I had a shock yesterday when I took out my measuring cups. I had been wondering how much water my coffee mug and my favorite water cup actually held. I counted the coffee mug as two cups and the tall glass as three cups based on an eyeball estimate.

Imagine my surprise when I pulled out the measuring cup, poured water into them and found that BOTH only held two cups of liquid. There is a little room at the top of both of them for about a quarter cup more water if I were willing to carefully lift them to my lips, but mostly, they only hold two cups.

This was a surprise to me because I had been counting the tall glass as three cups ever since I bought the cup full of alcoholic slushie in Las Vegas. Not only did I overestimate the calories of the alcoholic drink, I have been overestimating how much water I’ve been drinking ever since.

Instead of six glasses of water every day, I’ve been getting only four. In the case of the alcohol, I ended up counting more calories than I actually had, which is probably why I lost weight that week in Las Vegas.

Why should I measure? Because looks can be VERY deceiving.