Tag Archives: Drink Water

Biblical Responses To Hunger

Got the munchies? Not sure what to do? Let’s take a look at the Bible to see how our spiritual ancestors handled their growling tummies. Some of these people showed wisdom and some showed folly. Let’s see if you can spot my 2 favorites for application in our own lives!

1. Sell your birthright for red lentil stew. (Genesis 25:29-34) Poor Esau. Let’s hope it was the best stew he’d ever had! Think he got seconds?

2. Threaten to wipe out an inhospitable man and his entire family. (1 Samuel 25) I don’t really blame David here. Hungry war bands should be fed right away, especially if they asked nicely. Good thing Abigail was there to smooth things over.

3. Borrow a kid’s lunch and share it with five thousand men and their families. (Mark 6:30-44) This one might be above our pay grade.

4. Eat only vegetables. (Daniel 1:8-20) Daniel and his friends did this for ten days and became the best looking young men in Babylon’s captive-to-magi training program.

5. Give the last of your food to a prophet. (1 Kings 17:7-16) You’re going to die anyway, right? May as well please God before you do; He has a way of taking care of his own.

6. Drink some water and wait for God to send you ravens carrying food. (1 Kings 17:1-6) This is a good idea even if you’re not hiding in a desert ravine to save your life. God might not send ravens your way, but the concept is good: drink and wait.

Did you catch my favorites? That’s right: #4 and #6! Eat vegetables, drink, and wait. When your body asks to be filled, do it right! And for the entrepreneurs out there, make some really, really good lentil stew and buy your family’s inheritance cheap.

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: SOUP: Water and Vegetables. Tags: Bible, Drink Water, healthy living, humor, maintaining a healthy weight, Soups and Stews. Leave a comment

Aug. ’14

Beverage Math

You’ve probably seen Beverage Math on just about every weight loss episode of any talk show for the past ten years. An overweight guest stares hopefully at the host as s/he pulls up a power point slide showing that if the overweight guest stops drinking soda (or “pop” or “Coke” if you’re not a nor’easter), s/he will lose ten pounds in a year. I’ve always been envious of those guests and their Soda Math. Stop drinking soda and lose ten pounds?! That would be so easy! Easy for me because I only drink soda a few times a year.

My envy ended when it occurred to me that while I may not have a Soda Math situation going on, I do have Coffee Math: I take my coffee on par with melted coffee ice cream. Whether I add half and half, milk, creamer, sugar, or a combination of them all, each mug for me averages 100 calories apiece. And I drink it like that twice a day. Ready for the Coffee Math?

One pounds = 3,500 calories. So 200 calories of coffee per day x 365 days per year = 20.8 pounds. Twenty pounds in one year simply by switching to black coffee. That would be so easy!

But I love creamy coffee. I don’t want to drink it black.

But twenty pounds? I want to lose twenty pounds.

What if I drank creamatose coffee once a day and black coffee once a day? That’s ten pounds in one year and twenty pounds in two. And I can still start my morning with creamy sweet caffeine.

When we drink our calories, we tend to savor them less than the calories we chew. I’m not saying that we should only ever drink water and water-calorie equivalents (black coffee, unsweetened tea, etc); I’m just saying that we should do our own personal Beverage Math. We all have that one drink we’d rather not give up. So don’t give it up. Cut it in half if you need to, but savor every drop.

“Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”” John 4:13-14

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: SOUP: Water and Vegetables. Tags: beverage math, coffee, coffee and weight loss, creamy coffee, drink calories, Drink Water, soda and weight loss. 2 Comments

Feb. ’14

What kind of water is best for weight loss?

The wet kind!

Most things you consume in a liquid state will keep you hydrated; some just have extra benefits or extra pitfalls that come with them. For example, juice has all of the vitamins and sugar found in fruit, but none of the fiber and mandatory chewing that slows down calorie consumption.

So here’s a quick 4 question quiz to see if you know how to keep your body hydrated and on the track to good health! I’ve included a few hints to help you along the way.

1. What percent of your body is water?
a. 30% like a gila monster after a day in the desert sun.
b. 60% One man actually lost 25 pounds of water weight in 48 hours to “prove” that scales are useless. That’s approaching gila monster humidity and he was promptly rushed off to get an IV drip.
c. 90% like a jellyfish.

2. How many ounces (total) of water should you drink each day?
a. 8 ounces – your blindingly bright yellow or orange colored pee should tell you that this is not the correct answer. Bad blog reader, bad! Most water bottles aren’t even that small.
b. 8 8 ounce glasses – correct, but don’t be lazy, do the math.
c. 64 ounces. Correct! (8oz x 8 glasses = 64) That’s 8 cups of water, or 4 pints, or 2 quarts or one half gallon, or three hours sipping at a water fountain. (I’m glad fountains exist, but when you’re thirsty, they’re maddeningly slow to drink from. Some sort of wall hose would be preferable.)

3. Which of the following beverages count towards your 64 ounces?
a. Coffee and tea. It’s water with natural brown food coloring. Don’t believe me? Check out this myth-busting research.
b. Juice and lemonade. It’s still mostly water, just watch the sugar intake. Sip and savor, but save the chugging for water.
c. Soda. Nope, not even close. It’s liquid, but your body has to use all the water it contains to flush out all of the chemicals it also contains, so you end up not hydrated.

