Would you like some tea with that sugar?

Now, I'm not from the south, but I like my iced tea sweet.  Not sweet tea sweet, but I definitely put a pack (or 2 or 3) of sugar in each glass.  I then moved on to Splenda, not so much for the reduction of calories, but because it mixed in easier.  Hot tea, on the other hand, I can drink plain, no sugar necessary.  Why is that?  That's the question I finally asked myself on Monday night when I decided to not sweeten my iced tea.  It was just fine!  Sure, I still like it sweetened, but that can be a once in a while thing when I really want something sweet, not every time and every glass.  I know there are people out there who think Splenda and other no-calorie sweeteners are evil, and although I'm not one of them, I do recognize that putting artificial ingredients into my body isn't the best thing.

Another thing I started trying to do this week is listen to my body more.  While I haven't been able to stop the mental calorie counting, I haven't been tracking it online and I'm trying to eat what I want, when I want, no more, no less.  With tracking online, I would see that I could still eat a certain number of calories left and I'd either eat something to make the 'quota' even though I wasn't really hungry, or I'd worry that I wasn't eating enough.  On other days, if I knew I ate too much I wouldn't track at all because I didn't want to see the numbers staring back at me and the words "you were over your calorie limit for the day."  I like tracking and I think it's very important to be conscious of what you're eating and how that fits in with your goals, but I think I'm ready to try doing it on my own.  I've done pretty well so far, I think.  Last night I mentally approximated everything and had a few hundred calories left over, but I wasn't hungry, so I didn't eat anything.  I hope this keeps working for me, although I definitely still look up nutritional info before I go somewhere new or eat something that isn't labeled because I feel the need to still have an idea, and I do mentally still tally things up.

This post is brought to you by Jamba Juice for fueling my morning with their delicious oatmeal after Starbucks' Vivanno smoothie was yucky and I didn't have anything to eat breakfast at work.