, so I put it in one of the 3 crock pots I got for my wedding so it wouldn't take up any extra space and congratulated myself on not cluttering our landfills. I get this from my mother. She won't throw away anything she thinks she can fix. Although she rarely fixes it. This might explain the meat slicer on her kitchen counter. Next, and don't ask me how I know this, but Extenze doesn't do what it says. Although I'm assuming when they say "that certain part of the male anatomy" they mean the Adam's apple. P90X will not make you look like Matthew McConaughey but if you stick with it's strict diet and work out routine, you will eventually get more toned. I do NOT recommend their recovery drink. It's disgusting. Shake Weights are a joke. And a little bit dangerous in the hands of a 3 year old. I will say however, that the Snuggie is exactly what it says it is, a blanket.....with sleeves. I can't vouch for how stylish it is, even the leopard print variety, but it does its job. So there you have it. Feel free to comment on your own experience with infomercial products.

No Title

Do you know what phrase I hate? "That's easier said than done." EVERYTHING is easier said than done, except perhaps breathing. And the phrase is always used in crazy situations, like if I was planning to break into the Pentagon and steal secret documents someone is bound to say, "You know, that's easier said than done." Of course it is! But it could also be accurately used if I was planning to go for a light jog. Or sit on the couch and watch tv for two hours. Or potty train a 3 year old. I'm going to start using it in everyday situations until people realize what a ridiculous phrase it is. Next time my friend is planning on cooking dinner for her family of four I will say, "that's easier said than done!" Just a little word of encouragement. Or if my sister is planning to take a shower, "Easier said than done." (Which if you know my sister, her showers take some serious planning and time) Or if James is going to remove someone's gall bladder, "That's way easier said than done." What is the point of the words? Are you trying to discourage someone or do think you are making an eye opening revelation? Updating my blog is much easier said than done. I say I am going to do that about every three days. Anyway to sum up everything is easier to talk about doing than to actually do. Unless you are an Ent I guess, then you can use the phrase. Now all my nerd friends are smiling and nodding their heads and all my normal friends are thinking "What? Has Marion lost her mind?" Yes, yes I have. Although I'm not sure I have any normal friends, to be completely honest.

Resolutions

I decided for one of my New Years resolutions I would finally write a post on my blog. Check.

I hope you didn't hold your breath

Here is little Joshua Michael Boyd, finally. He was born Nov. 11, 2008 at just after noon. He weighed 8 lbs 5 oz, my biggest baby. He was 19 in. long. I am sorry it took me so long, to post, but he and his siblings have been keeping me pretty busy. I'm sure most of you have NO sympathy. After all many of you have 3 or more kids and still manage to update your blogs. How DO you do it? I barely took a shower today. At 3 weeks Josh took his first airplane ride for his aunt Ally's wedding. That's what he's all dressed up for in this picture. I'd like to say I'll post more soon, but I can't make any promises.