4. Which of the following are benefits of drinking enough water?
a. Flushing out toxins. This is obviously good, right? No commentary needed? Why am I still typing?
b. Energized muscles. Not feeling up for a little exercise? Drink some water; dehydration causes muscle fatigue.
c. Hydrated skin that looks good. Eat your heart out, Maybelline! Moisturizers create a barrier that helps keep moisture in your skin, but if the moisture isn’t coming from the inside out, that barrier is ineffective.

Two footnotes:
1. If you need an answer key, leave a comment and I’ll contact you; I have some magic beans I’d like to sell you.
2. Gila monsters have more like 70% water in their bodies, not 30%, but they LOOK so darn dry! And in the dry months they survive by not urinating for months. Gross, but so very cool too. The point is, you are not a gila monster. Raise your glass and drink up! A toast to your health!

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

Images are from:

http://www.volusia.org/services/public-works/water-resources-and-utilities/

https://beccasbyline.wordpress.com/2011/09/

http://diabetesdailypost.com/learn-why-you-need-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-per-day/

http://savenaturesavehuman.blogspot.com/2012/05/gila-monster.html

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/coffee-and-hormones

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: SOUP: Water and Vegetables. Tags: Diet, Drink Water, God, Health, healthy living, humor, low calorie diet, maintaining a healthy weight, Water, Weight loss. 3 Comments

Dec. ’13

Biblical Responses To Hunger

1. Sell your birthright for red lentil stew. (Genesis 25:29-34) Poor Esau. Let’s hope it was the best stew he’d ever had! Think he got seconds?

3. Borrow a kid’s lunch and share it with five thousand men and their families. (Mark 6:30-44) This one might be above our pay grade.

4. Eat only vegetables. (Daniel 1:8-20) Daniel and his friends did this for ten days and became the best looking young men in Babylon’s captive-to-magi training program.

5. Give the last of your food to a prophet. (1 Kings 17:7-16) You’re going to die anyway, right? May as well please God before you do; He has a way of taking care of his own.

Posted by Katie Robles. Categories: SOUP: Water and Vegetables. Tags: Bible, Drink Water, healthy living, humor, maintaining a healthy weight, Soups and Stews. Leave a comment

Aug. ’13

Second Week Is Soup

Just as sex combines exercise and sleep (read my last post if that came out of nowhere for you), SOUP combines two more elements that I believe are essential for weight loss and a healthy lifestyle: water and vegetables.

Our bodies are 60% water, so let’s start there. A research study showed that drinking 16oz (one bottle) of water before each meal helped people lose more weight and keep that weight off. It makes sense, right? If your stomach is full of water, there’s less room for food.

But water is so boring! Yes, yes it is. Dress it up with lemon if you have to, but chug it down. Because if your pee is still Crayola Crayon Laser Lemon Yellow after lunch, you’re not drinking enough water.

Another great reason to drink water is that if you’re drinking water, you’re not drinking soda, juice, tea, coffee, etc. Calorie-wise, that’s HUGE! Now, I love my coffee. And I love it about as close to melted coffee ice cream as you can get. So, I’m not saying that you can never drink anything other than water; I am saying that most of what you drink should be water.

^“You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst.” (Nehemiah 9:20, NIV)

And now, the moment you’ve all been dreading…. Time to eat your vegetables.

Yes, your mother was right.

At a family reunion a couple of years ago, I looked around at the plates of all of my skinny relatives and noticed two things when I compared their plates to mine. 1. They had less on their plate. 2. Half of their plate was covered by veggies.

Vegetables (or “rabbit food” as my siblings and I used to call them) have lots of fiber, nutrients, and vitamins and very, very few calories. (Which means you can pig out on them and that’s a good thing!) They, along with whole grains and legumes, were the original menu planned by God in the Garden of Eden.

One theory I heard is that your body will continue to crave food until all of its nutritional requirements are met. That means that if you fill your body with crap, it will ask for more in hopes that it will get the nutrients it needs. If you fill your body with vegetables, your body gets what it needs and stops asking.

So, here are a few rules for vegetables:

Rule 1: Half of your plate should be full of vegetables at lunch and dinner.

Rule 2: It is ALWAYS okay to snack on vegetables. 10am, 3pm, midnight, I don’t care…eat them until you’re sick.

Rule 3 (The Rule of Thumb): If you can do plain ol’ naked veggies, please do. I rarely can. I eat a whole lot more of them when they have a little extra flavor (read that “fat and salt”) added. So, the Rule of Thumb. Look at your hand; your palm and four fingers represent the amount of veggies you’re preparing and your thumb represents the maximum amount of “flavor” you can add to it. Bowl of green beans? Thumb of butter and salt. Baby carrots? Thumb of Ranch dressing. Keep in mind, the less fat and salt you add, the better. Perhaps it should be called the “Rule of Half a Thumb”?

You will learn to like vegetables, I promise. After eating them all the time for months, I actually started to crave them. (Don’t worry, I still like chocolate; the insanity hasn’t spread that far!)