Monday, March 31, 2008

Smoke Yourself Thin


I'm in bed a few nights ago, past midnight, wide awake. I'm jittery and antsy and can't seem to relax. The next night, the exact same thing. What the hell is going on?

At first I reasoned my new healthier lifestyle was simply resulting in an increased level of energy. I've noticed a huge difference in my energy level in almost all facets of my life. I used to think I was just a naturally lazy person. Evidently, I was just fat.

Still, I've been sleeping VERY well since starting the Rehab Diet and haven't had any trouble falling asleep at a reasonable hour (on average, about an hour earlier). Then it dawned on me - the tea! My restlessness started just a few days after introducing Green Tea into my diet. Could a single cup of tea with a relatively low amount of caffeine be keeping me up fifteen hours later?

A 1984 report from the AMA Council on Scientific Affairs states, " Moderate tea or coffee drinkers probably need to have no concern for their health relative to their caffeine consumption provided other lifestyle habits (diet, alcohol consumption) are moderate, as well." - (Ref.: International Food Information Council)

So my overall health is not in peril, but what about my ability to get to sleep at night? Caffeine is absorbed by the body very quickly and has a half life of approximately five hours which means that by nightfall, my body should be caffeine-free. Still, I decided to stop drinking tea and see if it made a difference – and it did. Since shelving the green tea, I've had no problems getting or staying asleep.

Maybe this is all in my head. Or maybe I was jacked up for some completely unrelated reason. Or maybe my body has grown hyper-sensitive to caffeine since coming off it. Whatever it is, I've decided the supposed weight loss benefits of tea just aren't worth the caffeine. Which got me thinking: If caffeine-free tea doesn't contain the same "benefits," are the Green Tea's and Wulong's and Oolong's and Wu Tang's that claim to aid in weight loss simply pumping a little extra caffeine in your system?

Early over the counter diet pills contained massive amounts of caffeine. As a stimulant and a diuretic, many have made the link between caffeine and an increased metabolism and suppressed appetite. This is no doubt why foods that contain caffeine naturally have been hyped as "safe" alternatives to aid in weight loss. Add an ancient Chinese proverb proclaiming it's miraculous benefits, and you've got a multi-billion dollar industry on your hands.

Unfortunately for those of us looking for a quick fix, the scientific studies suggesting a link between weight loss and tea come with a disclaimer: "by virtue of its high content of caffeine." In other words, this stuff is great, but no caffeine = no weight loss.

There's another highly addictive stimulant that jacks up your heart rate and is a natural diuretic. Who knows, maybe one day "Smoke Yourself Thin" will be just as popular as these Tea Diets are today.


DISCLAIMER: I understand green tea is chocked full of beneficial antioxidants that most fatties would do well to get more of. However, most of those benefits can be obtained through other foods (or even supplements) without the negative side effects of caffeine. Am I being way too hyper-critical of a little bit of caffeine in the system? Maybe, but coming off it was enough to convince me I don't want anything to do with it. Besides, as most advocates of the wonders of tea admit, just one cup isn't going to be that beneficial.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Weigh In - 3/26


My vacation from the 290's didn't last very long.

For the first time since starting the Rehab Diet, I've gained weight in a week: I'm up one pound and back to 290. This is no doubt a result of my weekend of debauchery, and quite frankly, I was expecting worse.

While frustrating, I was never naive enough to believe I would make it through the entire twelve weeks without a blemish on my record. Keeping that in mind, I don't see the need to unduly punish myself for the transgression. I'm over it, thankful I didn't do more damage than I did and ready to jump back in the saddle.

On to Step 8...

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Wheels Off


I spent a weekend at home (as in where I grew up, not my domicile) over the Easter holiday. Sounds innocent enough, right?

Until you find out where home is: the great state of Louisiana.

That's right, where excess is more than a word, it's a lifestyle. They eat too much. Drink too much. Party too much. Eat a little more. Drink a little more. Smoke them if they've got them. Then they wake up in the morning (or early afternoon), fix a Bloody Mary and start all over again. Length of life vs. quality of life really isn't much of a debate in Louisiana: skinny and sober is no way to go through life.

And while I tend to agree with that little nugget of wisdom, I left Texas with a steel resolve not to let the weekend get the better of me. Avoiding a stop at McDonald's for the kids on the way out of town was a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, that's about all that went well.

