On My Mind

Day 1 – Drink 8 Glasses of Water

This is Day 1 of Live a Healthier Life in 21 Days Challenge. If you would like to participate, please sign up here.

This 1st day challenge is quite easy for me to do, as I already drink water every day. It’s basically all I drink. I occasionally drink a cup of juice or coffee at parties. And I don’t drink sodas at all.

When I go somewhere, I usually take a bottle of water with me. I have the habit of refilling my own water bottle. I like to reduce and recycle.

Drinking 8 glasses or 52 ounces of water comes easy on weekdays as I mostly sit all day in my office. But on weekends at home, I tend to drink less as I am more on the run. So I need to make a conscious effort to slow down and make sure that I don’t drink water until I feel really thirsty.

The following is from the 21DHL Forum.

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Day 1 – Drink 8 Glasses of Water

If you’ve read 45 Tips To Live a Healthy Life post on TPEB on Dec ’10, you’d have seen the first tip, which is to drink more water. Why? Because water is life. Water is essential for our body to function – Do you know over 60% of our body is made up of water? Water is needed to carry out our body functions, remove waste and carry nutrients and oxygen around our body. Since we lose water every day through urine, bowel movements, perspiration and breathing, we need to replenish our water intake.

Furthermore, drinking more water alone actually aids in losing weight. A Health.com study carried out among overweight/obese people showed that water drinkers lose 4.5 more pounds than a control group. The researchers believe that it’s because drinking more water helps fill your stomach, making you less hungry and less likely to overeat. I agree with that, and I have an added take that your body tries to retain whatever water you take when you don’t take in enough water, leading to increase in weight. Whereas when you regularly drink water, your body knows that it’s going to get its supply of fluids, so it doesn’t try to retain more water.

Shockingly, most of us actually do not drink enough water. We only drink like 1-2 times a day, during the meal times, and we do not hydrate ourselves at all in the other times of the day. Hence, our first task of 21DHL is to drink water – specifically the right amount of water for our best health.

Step 1: Calculate the amount of water you need to drink

To estimate how much water you need to drink, use the method below.

• Divide your weight (in pounds) by two. This is the amount of water intake (in ounces) you need in a day. (150lbs = 75 ounces/day) Or;
• If you use the metric system, divide your weight (in kg) by 30. The answer is the amount of water intake (in liters) you need a day. (66kg = 2.2 liters/day)

Then, take the number and multiply it by 80%. Food intake contributes about 20% of our fluid intake, so this final number is the actual amount of water in fluid form that you need to drink. This is a rough estimate – if you’ve an active lifestyle, you live in a warm climate where you perspire a lot and/or you do high level of physical activity (sports), you can add about 5-20% more.

Remember, when in doubt, use your own body as a gauge. If your lips/throat feel dry, your lips look dry, and you feel dehydrated, that means you should be drinking more water.

Step 2: Drink this amount of water today

Make sure you drink this amount of water today (slightly more is okay too). Water here refers to pure water, NOT soda, coffee, tea (drinks with caffeine) or alcohol! These are diuretics – mean they cause a fluid outtake rather than intake when you consume them!

Don’t drink them all in one go because it’s not going to solve the issue! (We’re not a camel; our water isn’t going to distribute itself when needed) The point is to distribute our water intake throughout the day. The best times will be when we wake up (since we’ve been sleeping for some time), before/after our meals, while we’re working, and at night before we sleep.

If you’re not sure how much water fills a glass, simply use a soda can as estimation. A normal soda can is 330ml or about 12 oz. If you have a large glass that can contain all the water in a can, that means you’d need 8 glasses for 2.6-2.7 liters of water fluid intake.

Some tips to help you in this goal:

1. Carry a water bottle – You never know when you’re going to get thirsty! This way you can drink wherever you are.
2. Have a big drinking mug at your desk so you only have to refill once in a while
3. Having a jar/flask of water right at your desk is really useful for the same reason as #2
4. Buy a large flask and fill it in the morning with the amount of water intake you need for the day. Drink only from the flask the whole day so you can use it as your gauge. At the end of the day, it should be empty! If not, finish it up.
5. Set reminders (either in your phone or computer) on a busy day so you don’t forget to drink (by participant Rohit)

Step 3: Continue this habit for the whole of 21DHL

After you’ve completed this habit, continue on for all the days of 21DHL! Create a tracking table with 21 columns that represent the 21 days of 21DHL. Mark a tick whenever you have finished drinking your required amount of fluid intake for the day. Mark a cross when you haven’t. At the end of 21DHL, you’ll be able to see how you fare in this area.

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