Treading water

Full disclosure: No, I didn´t stick to my good intentions re: carbs yesterday, at least not completely. Late in the evening, I succumbed to the siren song of a croissant that was sitting in our bread box. Just a small one, and I left the second one in the box. Which shows again that permitting everything in moderation is necessary for me to keep a yen for something forbidden from turning into a full-blown binge.
The scales, this morning, said no change.
I had to be at the office very early this morning, but I did take my morning walk before going to work. For a confirmed night-owl like myself, that means something.
And I have the big teacup on my desk as I type this. It helps to stay hydrated.
I found out, actually, that drinking lots of water or tea is beneficial in more than one way.
You see, I used to be one of those people who had half a cup of coffee in the morning and then didn´t drink anything until night. When a medicine student friend at the university noticed that, she talked me into drinking  a full liter of water over the course of one evening. The result was that my poor kidneys must´ve thought there was a deluge coming on. I spent the better part of that evening with heavy pain in that area, until I was able to go to the bathroom and remove some of the liquid, so to say.  The experience scared me badly enough to realize that I was probably heading for a case of kidney stones unless I were to hydrate more regularly.
So, I started drinking water or tea on a regular schedule. The pain in my kidneys hasn´t returned, but I noticed something else.
Namely, that I had, for some time already, confused the signs of hunger with those of  thirst. My body had been trying to tell me it needed liquids quite often, and I - had fed it some dry cookies or something of that kind. So, I had been consuming calories, without necessity, while refusing my body the thing it really needed, namely, hydration.
Drinking water (with or without a teabag in it) was therefore reducing the number of times when I felt I had to eat something, too. And not consuming those extraneous calories helped, too.
Of course, I have to stay vigilant when it comes to my tendency to forget to drink.
But I´m getting better at it.


Julia