I overate Friday at dinner. Overdrank Friday night. Ate my body weight in crawfish, potatoes, corn and sausage on Saturday. Ate deviled eggs and birthday cake at a party later that evening (God that sounds disgusting). Overdrank again Saturday night. Ate two plates of lunch on Easter Sunday. Stole a couple of handfuls of candy from the kids baskets. And the cherry on top: stopped at a Mexican restaurant on the way back into town!?!

Needless to say, I broke several "Steps" on the Rehab Diet, and as much as I'd like to blame the state itself, or my food-centric family or some deep-seeded psychological issue from my upbringing - it was all me. Just big, beautiful me.

Most discouraging of all was that even when faced with what should have been a perfectly reasonable meal, I ended up over doing it. BBQ chicken and a lump of potato salad doesn't have to be a deal breaker. Refilling the plate three times does.

So was this the inevitable binge certain skinny people warn against? Maybe, although I think it further illustrates my point that simply eating less from a table piled with bad food is incredibly hard to do. Hell, just eating less period is hard enough for the fat person, much less when faced with the temptation of something that is less than ideal. I'm sure I'm not the only fatty whose mind fires off signals that once the seal has been broken, I might as well go "all in." Knowing this about myself, cutting out the foods that plague me altogether seems like the best course of action.

But I realize avoiding contact with these foods is not a reasonable long term option. Holidays. Parties. Vacations. Restaurants. At some point they'll rear their ugly heads. And while ultimately my goal is not to deny myself an occasional pleasure, I've got to get my brain wrapped around the idea of moderation.

I've got all or nothing down pat. Its the middle that's a bitch.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Step 7 - Green Tea


What's so great about green tea? Evidently, everything.

Besides claims that green tea helps prevent and/or alleviate the symptoms of depression, headaches, cancer, arthritis, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, infections and immune deficiencies, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition released a study in 1999 that revealed drinking green tea can actually aid in weight loss.

I was pointed in the direction of green tea for issues relating to cholesterol because it's one of the few foods or drinks that actually lowers bad cholesterol and raises good cholesterol at the same time.

So what is the source of these miraculous powers? Green tea is rich in catechin polyphenols (or epigallocatechin gallate to be more specific). In semi-plain English – some bad-ass anti-oxidants.

There's quite a bit of debate as to what the ideal daily amount of green tea is - everything from a couple of cups to ten cups or more. Considering green tea contains caffeine (albeit, much less so than coffee or your standard soft drink), I was hesitant to start knocking it back by the gallon.

Luckily, there are a few decaffeinated green tea options out there as well, but I wanted to make sure none of the health benefits were also stripped out in the process. And wouldn't you know it, they are. I also found that "caffeine free" is not entirely accurate when it comes to green tea – despite the bold claim on the packaging, it's evidently impossible to 100% decaffeinate green tea.

So I've decided on one cup every morning, but I have to say this research has dampened my enthusiasm a bit for this "super drink." A) I'm subjecting my body to caffeine again for the first time in almost two months and B) it seems one cup a day might not be nearly enough to reap any of the supposed health benefits.

Still, I'm subscribing to the belief that a little bit is better than nothing at all and keeping my fingers crossed that the caffeine content in green tea is low enough so as not to cause the same problems I had with Coke.

zài jiàn!

Friday, March 21, 2008

Doing It "Healthy"



No, this isn't that kind of blog.

I'm talking about losing weight the healthy way, whatever that may be.

First, a disclaimer:
In no form or fashion do I advocate the practice of vomiting, laxatives, diuretics, stimulants or any other "fat-annihilating" pills purchasable off late night TV. To me, engaging in something life-threatening in an attempt to overcome something life-threatening is pointless. It's robbing Peter to pay Paul.

That said, it never fails - anytime I start a diet or weight loss effort or whatever, some skinny person is all too eager to let me know what I'm doing is unhealthy. As if walking around at three bills is? I boast about losing 4 pounds in a week and the bird-like pissant chirps that anything more than 2 pounds is unhealthy. Despite the fact that I can have a bowel movement over two pounds, losing any more than that in a week is somehow bad for me? Surely there's some law of proportion here, but skinny people preach this one like it's the eleventh commandment.

MEMO TO SKINNY PEOPLE:
We're all very impressed that when you try to turn your last five pounds of flab into muscle you eat six small meals a day and keep your weight loss to minuscule amounts. But if it's all the same to you, just let us go on our "unhealthy" way and keep your unsolicited opinions to your self.

