Just wanted to add that I had this conversation with my personal trainer last year. It's apparently a big debate in that profession anyway. His suggestion was that of your recommended water intake, half needs to be actual water and the rest can be tea. This made it much easier for me to hit that 7-8 glasses. Which surely is better than the constant flow of diet soda I was drinking.
I'm also pretty surprised at how low my calories have been. I just checked randomly - this is my first week. My calories are in the 1200 calories/day range. When I was calorie counting, I would stress midday only having a few hundred calories left and feel like I was starving. This would generally lead to feelings of defeat and binge eating before bed. I'm surprised because I haven't been hungry at all, and generally go to bed with points left.
I'm very hopeful
