You’re Not Drinking Enough
June 3, 2008 by Kristen King
Filed under Women's Health
I can pretty much guarantee it. Most women don’t drink enough, and they don’t even realize it.
Earlier this month, Hope at weight loss blog Weighting Line issued a challenge to get women drinking more water. I signed up, and I failed miserably. You know how you’re supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day? Looks like I’m averaging 2-3 a day. Uh, yeah, that’s not even close.
SO! I need ways to drink more during the day (hah!) and I bet you do, too. Here’s what I came up with:
- Every time you get up from your desk, refill your water glass.
- Every time you start to feel hungry, reach for a full glass of water and then wait 20 minutes before you eat something. (This is particularl helpful if you’re trying to lose weight because we often mistake thirst for hunger, leading us to consume more calories than we need.)
- Get yourself a cute refillable water bottle you can carry at all times.
- Put eight rubber bands around the top of your water bottle, and move one down to the base every time you polish off a full bottle so you can keep track of how much you’ve consumed.
- Add in a few drops of lemon or lime juice to give the water some flavor without adding sugar or artificial flavors.
How do you get your water in every day? Leave a comment and let us know your best tips.
Contents © Copyright 2008 Kristen King
Tags: womens health blog, womens health, women, woman, health, drinking enough water, how much water should i drink, how do i drink more water, women need to drink more, lively women, kristen king
Great tips, Kristen!
By the way, I bought myself a refillable water bottle yesterday. It has a freezer stick inside it that you can take out and freeze to keep your drink cool. I’m hoping this will help me cut down on buying (and throwing away) so many plastic water bottles.
This is absolutely a huge issue for me and I actually blogged about it being one of the causes of the migraine I got while travelling on the weekend.
I also took the challenge and failed miserably, Kristen. You’re not the only one.
Great tips for getting more water in. I’ll try harder today. (Did you hear that psyche? I’ll try harder today!)
I have successfully been drinking my 8 glasses of water a day for the past 3 years now. I have a 32 ounce jug that I fill twice a day. It made a huge difference in my past weight loss success. I used to get headaches quite often as well and they are not as often.
I use a large 32oz cup that I fill with ice and clean water (plain water, I don’t drink the bottled stuff that has sugar in it) and I drink 3 of those plus a little more each day to total my 100 oz of water per day.
I really notice a difference if I don’t get all my water in, I miss it, besides the fact that it’s a part of my weight loss program. Oh, and I even Twitter about my water drinking to keep me on track.
I use Twitter to keep me accountable to my health and fitness goals in general. I recommend it if anyone else needs some more accountability.
Hope this helps!
I like my drinks piping hot or ice cold, so lukewarm water that’s been on my desk all day is a huge turn off. Ice is hard to deal with at work (weeping cups and laptops don’t mix well). So, I keep a gallon of water (I get the refillable jugs at my grocery store and refill them with tap water) in my fridge at home and in the mini fridge under my desk at work.
I had MonkeyBoy paint a mug at the pottery place in town so I have something pretty (ok, it’s not “pretty,” but it makes me smile) to drink out of at work. I try to go through at least half of the work jug every day.
I carry a refillable bottle on the way to and from the office. It’s got a cool no spill spout, so you just have to squeeze and suck to get water out, but it won’t spill. That makes it easy to carry (I just toss it in my mom bag) and easy to drink while driving (you only need one hand).
It still takes effort and I’ll drink a Diet Coke over water any day of the week, but I am getting better about it.