Imagine: you've just suggested to someone that's 100+ pounds overweight that the effort they made to lose 4 pounds this week was not good for them. Wow.

I know, that's not what most of you mean (I hope), but if you'd ever been inside the mind of a fat person you'd understand what a comment like that does to our psyche. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't.

And the worst part? You preach it with such conviction – as if you're the first skinny person on the planet to come up with the theory. Consider who you're talking to here, people. There's not a damn thing you can "let us in on" regarding losing weight that we haven't already heard a million times before from a million different sources.

And you know what, maybe in the vacuum of metabolic nutrition it's perfectly true that losing over 2 pounds a week is... I can't even type it!?! It's just such an absolutely piss poor choice of a word. Surely, losing more than two pounds a week and waddling around town at over three hundred pounds cannot both be explained by the same word?

So short of skinny people keeping this little nugget of unwanted advice to themselves (fat chance), I'm proposing a new term for them to smugly use, since it seems to give them so much pleasure:

Losing more than 2 pounds in a week is unadvised.

See how easy that is? You still get to look like the smartass you think you are and our fragile minds are better able to draw the distinction between what is truly unhealthy and what is less than ideal.

That is all.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Weigh In - 3/19


3 more pounds and the 290's in the rear view mirror. May I never see them again.

Actually, I didn't know the 290's that well. They were really just a blur each time I shot to and above 300 pounds. And the several times I've fought my way out of them, it's been relatively painless and quick. Still, I'm hopeful I've fought that battle for the last time.

One other milestone - I'm past the 15 pound threshold. OK, so that's really just a deck chair off the Titanic at this point, but it's 5% of my body weight lost in six weeks. I'll take it.

On to step 7...

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Step 6 - Soft Drinks


My thoughts on Coke and soft drinks in general have been covered extensively in previous posts. Needless to say, I truly believe soft drinks are... well, needless.

A fun, related side trip: Death By Caffeine

To my credit, I've virtually eliminated soft drinks from my repertoire since starting the Rehab Diet. But there's one instance where I contradict myself and can't seem to shake them: as alcoholic mixers. I seldom drink during the week but my consumption on an average weekend night (usually just once a weekend) might best be described as "a lot" to "too much."

Yes, I know, that's a lot of wasted calories. And I must admit, the days I have the most trouble sticking to my plan are those after a night of heavy drinking. Plenty of skinny people have told me I have to stop drinking alcohol altogether to lose weight. Well, that's obviously another lie :-) I've lost 15 pounds drinking once or twice a week. But Step 6 still presents a challenge.

Since week one I've successfully avoided Coke as a mixer and switched to 7-Up or Sprite. All well and good for being faithful to the Rehab Diet, but the sugar and calories are still there (I've tried to switch back to Diet Soft Drinks and I just can't do it. That "fake" sweet taste completely repulses me now. More proof that the taste buds can be trained and re-trained!). So with ALL soft drinks now off the menu, what's a borderline binge drinker to do?

At first I reasoned with myself that a switch to Tonic Water would be OK. I'm a fan of the Gin & Tonic and that's not a soft drink, right? But that's really just jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire - Tonic has just as much sugar and calories as 7-Up.

So in the true spirit of the Rehab Diet, I think I really only have one option here (other than the "not an option" of not drinking alcohol at all): switch to water or calorie-free sparkling water. Or maybe skip the mixer altogether and switch to wine. Hell, I'm sure it won't be long before I'm knocking 'em back straight up! There's progress for you.

Monday, March 17, 2008

I Can Make You... Less Fat?



So several people have brought to my attention a new weight loss guru making the scene. His name is Paul McKenna and he's British and the name of his book/show/system is "I Can Make You Thin."

Really? Short of moving me to Ethiopia and restricting my diet to rancid water and flies, I will never in my life be "thin." Thinner? Hopefully. Healthier? God willing, but in the words of a nurse I once had, "Boy, you thick!"

Look at Oprah. Poor woman has got more money than most small to medium size countries, access to the best nutritionists and health food chefs money can buy plus a small army of trainers and motivational gurus and she's still not anywhere close to being "thin!" She never will be. And despite what this cheeky bastard claims, most of us never will be either.

This is one of my biggest problems with skinny people telling fat people what to do. Something as innocuous as the title of this guy's show is already setting up half of America for failure. But there us fatties go, snapping up his books like they're the last three shrimp in an all you can eat buffet. I'm guessing I Can Make You Less Fat wouldn't fly off the shelves nearly as well.

