Thursday, July 18, 2013

#1 Getting more Water into my life.


           I live in New Jersey.  I live at the Jersey Shore.  But thankfully my life is nothing like the TV show of the same name.

           I have been trying to live better in many aspects of my life.  Most of us are.  I get frustrated because there is so much I want to do and change, but it can't be done at once and most things take time.  I think my biggest challenge will be losing my need for "Instant Gratification" that the technological advances of our society offer.  So, let’s start small, simple, back to basics.

          We all need water. Our bodies are more than half water.  The Earth is about 3/4 water.  Water is H2O.  It can be a liquid, a solid or a gas.  Water carved out the Grand Canyon.  Last October water devastated the Jersey Shore, New York, Connecticut; overall - a portion of the East Coast.  Water is beautiful and strong.

         Water is Vital to Life. 

        Water is said to be the most important thing for our bodies, a necessity.  It replenishes, curbs appetite, detoxifies, is good for your skin and so much more.  Why is it so hard to drink something so naturally perfect for us?

           I like coffee. Coffee with sugar and French Vanilla creamer.  It is my worst enemy. (along with bread)  I have already made great progress on the coffee front.  I use less sugar and 1% milk instead of creamer.  But I also have a water rule that I am not fully following yet, which is in part what gave me the idea for this blog.  For a few years now I have told myself, if I am going to drink coffee, I need to drink water.  That is, drink 8oz of water before my coffee.  But when I drank coffee all day - that was a lot of liquid to consume.  

          I have 1 cup a day right now, in the morning.  Sometimes if there is a little left in the pot, I will have a watered down second cup.  Not always worth it.  What I do, is while I am making/eating breakfast, I have 8oz of water.  Then I can enjoy my coffee.  I have followed this rule most days this month.  My problem is, we humans are supposed to drink about 8 - 8oz glasses of water, per day, every day.  I have good days where I will have up to 3 glasses.  Good day, but sad effort.  I have found my niche for the first glass, I just need 7 more.

* niche - ok, maybe I should have said trick or device but I like this definition of the word - the ecological role of an organism in a community especially in regard to food consumption. Not completely fitting, but I worked it out in my head. 

          Of course having a glass with lunch and dinner takes care of two more, which I usually have a low sweetened tea (1/3c sugar to a gal.)   When I exercise, also not doing regularly yet, topic for another day, I will drink about 2 more glasses.  Doing the math, if I exercise and have water instead of tea at meals, I am up to 5 glasses a day, WooHoo!  If I add a mid-morning and mid-afternoon and before bed glass, I would have 8.  Still seems easier said than done.

          I am sure you can tell I am the type of person who likes her water one glass at a time.  A lot of people prefer to have a large cup, like a 32oz travel cup.  I understand the reasoning and have tried it before.  32oz is half you water for the day and if the cup is transparent, you can see your progress easily.  You would just need to finish the first 32oz in during the first half of the day and refill it for the second half of the day, drinking it by the time you go to bed.   Doesn't sound bad.  But it is too much for me.  I will calculate how much I need to drink an hour and break that into 15 min increments.  I will make mental lines on the cup of where I should be at different times of the day.  It will consume my thoughts and stress me out when something comes up and I fall behind.  Besides an 8oz cup is less intimidating than 32oz.

         Having the positive push of what I have just written, I am on a second glass right now.  I am going to see how far I can get today, tomorrow - the next week.  Who will join me in an effort to do what should be effortless?  Give our bodies the one thing it needs most - WATER.

Bonus - while fact checking, I came across an interesting question about water.  Does pure water exist naturally?

~ Deb      


        

        

2 comments:

  1. I used to hate water, but over the course of a few years I made a point of drinking more of it and now it's all I drink. At first, bottle water was a convenient solution. I'd have a few cases in the house at all times and try to get as much in as I could. Of course, that's not exactly the best approach (too much disposable plastic and questionable water quality), so now I have a 20 oz. water bottle with a built-in filter that I just keep with me all day and fill as needed.

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  2. Built in filter is cool. We do have a Brita Pitcher to filter our water. And yes the single bottles are a disposal issue.

    (Off topic) I am always shocked by the lack of recycling available. The last time I was at the Blue Claws I was shocked that there were not recycling bins. And Waste Management is more than capable to supply containers for all sorts of recycling, so it had to be a conscious decision by the park. WM wants you to recycle because that's were the $$$ is. Then we went to Warped Tour at PNC and there was an ok amount of recycling bins around, but I had to walk quite a distance in search of a trash can. The result was tons of trash on the ground.

    Back to our regularly scheduled program...I did ok this past week, drinking water, I had 5 glasses almost everyday. I will try to push for that 6th glass this week.

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