The Top Three Reasons to Accept the Water Challenge

The Top Three Reasons to Accept

the Water Challenge

How many times have you been invited to participate in a Water Challenge by your friends on Facebook? If you are anything like me, it’s at least weekly. I was always a “divide your weight by 2 and that’s how many ounces of water you should drink” kinda girl, so I felt like I was consuming enough water and a challenge didn’t apply to me. But after being told by both my dermatologist and my primary care a couple of months ago that was severely dehydrated, I decided to do a bit more research into just how much water I really should be drinking. After reading quite a few studies and based on my doctor’s recommendation, I decided to do my own Water Challenge. After a month of drinking an entire gallon of water a day, here are the top 3 things I have learned.

1.) You Are Water. Ever heard of the saying “You are what you eat?” Well the same can be said for what you drink! The human body is made up of up to 60% of water. That’s more than half! Our bodies need water to function and dehydrated bodies are not working at it’s full capacity. Water helps our kidneys function, our joints move properly and our digestion process. Staying hydrated also helps keep our skin healthy. Think about your skin as a grape- when it’s full of water the skin is nice and plump, but when it’s dehydrated it is all dried up like a raisin! So drinking water is pretty much the most inexpensive face regimen known to women!

2.) Superhero Powers. You don’t need a red cape to transform into a Superhero, you just need to drink water! Since challenging myself to drink a gallon of water a day, I can definitely say I have more energy. My daily headaches have completely disappeared and I have found that my moods are much better and more regulated. I also noticed that my appetite has decreased since I fill up with water! H2O is literally what fuels my day.

3.) It’s Doable. I know that the idea of drinking a gallon of water seems daunting, it did for me too. And the thought of lugging around a water “suitcase” does not sound very appealing. But I promise you that it really is doable! The first step is to simply make it a way of life and a part of your day! Because of my schedule, I prefer having just one 128 oz water bottle that I can fill up in the morning and don’t have to worry about filling it back up throughout the day. I found this water bottle on Amazon and I love it because it holds all of my water I need for the day and breaks the consumption down in to two hour intervals so that I can stay on track and keeps me accountable! After a week or so, I actually found my bottle empty by 7pm so I would fill it back up about a quarter of the way to finish out the night!

I like to refer to my drinking habits as the Water Challenge, and it definitely was the first week and a half, but now it is completely a way of life for me. I did joke for the first few days that I may be hydrated, but I was not sleep deprived because I had to keep getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom! But your body does regulate itself eventually, and you could always start drinking your water earlier in the morning and finish it way before bedtime. And I feel the benefits of staying hydrated like proper kidney function, healthy digestion process, supple skin, more energy and less headaches far out weight the nuisance of having to get up in the middle of the night to pee! So what do ya say? Will you join me in this Sisterhood of the Water Chuggers?

Hope to see you at the barre soon!

Cheers,

Heather McCreight