How To: Drink More Water

I've been working on drinking more water this year. (It's been a New Year's Resolution for the past couple of years at least!) Water makes up 60% of our body weight! But despite the horror stories about getting kidney stones or even cancer from not drinking enough water, I've had difficulties making it actually happen. The Institute of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic says that the average male needs 13 cups (roughly 3 liters) of total beverages a day, and the average female needs 9 cups (about 2.2 liters). Wow, that's a lot. Imagine what your body's missing out on if you're a person who drinks little or no water on a daily basis (as I used to be)...

Now although I'm not quite reaching 9 cups, I think I may have found a system that works for me, and encourages me to at least drink some water daily, so it might be worth trying if you want to drink more water everyday too!

The key factor that makes this work for me is this:

Got this cheap at one of those dollar stores, it's lasted over a year now!

Get yourself a fold-able water bottle! That way you can see the water inside AND feel the water bottle getting less full as it gets flatter. And if you want to put away the water bottle in its most compact form you have to drink all the water inside. This is great because you can carry your empty water bottle to school or work and not have to have a ton of room in your bag to accommodate the bottle, because you can just fill it when you get there.

Mine holds two cups, (16 oz or about 500ml). I make sure I drink one of these before lunch. At lunch, I refill it, and drink it with my lunch, and make sure to finish this second bottle by dinner. And then, I'll probably have some water with dinner too.

If you don't drink water after dinner (to avoid going to the bathroom during the night) that's fine, because following the above guidelines you've already had over 1 liter of water, which is a lot better than nothing! Better to take it slowly and not make too big a change at once, so you're more likely to succeed long-term.

When you've done this for awhile and you're ready, or if you're having a particularly thirsty day, you can add a third bottle of water after the second bottle - finish the second bottle shortly after lunch and have another between mid-afternoon and dinner. And then, you can even try to have a fourth bottle with dinner or before lunch, whichever time suits your body and your lifestyle best.