Unsweetened iced Tea

I have not been great about getting in all of my water since surgery. Recently my company installed an ice tea machine,brews fresh unsweetened tea. I have been having up to two 8oz glasses of this a day with a packet of splenda. Is it OK  to count this as water, do you think I should limit my intake because of the caffeine? Its so much easier to get these down then it is plain water.

Thanks!

Denise

Tea is a diuretic - so you still need water.  Sugar free lemonade etc. does count. 

There are two main issues with tea:

1 -- caffeine intake over 300mg per day begins to interfer with calcium absorption.  (dehydration doesn't start until you've had 400-500mg or more).  Looks like there's about 26mg caffeine in a 8oz glass of Nestea unsweet tea... not sure what fresh brewed would have, so you'll need to research that.

2 -- tea has a large amount of tannins.  tannins interfer with iron absorption.  So make sure not to take your iron supplement near your tea drinking.  I'm not sure if the tannins and iron interaction only happens when they are in your system at the same time... or if the tannins work on your iron stores already in your body.  Just be aware that it's an issue and keep a close eye on your lab results.  (When I started drinking tea I noticed a dip in my iron levels)

You always have to ruin our plans by chiming in with science. :-)

you can have caffeine but sadly a caffeinated beverage will NOT count as your water.

I suspected this wasn't a great thing, I have been having a tough time getting up for work in the morning in the past few weeks and the only thing that I have changed in my routine is adding the tea ...  sad to see you go little tea - but don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!

Get yourself some decaf unsweetened tea and then you will be fine.  The caffeine will basically cancel out your water intake, and make you have to drink MORE water each day just to even out.  Sometimes water gets boring.  I drink decaf tea and decaf coffee and dont have any problems.  Decaf is your friend!!

I don't drink water, but I drink the hell out of iced tea.  I easily drink 50-70 ounces of iced tea with Splenda every day.

My iced tea consumption hasn't negatively affected my Lab work.

If I had to rely on drinking jus****er, I'd likely not get in half of the liquids that I current consume.

Buy yourself some decaf tea bags and make and take your own then you won't have to worry about the caffeine.   I drank lots of decaf tea when I was early out because it went down well.