This is probably a total no-brainer but I just wanted to make sure you know how important it is to drink water.
You already know that right?!?
Water:
- helps regulate your body temperature
- lubricates your joints and muscles
- flushes waste from your cells
- cleanses your internal organs
- balances body fluids
- eliminates impurities from your bloodstream
If you suffer from constant fatigue, headaches, hunger, and just an overall sense of feeling crappy it’s quite possible that all you need to do is drink more water and cut back on other beverages…especially diet soda and those with empty calories.
Here’s a fun fact: A study done by the University of Washington found that drinking one large glass of water when feeling hungry stopped hunger in 98% of those participating in the study. 98%! Do you think it might be a good idea to drink some water the next time you feel hungry? Chances are you’re dehydrated–NOT hungry.
Water, yes WATER is what you should be drinking 99% of the time!
Other beverages like soda, juice, alcohol, fancy coffee drinks, etc. only add unnecessary calories to your diet and offer very little in terms of nutritional value. Diet drinks may have zero calories, but they TOTALLY disrupt the delicate pH level of your body and cause subtle health problems that can turn into bigger problems over time.
Seriously, that’s a WHOLE other topic that I won’t go into right now!
Coffee and tea is OK, but remember to keep the sugar, milk, or creamer to a minimum. Also, try to replace sugar and artificial sweeteners with stevia, and cream or half-and-half with skim or low-fat milk.
Don’t get me a wrong, enjoying an occasional beverage every once in a while certainly shouldn’t cause any major issues. But water should always be your go-to-drink if you’re on a mission to live a healthy lifestyle.
It just makes you feel good!
A few quick tips:
1. As a general rule, take your body weight in pounds and divide in half. That will give you a rough estimate of how many ounces of water you should drink everyday. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, that’s 75 oz. of water. Easy peesy. You will also need to drink more if you’re active and/or spending a lot of time outside in hot/humid weather. But that’s a good place to start.
If you have a hard time keeping track, put rubber bands around your water bottle. For example, if you need to drink 4 water bottles everyday put 4 rubber bands on your water bottle, and every time you drink one remove a rubber band until you don’t have any left!
2. Right after you’ve hit the bathroom first thing in the morning, the next thing you should do is drink 12-16 oz. of water. Yes, you’ll want to do this BEFORE you grab the coffee pot! Drinking water FIRST thing in the morning fires up your metabolism and gets your intestinal tract primed and ready for breakfast. Not only that, you’ve just spent the past 7-8 hours (hopefully) asleep, and your body is dehydrated even though it may not feel like it. You can also add some fresh lemon slices to amp up the taste and benefits!
3. Drink 8-12 oz. of water about 5-10 minutes BEFORE you eat, instead of during meals and snacks. This may seem strange but here’s the thing: drinking liquid while you eat tends to dilute digestive juices and acids, which slows down your digestion by quite a bit. When food takes too long to go through your system, it can cause digestive problems that aren’t very fun to deal with. Drinking water prior to meals will dull huger pangs, curb your appetite and prevent you from overeating. And just like before breakfast, it prepares, opens, cleans, and lubricates the digestive tract, getting your body primed and ready for the food to come.
If you can’t eat without drinking a beverage to “wash it down” it means you’re eating too fast. 😉
4. If you’re totally bored with the idea of drinking “plain” water you can put fresh lemon slices in a glass jar or pitcher and let that soak overnight in the frig. You can experiment with other variations like lime, strawberries, cucumbers, mint, etc. I’ve tried a few different variations and my favorites include just plain lemons, or lemons with strawberries. Yum!!!
There are also special infusion pitchers and water bottles like this one that work great and make drinking plain water seem a little more “fun”.
YOUR HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
So have you made your salads yet?!?
When you do, don’t forget to take a picture so you can show off all your hard work! Be proud of your accomplishment and dedication to improve your health!
Post the picture in our Facebook group under the daily post because we wanna see!! 🙂
Here’s the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/657486854452159/permalink/663891827144995/
As a bonus I would also love if you posted your pic on your personal Facebook profile and tag me so I can give you major props!!
