I Drink, Therefore I am

All over my social media I see my friends (online and real life friends) posting pics and 30 second clips of their workouts and I think to myself, “Man! I want to do that!” No, not the P90x and Intensities of the world…just get in a really healthy and effective workout. It’s not impossible because I’ve done it before. Granted, it took over a year of working out to drop 20lbs. That was due to a mix of NOT eating properly and my disability limiting what workouts I could do.

So I start over. Then I take a break and start over again. The cycle.

Recently I’ve seen another challenge on Facebook: The water challenge. Honestly, could something be so simple, so easy, so effortless and yet so difficult at the same time? See, our bodies are made up of about 60% water, right? Now begin subtracting because we use the bathroom and we sweat! So at what point do we add it all back in? If you’re like me and most people out there we swear we can get by just drinking any type of fluid. So the moment we feel thirsty (and even just out of habit) we reach for that sugary beverage on the store shelves. Have you ever taken a look at the ingredients? What about the salt and sugar content? It’s all just sweetened liquid chemicals, but we drink it without batting an eye.

We are destroying our bodies and don’t even realize it.

Enter pure, unadulterated, sparkling water

Water isn’t the cure-all but, it sure works wonders for the body (and soul). First, water helps keep our body balanced. It helps with circulation, cleaning our system, lubricating our joints, etc. So all those extra pills we take and powders we drink? We spend tons of money on chemicals to do what water does naturally! We also wait until we are thirsty or hot to drink a cool glass of water. But by then, it’s too late. When we are thirsty, we are already dehydrated. This means we are beyond just one glass.

photo courtesy of http://www.blackdoctor.org

Okay so this new challenge. It’s all the rave and the bees knees and every other dicho you can think of. It’s probably the one health trend that has been around since mankind and has PROVEN it works!

Here’s the gist of the water challenge:

1. Get a gallon of water. I suggest starting with a fresh jug of water. Add whatever infusers you like (fruit, herbs, etc.). Terry Givens from Reset Your Body also recommends adding in sea salt (NOT table salt) to help your cells absorb the water.
2. Next, grab a sharpie. Any color works as long as you can see it. Now, on your gallon of water, write the times of the day beginning with your wake-up and end with bedtime. You can write whatever you think will keep you going next to the times. Since I generally start my day at 5:30am, then my bottle will say 5am. This will force me to wake up earlier to drink that first helping of water before I even begin getting ready for school. You will find different people using the same timetable but, you have to do what works ESPECIALLY if your bedtime is before 11pm.
3. You also want to account for how much water to drink per serving. Some say 8oz every two hours. Others say 16oz every two hours plus one glass with each meal. The answer isn’t so cookie-cutter. How much water you drink, like every other health routine, depends upon your body. I think a healthier way to go to avoid water toxicity is to base it on your weight: Drink half of your weight in ounces of water. So if you weigh 100lbs then you need 50oz of water. Get it!
4. START SLOWLY! Listen, we all want to be champions of the challenge, right? But we want to be healthy about it. As good as water is, too much at once just isn’t healthy. If you need to, start your gallon challenge with half a gallon the first day and then add a serving or two each day for a week to get your body used to it.
5. Ready for the next step? Drink! That’s it. Just drink your water. Eat, sleep, live, drink. I get full very quickly so I’m sure each serving of water will replace some other sugary drink…as it should!
6. Do this for 10 days, 30 days, whatever your challenge is. I am choosing the 30 day to start and I already found my community! Thank you Angela for starting this public Facebook event: #waterchallenge.

I’ll check back in periodically with my progress. I won’t be able to do a weigh-in so anything I tell you is based purely off of how I feel inside and how I look.