Also, I don't see anywhere in his bio that this guy has ever had anything resembling an issue with his own weight. Now don't get me wrong, not all skinny people are idiots. But let's say you need brain surgery. Are you going to the guy that's got some interesting theories on the subject or the guy that's actually done it? Exactly.

OK, rant over, on to what this guy is all about.

His golden rules are:
1. When you are hungry, eat.
2. Eat what you want.
3. Eat consciously.
4. When you think you are full stop.

Basically eat whatever you want, just eat less of it. Simple enough, and on the surface sounds reasonable, but I've got a few issues with it from a fatty's perspective (big surprise, I know).

1. Eat when I'm hungry?
We've established long ago fat people are ALWAYS hungry. But I can eat all the time and you can still make me thin? Excellent!

2. Eat whatever I want?
Isn't that what made me fat in the first place? Should I not at least try to mix in a salad or serving of vegetables every once in a while?

3. Eat slower and not in front of the TV or in your car.
Fair enough.

4. Stop when I'm full?
Sorry, I can't stop laughing... see number one.

I get what he's saying. If you only eat when you "need" to, don't plow through your plate and don't restrict yourself, you're much less likely to binge and you'll drop a few pounds. But make a fat person thin? C'mon. Plus, all of this is a helluva lot easier said by a skinny than done by a fatty.

Which leads me to his most incredulous claim: that his system requires no will power. Are you kidding me? I can starve myself for a week easier than I can shove away from a half eaten double cheeseburger or chicken fried steak staring me right in the face.

Personally, I have to get what's bad for me out of the picture. I'm not claiming I won't ever eat at a fast food joint or have a piece of fried chicken again, but once I start a step, that bad choice is completely taken off the table for the rest of the twelve weeks. Imagine putting this guy's same rules in place for a drunk:

1. Drink whenever you feel thirsty.
2. Drink whatever you want.
3. Drink consciously.
4. Stop when you start to feel a little drunk.

Sounds like a great way to kick the habit doesn't it? A true addiction or not, I believe most fat people's "abuse" of food is nothing but a bad habit. And just as bad habits are ingrained over time, good habits can be too. Cutting the unhealthy choices I make out of my life altogether one at a time gets rid of the temptations. Yes, it's hard. As hell! But like an alcoholic to booze, it's just not an option anymore.

Plus, I'm finding as I avoid foods that aren't good for me, I'm losing the taste for them. You could set an IV drip of salt, sugar and grease into me a couple of months ago. Today, these former "staples" sound much less appealing.

So, in conclusion: No, I do not think Paul McKenna can make me "thin" which makes him just another skinny person telling lies to fat people.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Weigh In - 3/12


Another successful week on the Rehab Diet: Three pounds lost, for a grand total of 13 pounds.

As I start my sixth week and the half way point of my steps, I thought I'd provide an update on my previous steps to date:

1. Coke - Have not had a Coke.
2. Fast Food - Have successfully avoided all Fast Food.
3. Exercise - Biking 6-7 miles or walking 2-3 miles three times a week.
4. Water - 60 oz. (at least) a day and too many trips to the bathroom to count.
5. Fried Foods - Just started, and definitely doing better than my past history, but have yet to fully "kick the habit."

On to step six...

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Step 5 - Fried Foods


If something tastes good, it'll taste better fried.

That about sums up my thoughts on fried food. Anything dredged in batter then dunked in hot oil = good times in my mouth. Fried Chicken. Chicken Fried Steak. Fried Catfish. Fried Okra. Fried Pickles. Onion Rings. And for dessert? Fried Twinkies, Fried Oreo's and Fried Cheesecake at the State Fair! Last, but certainly not least, the ultimate in fried food dining - the Hushpuppy: nothing but the batter, rolled up in a ball and fried to perfection.

This list of the five absolute worst foods you can eat, includes fried doughnuts, french fries, chips, and fried seafood. Funny, the only thing not fried? Soda.

As if the artery-clogging amount of trans fat in fried foods weren't bad enough, the high cooking heat can lead to the formation of carcinogens. Add the potential unhealthiness of the item being fried - like chicken skin, for instance - and you've got a triple dose of death on your plate.

So this is another one of those no-brainers: the less fried food I eat, the better. But while the other things I've cut have been relatively easy to do (minus my Coke withdrawals), this one is proving a little tougher. Skipping a trip to Popeye's or the all you can eat Catfish buffet hasn't been a problem. Avoiding fried "sides" has.

