Summer is here! If you’re like me, this is your favorite time of the whole year: hot weather, long days, and lots of sweat. What isn’t there to love? But with all that sweating comes something very important, staying hydrated. It’s important to consider ways to drink more water.
Obviously, you should stay hydrated all the time, but in summer it is especially important. Most of us are outside more than we are in the winter. We are generally more active. It is warmer, therefore we sweat more. Now, I know drinking lots of water can be difficult, but there are some things you can do to make it easier.
Here are 5 ways to drink more water
And not feel like it’s a chore…
1. Add flavor
Drinking a gallon of water day in and day out can definitely get (and taste) monotonous. But, adding a light flavor can give the water some taste, and variety. The flavoring of your choice should come from natural whole foods, not a brightly colored bottle you bought at the convenience store.
Some popular choices are strawberry, cucumber, lime, lemon, mint. It’s super easy to add flavoring this way. Chop up whatever you want to use as flavoring, add it to a large pitcher/container of water, and place in the fridge overnight. When you wake up you will have cool, refreshing and great tasting water.
2. Drink 32 oz of water when you wake up
Drinking 32oz of water (about 4 cups) as soon as you wake up does a couple of good things.
It gets a big portion of your daily water done before you even leave the house. Also, by doing this you wake the body and mind up. You have just gone 8 (hopefully restful) hours without any water, so you need to rehydrate.
I find it easiest to just drink this 32oz as fast as possible instead of sipping it and having it take forever. And sidenote: starting your day with small successes such as this will help motivate you throughout the day to meet your other goals!
3. Divide the day up
Telling yourself you have the whole day to drink a gallon of water is almost a sure way to put the majority of it off until it’s too late in the day to accomplish.
So, give yourself smaller timelines. A favorite of mine is in the next hour I will have at least 30oz of water. Then every 15 minutes I take a few big gulps. By the time the hour is up, I have met my goal.
Another popular way is to mark on your water bottle increments of time. You can set a reminder on your phone, and when the alarm sounds, drink to the corresponding time on their bottle. Pretty ingenious!
4. Be ready to use the restroom
If you are used to having a bathroom nearby and are not used to drinking large quantities of water, then you’ll be using the restroom more often than usual.
So, the day to start drinking more water is probably not the same day you and the family go on that summer vacation that requires 12 hours of driving.
But I promise you, the more water you drink, the more your body gets used to it and the longer you can hold it. Plus, if you are sweating a lot you won’t need to use the restroom as much. This is yet another reason to get out and enjoy some summertime physical activity!
5. Go sustainable
You don’t even want to know the markup on a bottle of water. But I will tell you anyway, 4000% (no, not a typo) is the MINIMUM! It can be as high as 280,000%! This means bottled water has a higher markup than any other product.
Stop drinking bottled water! Besides the obvious financial savings, you also will contribute less to plastic pollution. This is not only hard on the environment when it is being produced, but the millions of plastic bottles in the world will take (450) years to fully break down.
So do yourself and the world a favor, get a Nalgene, Yeti, Rtic, or any other reusable container. An at home water filter is also a great way to not buy plastic bottles.
Do you have a tip/trick to drink more water? Let us know – we love talking about water!
