As you know water, makes up over half the mass of our bodies. Water has a critical role in helping your body to function properly. Not only does it keep you hydrated but also is used by your kidneys, skin and other systems to eliminate built up wastes (toxins, salts, and by-products). Your body is a factory and warehouse. So many productions happen there. Just like any factory, it also produces waste. It has to have a means to eliminate that waste.

As we sweat, our body shuffles these byproducts like ammonia and other substances out of our body by the process of sweating. Likewise, the kidneys filter the waste from the blood and transfers those wastes to urine. I could give many examples of these elimination centers in the body but all of those systems have one thing in common, at some point, they need water to function properly and do their job. It helps with the flushing actions/mechanisms. As you can see, there are many reasons your body needs an adequate supply of water. Not to mention- drinking water also makes your skin look more full and healthy. Bonus!

So, how do we measure our water intake? Is it a hassle?

Well, for me, I carry a 1.5 liter everywhere I go. I do get my water delivered as I am skeptical of tap water for many reasons but the most obvious is the unknown condition of the pipes my tap water travels through to get to me. Everyday I aim to fill my 1.5 liter up at least twice a day. Many sources say to drink between 2 to 3 liters per day. The more you weigh and the more active you are, the more water you will need. One of the most important times to drink water is first thing after you wake. Your body is in a fasted state and often dehydrated state from hopefully being asleep for a full 8 hours. Well, we hope eight hours, ha! Sleep that’s a whole other subject, it is also critical for health in many unique ways.

Attention soda and coffee drinkers:

When we drink drinks that have dissolved substances already in them, such as sugar, we are not giving our body a clean base in which to eliminate wastes. In some aspects we are adding more steps because we have to metabolize the drink and filter out the water portion. This produces more by-products. As you can see, someone who drinks mainly soda or coffee has a unique set of issues, so please be sure to add water and/or water with lemons to your daily beverage selection.

If you get bored with the taste of water, there are water infusers for fruit and even cucumbers (or just pop pieces in your water). There are teas that you might enjoy too. Buy organic tea if possible and be aware tea can contain caffeine. It is possible to explore teas, coffee, and caffeine in another blog (leave any requests in the comments if you would like a topic expanded on).

A word on artificial sweeteners:

I’m not really sold on any of them. Partially because these artificial sweeteners are relatively new compounds to be put in the human body. However, a lot of people I believe to have a good background on this topic seem to like Stevia. Personally, I remain hesitant to ingest any artificial sweeteners. For tea, I sometimes use honey.
People who like sweets, refined foods, fried food, foods with long shelf lives, and/or artificial ingredients should definitely drink a little more water than normal. Just like the artificial sweeteners, many of those chemicals and compounds have been added to the food relatively recently and unfortunately the body can not do a lot useful things with those un-natural compounds, so it tries to eliminate them through various body systems that need water to function.

So raise up that water glass! Cheers to good health!

Imagine if you will, medieval times, you are a maiden or a lord…life seems great. Suddenly, you get the news that the entire crop of food your village has been growing was wiped out by a bunch of roaming boars and now your whole village has no food for the winter. This is a terrible situation but it is a situation our ancestors faced regularly. Food was scarce, we didn’t have refrigeration and transportation. What you grew, hunted, or foraged is what you ate. Even just a hundred years ago you can see the network providing us food was not in place. Today we eat fruit from other countries in different latitudes, with different growing seasons than us. They send food to us when our grocery stores need some more selection. It’s a great thing we have going and we should all be very thankful. Additionally, we live in a first world country and we have so much food- it is way more than we need, chances are we won’t ever run out…BUT our bodies don’t know that.

Our bodies still believe we are in a feast and famine situation. Our brains give us high reward reactions when we calorie gorge. Every piece of fried food, loaded with hundred of calories does something to our brain. Our brain says to our body, this is great, please get more! Our brain wants us to eat as much as we can….just in case we have to face a famine in the near future. Here in the USA, that famine never comes. However, day in and day out we repeat this series of events. Our brain says yes, drink that chocolate milk, eat that cheese….the calorie consumption is sky high and our activity level (calorie usage) is minimal.

I think it’s liberating to understand our bodies are made to be this way. Doesn’t it make you feel a little less down on yourself to realize, it’s your brain’s fault and it’s just doing that to help you survive?! I truly believe that understanding the problem is half of the solution….

So, what’s the next step? Switching to foods we won’t over eat. Our go to foods are processed, preserved, and ladened with additives (like sugar and butter). These foods are made in a way that makes it extremely easy to over eat. When we turn back to natural foods, many times the fiber and high nutrient content make it a lot less likely to over eat. I will help you discover these foods and help you incorporate them into your life.