Reasons #3 and #4 Why I'm Fat -- Water & Pop Consumption

This is installment #3 and includes 2 reasons why I'm fat from my Reasons or Excuses post.

Since it's Water Wednesday reminder time for myself, I will cover that.  Here's a post from the past explaining how and why water consumption is so important, but today I'm talking about how I have avoided accepting that somehow. 

Yup.  It's a reason, not an excuse.  I don't drink enough water and drink way too much pop.  It started when my parents moved me to the country where there was well water when I was about 7.  Stinky well water.  So stinky, I called it Fart water.

I honestly don't know how I survived with all this talk about how important drinking water is for us all.  I can remember moments of feeling I had no choice but to drink it.  It caused me great anxiety and I would hold my breath to get it down, but it was rare.  Since there was no such thing as bottled water, I can only assume I survived through the school years by drinking the city water at the schools I attended.  Summers?  I'm not sure how.  My body must have adapted to sucking every ounce of water it could from anything else I took in.  I'm assuming it was those summer months that brought on a thirst that made me gulp down the occasional glass.

It was the better part of my young and adolescent life that we moved between cities and the boonies with well water.  As soon as I was 18, I moved back to the city, but then I met my now husband who got me back to the country.  By that time, however, we had bottled water in the 1990s.  I bought little jugs of it here and there, but I had already reached the point where I traveled with a pop in my hand or at my side at all times.  I was never without it.  Water is just so boring.

Fast Forward to today, and guess what?  I live in a house with well water AGAIN.  I also spent the last 12 years being a work-at-home mother that called for late nights, and the caffeinated pop helped to combat the resultant fatigue running on 4 hours of sleep brought about throughout the day.  The self-employment/work-at-home status overlaps into a lot of my reasons really.  It may be one of my biggest regrets thus far. 

I buy jugs of water, and the pop habit is a hard one to break.  Food tastes better with it as a side at dinner and I drink it in the morning and all day.  I don't do coffee as I can't stand it.  Judge away I suppose.  I know you're out there.  Doesn't matter really.  It's a lot of calories, and empty calories at that.  I guess I just adjusted to everything that passed my lips having flavor--good flavor.  I KNOW this.  I have to Force myself to drink water.  I can literally go months without ever taking a drink of water, and it doesn't bother me--only my conscience because I know better deep down inside now.

This is an ongoing challenge for me, but it's a battle I know I can ultimately win.  It's a lifestyle change....even a deeply ingrained subconscious habitual or psychological change that I have to bring into my consciousness and keep it there.  

If you would like a recap of some of the other identifiable Factors to my Fatness, here are the previous two so far:

Reason #1:  Sleep Hygiene/Lack Thereof
Reason #2:  Self-Employment/Work-At-Home Status through the Baby Days


Is inadequate water consumption or soda pop intake a part of your problem? Why do you think you substitute pop for water?

Water Wednesday Reminder!!!

Remember to drink an adequate amount of water each and every day.  There have been numerous studies all pointing to the fact that doing so helps people lose weight.

Inadequate water intake has always been my downfall.  I think I started to learn how to go without water when we moved into the boonies.  I just couldn't get past what I referred to as "Fart Water" (aka well water with a Funky smell and taste to a city girl).  In hindsight, I wondered how I survived at all, but my body must have been pulling any and all water out of anything I put into my body enough to keep me here.

Your liver metabolizes fat to convert it to stored energy, but when your kidneys are deprived of water, they don't function normally.  The liver then shifts its focus from its normal functions to picking up the slack for the kidneys, which lowers it's efficiency.  It can't metabolize fat as quickly or efficiently as it can when the kidneys are pulling their own weight in the grand scheme of things.  When you fail to take in an adequate amount of water, you are being unfair to your liver and also happen to be setting yourself up for fat storage.

Water also promotes beauty by flushing impurities out of your system.  Those impurities may have been stored in the fat in your body, as you have put your body into "survival mode."  Survival mode is when your body isn't getting enough of what it needs and it creates stores of it to see you through until it thinks you'll be getting it next.  It just so happens to take some junk with it into storage because that's all you gave it.  Water is said to also combat saggy skin to a degree by plumping up your skin cells.

Some also feel that water helps them feel fuller throughout the day.  (I don't notice this, but some do apparently.)  

Some studies suggest that drinking cold water may speed up your metabolism a spell by the energy needed for the body to bring it to body temperature.