Drink Up

The Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa/New Year’s season is one of the toughest times of the year to stay sane. Your entire schedule is thrown temporarily out of whack. Most of us can’t even stick with an existing exercise program, let alone start a new one. I commend and support your drive and determination. And I believe you can do it. In a way, this is the best time of year to start—because if you start now, amidst all this holiday chaos, you can certainly stay with it under normal circumstances!

Besides, there’s no time like the present to start taking better care of yourself. After all, you’re worth it. You really are. So why wait?

Start with a Good Solid Foundation
At the same time, remember what we said about dividing a big goal into smaller, more manageable steps that you can actually accomplish. Trying to change your whole life overnight is like trying to build the Golden Gate Bridge in a day (or Rome, but that’s an old cliché). As with any construction project, you have to build your healthy lifestyle from the ground up. You need to start with a good solid foundation. That foundation is built of small successes. Each success builds on the previous one.

In previous weeks I’ve given you a lot of challenges, and I hope that they’ve already helped you feel like you’re building that foundation of success. Some of these challenges are more time-consuming than others: to find a fitness activity that you truly, honestly enjoy; to find a fitness friend; to think about goals that you really own; and to take some time to analyze why you may have had trouble meeting your goals in the past.

This Week’s Goal: Drink!
So this week I’m going to give us all a break and throw out a suggestion that takes NO extra time out of your day (well, hardly any). Yet it’s just as important to your health as exercise, maybe even more so. In fact, it’s so important that I’m going to work on this one with you, because it’s advice I need to take as well as give. This week, we’re going to work on staying hydrated, which is just a fancy way of saying, drink enough water.

The obvious questions here are, how much water is enough? And why is it so important? Let me answer those questions in reverse order.

Why is Water Important?
Water is a nutrient, just like protein, carbohydrates, and all that other good stuff. But it’s the nutrient most often overlooked by athletes and non-athletes alike. If you’re exercising but not drinking enough water (or water plus a sports drink such as PowerBar Perform or Gatorade), you’ll feel much more tired during your workouts, as if you’re in worse shape than you actually are. And you’ll take longer to recover before the next workout.

Water also helps you eat less. The body’s thirst detection systems are not as good as they could be. A lot of what we perceive as hunger signals are actually thirst. The body knows it needs something, but it’s not always able to tell us exactly what. In other words, sometimes you feel hungry when you’re really just thirsty. And for those of us trying to lose some body fat, it makes sense to learn to tell the difference.

Drinking enough water also keeps you from feeling tired. Like hunger, fatigue can be a sign of dehydration. Not always, of course; sometimes you’re just plain tired. But a glass of water is often a better pick-me-up than a cup of coffee.

In other words, water is the original miracle cure. It’s readily available; it can’t hurt (unless you really overdo it and drink three gallons a day or something) and it almost always helps.

So How Much Water is Enough?
The absolute minimum is eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day. Ten is better. If you’re active you should drink twelve to sixteen 8-ounce glasses a day. If you’re active and live in a hot climate you may need up to a gallon a day, or even more.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking. “This is ridiculous! I’m going to spend my whole life in the bathroom!”

That’s not necessarily true. Many people report that, although they’re in the bathroom more often at first, after awhile they adjust to the increased fluid intake.

And even if you don’t adjust, that might not be all bad. First of all, if you have trouble finding time to exercise, at least now you’re walking from your desk to the bathroom and back a few more times! Second, it’s not that big a chunk out of your day—a bathroom break still takes less time than a cigarette break. Third, it’s a great way to take a timeout from stressful situations. Your annoying boss at work, or your nagging sister-in-law or overbearing great-uncle at the holiday get-together, is not going to follow you into the bathroom (at least, I certainly hope not). So drink up!

How do you know when you’re adequately hydrated? There are two ways:

1. Your urine should be clear.
2. You should get up at least once during the night to go to the bathroom.