As I progress on the Rehab Diet I've started making healthier choices in my main course - Subway instead of a burger joint, grilled chicken instead of fried - but I've paid less attention to the side items. Now that fried foods are off the menu, I'm noticing how much of those fried sides I regularly consumed.

Worst of all: the tortilla chip.

As a resident of Texas, I'm required to eat Mexican food at least three times a week. Luckily, there are a handful of healthier options at most Mexican restaurants, including a dish like Chicken Tacos Al Carbon. Assuming they don't use too much lard in their tortilla's, it's a healthy enough meal of grilled chicken, pico de gallo and guacamole. The wild card is those damn chips. My family of four can go through 3-4 baskets at a sitting, usually accompanied by some form of cheese dip.

It has been the hardest temptation to resist since starting the Rehab Diet. On a positive note, this blog has resulted in a real world "intervention" of sorts. At dinner the other night with friends, a basket of tortilla chips was placed on the table. I was rationalizing having "just a few" in my mind when a friend (and reader of this blog) shook his head and said, "too bad you can't have any of these chips."

I wish for his slow and painful death...

Monday, March 10, 2008

Goals













Skinny people will tell you that you have to set a goal before starting a diet. You have to know where you're going in order to get there, they say.

A lot of people have asked me what my goal is on the Rehab Diet. Interestingly, I never really thought of one. I'm a big fan of making lists and writing down goals and keeping track of progress. I do it in my business and other areas of my personal life, and to be honest, I've done it in the past at the start of diets. But setting up weight loss goals does two things to the fat person:

1) It sets up the potential for failure, and 2) It creates the notion that once the goal weight is met, the job is finished.

I'll explain:

The fat mind is a fragile mechanism that needs to be cajoled, manipulated and even lied to at times, in order to keep the train on the tracks. Determining a weight loss goal at the beginning of this process - say 10% of my body weight - would have made me get out the calculator and determine what I needed to lose each week. In order for me to lose 30 pounds in twelve weeks I would need to lose, on average, 2.5 pounds a week. Certainly doable and not too far from the range skinny people claim is "healthy."

If you've followed my weigh-ins, you know I lost 2 pounds a week in my first three weeks. Given my propensity to lose large amounts of weight very quickly (albeit by starving myself), I can't tell you how discouraged I'd be if I felt like those measly two pounds a week fell short of some pre-determined goal - even if it were just by half a pound.

On the contrary, I lost 2 pounds that first week by doing nothing but cutting Coke out of my diet. Frankly, I wasn't expecting to lose a thing - I figured I was just making a healthier choice that would pay dividends further down the road. Imagine how giddy I was to see actual weight loss and how motivated that made me to continue?

A simple goal of weighing less than I did the week before I weighed in is about all I'm willing to commit to. Over the course of twelve weeks, I figure at the very least, I'll be 12 pounds lighter and better off than I was when I started.

The second issue with creating a goal weight is this notion that once you reach it, you're done. Nothing could be further from the truth. The number should not be the goal - the bad habits that are broken and the healthy habits that are developed are what I'm hoping will sustain my prolonged weight control (damn, I'm starting to sound like one of them). Slowly but steadily, over the course of twelve weeks, I'm changing the way I live, and that's the ultimate goal.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Weigh In - 3/5


I'm very happy to report I've doubled up on my weight loss this week, losing four pounds and bringing my total weight loss to ten pounds! In celebration of the occasion, I thought I'd list a few things that weigh ten pounds to help illustrate what I'm no longer carrying around:


1) 19" Flat Panel Television
2) Five Reams of Copier Paper
3) Bag of Indian Basmati Rice
4) Dell XPS Laptop Computer
5) Lump of Beeswax

On to step 5...

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Food Porn


I've noticed something odd in the last couple of weeks - I've developed a voracious appetite for food related television. I'll watch anything on the Food Network (except for Alton Brown - I don't care why fried chicken gets crispy in oil, I just care that it tastes like a party in my mouth). I watch Hells Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey (the Fox version doesn't compare to the original on BBC). I watch No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain and my Tivo is chocked full of all three seasons of Top Chef. I can't get enough.

At first I thought it was just a natural reaction to my healthier lifestyle. When stuffed to the gills, the last thing I want to do is watch someone cooking and eating more food. Now that I'm "less stuffed," I don't mind Rachel Ray's chipper abbreviations or Andrew Zimmerman's cockroach cocktails. But I think it goes a little deeper than that.

