The Great Thirst

I hate water. Even when I put tons of lemons or oranges in it, I still am not a fan. I end up eating my fruit garnish and leaving the water behind. I do not drink my eight glasses a day, I won't even have one glass of plain old water in a day. The only water I drink is in my iced tea. I am an iced tea fiend! Eight glasses a day of iced tea? No problem.

I had been tested for diabetes a few years ago because my doctor thought the fact that I am always thirsty was a clue that I was diabetic. Tests came back normal. I have my own theory on my constant thirst.

This theory has two parts:
1. I'm always thirsty because tea has caffeine which is known to dehydrate. Though when breastfeeding, I only drank decaffeinated iced tea and was still thirsty all the time.
2. My body craves the taste of tea. The thirst comes from my desire to drink more tea.

When deciding to start this diet, the most troubling part of changing my lifestyle was my iced tea obsession. How was I going to continue to drink iced tea when I couldn't have all that sugar anymore? Was I going to have to learn to like another drink such as those fruit flavored waters or worse yet, plain water?

I bought a gallon of Diet Iced Tea. I used to drink it all the time before I had my daughter, but for the past few years, I have only been drinking sugar added iced teas. I added lemons thinking it would up the flavor factor. In my opinion, it still didn't have much taste. Actually the only taste (other than the lemon) was that weird fake sugar taste. You know that taste, I'm sure. It tastes like you have a mouth full of the paper from drinking straws. Yuck!

The first diet day, I barely drank anything. I woke on day two with a huge headache. I knew I was dehydrated. I tried to drink the Diet Iced Tea again, but couldn't do it. When we had gone out to dinner, I order an iced tea. They only offered unsweetened tea. Usually, I would add sugar to it. Since I'm on the diet, I sipped my tea without any sweetener. I quickly drank the first glass. The poor waitress had to refill my glass THREE TIMES. She even filled a to-go cup for me!

The answer to my drinking dilemma was obvious. Unsweetened Iced Tea, duh! I couldn't believe that I hadn't thought of it sooner. According to Weight Watcher's website, drinking unsweetened tea was 0 POINTS.

I drove to Chick-fil-a yesterday and bought a gallon of their unsweetened tea. I'm going to work on perfecting my own tea blend at home, but until then it looks like I'll have to buy my gallons there. Unfortunately, my local grocery stores offers only two types of tea, sweetened by sugar or sweetened by chemicals.

I guess the moral of my story is not to let yourself be limited by the ideas that years of dieting have pounded into our heads. If there is something you just plain love and need to have everyday then find a way to make it happen without sacrificing your dieting goals.