Thursday, February 18, 2016

Giant Bag of Mostly Water

What has worked best for me re: hydration is: KEEP IT SIMPLE. (I do not call myself stupid.) Hydration = drink water. Nevermind fresh lemon juice, nevermind apple cider vinegar, make it the easiest possible and progress only and optionally after you've mastered that: fill up a jar with water, put it on your nightstand, when you wake up drink it and take your meds. I mean, I only take three meds; one of them is a vitamin, one of them is a baby aspirin, and one of them is private. I feel like that's not up to the level where I can call them meds. I panic if I forget my baby aspirin, though. So I bought this hilarious (to me) huge LARGE PRINT pill dispenser, there was a moment at the pharmacy where I was saying to myself, Poppy do you always need to be so outlandish? But you know how that ends up is, I'm never outlandish. The other day I thought my grey and black outfit needed an accent color, and I picked grey for the accent! So like I'm standing there at the pharmacy looking with heart eyes at the large print dispenser and reaching for a sensibly-sized pill dispenser, which is already a compromise because sheesh what is the problem with remembering to take three pills per day, and then out of nowhere heart eyes took over the hand controls and grabbed the pill dispenser that sparked joy.

water jar and pill container

This is not a post about hydration. This is a post about how I am mental. Well, so what. I am mental. Carrie Fisher is mental, and I like her. I mean, I don't know Carrie Fisher. The upshot is, I never forget to take my meds now. And I'm really well hydrated for like the first time ever.

Another funnyish hydration story: so you know, I weigh myself every day. Which I don't actually recommend if you have any emotional attachment to those numbers, I don't. I used to, and it was partly—maybe largely—weighing myself every day that detached me from that. So. YMMV. My weight has been essentially unchanged since 2012, and by essentially unchanged I mean that it ranges between 139 and 134 on any given day.

Of course this weighing habit started at a time when I was trying to Lose Weight, so I had a few rules—you know, for science—about when to weigh, i.e., when I got up in the morning, after I peed, before I drank water. And actually I think this idea that I couldn't drink water before I weighed myself was blocking me from this really excellent drink water first thing when I wake up habit, which sets me up for a whole day of drinking water and, weirdly, wanting to drink water, which is relatively new. So eventually that occurred to me, and I realized, well, that's dumb. At this point, I've already jammed a little wedge into the rules—i.e., about having to weigh naked mainly because that does not flow with my morning, and flow is all. And also because in Chicago in winter it's really cold to be standing naked in my bathroom. And having to weigh, out of bed, before I drink water, in bed, does not flow. And flow is all. And I think about being a giant bag of mostly water. (I do not call myself ugly.) And this checks out with my experience from last summer, I am mostly water and I'm not all myself if I haven't had enough water, and just drinking a glass of water adds a little bit of me back to myself. And you dehydrate when you sleep, you know. So I'm not all myself when I wake up, I have to add that little bit of me back. The water is part of me! And I should weigh all of me.

(So incidentally, I am developing a twitch about people saying that they lost X lbs, "but it's just water." You mean it's just you, you just lost you! You probably needed that. Respect the water, man. That doesn't mean disrepect the fat, you need that too. Respect all of you, your weight will find its own level.)

So now I drink 16 fl oz water before I weigh, and yes, that is literally one pound, that's what a fluid ounce is, the amount of water that weighs one ounce. If you care, the order is drink water, get up and pee (not part of me), and weigh. With my pajamas on, but not my hoodie or my slippers.

Sometimes I read other bloggers and I think, sigh, they already wrote what I was thinking. And then I write something like this and I think, ha yeah but do you think THIS.