I think I'm addicted to food porn.

The fresh and often times, exotic ingredients. The sizzle of a pan you can almost smell! The colorful, vibrant dishes, plated just so. They make it look so inviting and so deliciously tasty and so.... I should probably stop now.

So the big question is this: is my addiction to food porn detrimental to my weight loss goals? Or can it, in some strange way, actually benefit me on my quest for a healthier lifestyle?

The way I see it is this: a skinny person will tell you the key to losing weight is never to let yourself get hungry. Had this skinny person ever actually been more than 10 pounds overweight, he or she would understand - fat people are hungry ALL THE TIME! If you're used to consuming 4,000 calories and 200 grams of fat a day, no amount of "small, manageable meals throughout the day" are going to keep you from being hungry (unless said meals add up to 4,000 calories and 200 grams of fat).

No, the key to a FAT person losing weight is learning how to embrace hunger. Getting to know the sensation for the first time in a long time and coming to some level of peace with it. Facing the beast head on and learning how to manage it.

Oddly enough, food porn helps me do that. Yes, I get pangs in my stomach after watching some of these shows. But its different than a hunger for Cheetos or Kit Kats. While many of these shows don't highlight particularly healthy options (damn you Paula Deen and your Krispy Kreme bread pudding), almost all are using fresh ingredients and cooking REAL food. Not the overly-processed and boxed crap I've been stuffing my face with for twenty years.

So yes, food porn makes me hungry. But its a hunger for real food using fresh ingredients that's actually "cooked" - not zapped in the microwave or picked up in the drive-thru. Hopefully that translates into eating better instead of eating more.

I've got to go now - Iron Chef is starting...

Monday, March 3, 2008

Step 4 - Water


Skinny people say you're supposed to drink upwards of 60 oz of water a day, or roughly half a gallon. And for one of the very few times, I agree wholeheartedly with skinny people! Its amazing how that much water cleanses your system, suppresses your appetite and fuels your workouts.

If and when I drank water before, it was bottled. Cute, little convenient 10 oz servings I kept cold in the fridge that were ready to go at a moments notice. And as I started step 4, I made sure I had a bottle in each hand every time I left the house. It didn't take long for me to recognize how many bottles I was blowing through as I tried to reach the expert-recommended level of 60 oz a day.

Now I'm no environmentalist. I'm all for the rain forests and spotted owls prospering, so long as neither one interferes with my God-given right to air conditioning. But the site of my trash can filled with nothing but empty plastic bottles really seemed ridiculous.

Finally, I hit the bottom of the well. With no Sam's run in my immediate future and my supply of bottled water depleted I did the unthinkable. I got out a plastic cup, filled it with ice, walked to the tap and filled it up. It tasted a little different at first, but (just like my taste buds adjusting to less grease and sugar and fat) after a couple of days, my mouth is none the wiser.

Despite my wife's insistence that she can taste the difference between water from the kitchen and water from the bathroom, I'm convinced 99% of humans can't tell a bit of difference between French mountain water, Ozark spring water and the fluoride-fortified tap water that's piped to our faucets for pennies a day. Oh, I know, you say you can. But put your money where your taste buds are – especially since we're considering the taste of a flavorless liquid here.

Water is water is water.

Except now its not "just" water. There are Flavored Waters. Vitamin Waters. Sport Waters. These drinks are 99% water with just enough aspartame or crystalline fructose or citric acid or vitamin supplement thrown in to make them marketable. Not a whole lot different than diet soft drinks - which also claim to be 99% water.

The manufacturers of these drinks claim they're helping Americans get their daily dose of water. OK... but most are also giving you a daily dose of other crap that it's either not that great for you or you just don't need.

So are these nouveau waters healthy? Some more so than others I guess, but overall, what's the point? Plop a multi-vitamin and a glass of tap water and save yourself the two bucks and 125 calories in a bottle of Vitamin Water. If you're a professional athlete, by all means, down some Gatorade, but is a bottle of Propel really going to be that dramatically more effective at re-hydrating the average weekend warrior than a glass of water? I think not.

So I'm saving those calories for someplace else, saving the earth (one tiny little plastic bottle at a time) and saving my wallet - all while I get my 60 oz a day. Which, by the way, is not easy to do. Considering I used to knock out a 48 oz Coke in one sitting, I didn't think I'd have any problem substituting water, but it really does take a concerted effort.

That, and a lot more trips to the bathroom.