Surviving. That's a start.

Interesting that my last post was about willpower, because the last two days have been nothing BUT a test of my willpower. Yesterday, I cooked my chicken and mushroom enchiladas for my parents, one of my favorite meals, but couldn't take a single bite. Being around the amazing smell of melting cheese and green chilis was absolute torture as I munched on my celery sticks with Tofutti cream cheese. Last night, The Roommate and I shared a kitchen as we cooked for the coming days; she made a batch of peppermint chocolate fudge, and I made a batch of Green Gazpacho.

Yummy AND Healthy = WIN!

Both situations were tempting as hell, but you know what? I SURVIVED, and that's a start. I stuck to it. I made good food choices, took all my medication on time (super challenge there), and I drank a ton of water. Oh, and on the water topic, I found something that helps me a LOT.

I know how horrible it is, but I'm bad at just drinking water. I always try to jazz it up by adding those little drink-mix packets and convince myself that I'm drinking something fruity. But, suddenly the packets are pretty much off-limits, since they contain both sugar and calories, (and the fake-sugar ones give me a headache). All the books say that when you think you're hungry, you might really be thirsty because your brain has a hard time telling the difference. And water is super important for flushing out all those bad toxins, too.

So, I don't generally plug things on this blog. It bugs me when I read a friend's entry only to realize that I've been duped into reading an advertisement, so I don't do it here. (For the record, if I ever plug a product intentionally for a benefit, I'm going to mark the entry so y'all know, today is not that day, this is just me talking.)

But occasionally I find something really cool that I enjoy, and I want to talk about it. Such is the current case. The Roomate and I decided that this year, instead of getting eachother Christmas gifts, we'd just pitch in to buy one thing that we wanted to share; something for the house. We decided, after using one at a friend's house, that we wanted to get a SodaStream.

Not mine. Pic from SodaStream.

You've seen the adverts, I'm sure. It's pretty basic; buy the unit and a canister of C02, and you can carbonate your own tap water into something fizzy. There's a whole line of soda and water flavors you can buy, too. Far fewer calories and much lower cost than the store-bought stuff, and pretty tasty to boot.

Usually though, I just carbonate a bottle of water and add a splash of lemon or lime juice. It's cold, fizzy, and delicious, and it gets me drinking MUCH more water in a day than I otherwise would. It also feels a bit sinful, like I'm having a soda, when in actuality, it's healthy. (Shhh...don't tell my soda cravings that it's fake!)

I can usually drink 2 or 3 liters a day, which believe me is FAR more than I usually do. I can tell a huge difference, when I drink enough water, too. My head feels clearer and I have more energy. Plus, there's the added bonus of not feeling hungry! It's definitely helping as I fight off the temptations of much unhealthier drinks around me.