On New Year's Eve last year, I looked at the sugar-laden soda in my hand and decided my resolution for 2012 was to drink more water and less soda. That simple resolution eventually turned into a transition to diet soda, removing high-sugar drinks from my life entirely, and a new concentration on exactly how much pure water I was taking in on any given day.
It took me a year, but I managed to do it. I now drink what my doctor (and other sources) assure me is the proper amount of water every day. Giving myself an entire year to hit my water-drinking goal turned out to be the best decision I made. If I had decided to go cold-turkey, quitting all sodas and drinking only water, I no doubt would have gotten frustrated and given up within just a few weeks.
How I Learned to Drink More Water
The first thing I did was to be honest with myself about how much soda I was drinking and how little pure water I was feeding my body. I was startled to work out that, on average, I was going through a twelve-pack of sugary sodas per day. I was also embarrassed by how little plain-old H2O I drank, maybe two or three glasses a week.
After I worked out what seemed like a reasonable tapering schedule, reducing my soda intake by one a week, adding diet sodas to combat my cravings, and forcing myself to drink a little bit more water on a weekly basis, I had in print the perfect plan for replacing the sodas that had me on a path toward diabetes (my doctor at the time described me as "pre-diabetic).
The Biggest Roadblocks to My New Water Habit
I wish someone had prepared me for the bumps in the road I would soon face as part of my switch to water and diet sodas. To that end, I'm going to describe my three biggest struggles during the past year. Take heart in the fact that I am now above and beyond my original goals, and that even though I had a few relapses and frustrating moments, I've managed to stick with this new water-drinking progam for a solid year.
1. Cravings
I've never been a big drinker, and I never used drugs, so I was totally unprepared for the hardcore cravings that set in as soon as I started removing my favorite sodas from my diet. Cravings are a very real phenomenon, and if you don't have a plan for how to deal with them, they are the number one cause of total diet relapses. You will no doubt crave the drinks you're giving up - the trick is to have a plan in place to avoid a total collapse.
2. Peer Pressure
I'm not kidding when I say that I felt a lot of pressure from friends, co-workers, and even my family members. Not that I didn't have back-up - my husband actually switched to diet soda right along with me, and now he's considering increasing his water intake. But it can be hard to say no to an ice-cold drink offered by a friend, and it's likely they don't even know they're pressuring you to relapse.
3. Poor Planning
My life didn't slow down when I made this new diet decision, and at times poor planning caused me trouble. For example, while attending one of my son's marathon events, I found myself in the middle of the 26-mile course with a stopwatch in one hand and a sugary drink in the other. I'd assumed the event would provide water for the runners and I could have a few bottles for myself, leaving my own water jug at home. As it turns out, marathon runners don't hydrate a lot during the actual course, so pure water was in short supply. Learning how to prepare yourself for each day of your move away from sugar-laden beverages is a major part of a successful transition.
Links About Drinking Water for Health
In case you're curious about the science behind why drinking more water makes you healthier, I'm including ten links to help satisfy that curiosity.
Including weight loss, healthier skin, and improved digestion, the benefits listed on this site should be motivation enough to get you in a water-drinking frame of mind. The symptoms of dehydration listed here can help you decide if you need to drink more H2O.
Lifehack is a self-help and how-to site dedicated to improving and simplifying your life. I printed out this short list of the benefits of drinking more water and taped it to my bathroom window as a quick motivational aid every morning.
From the website of the Mayo Clinic comes this guide to working out exactly how much water you need to consume to stay healthy.
It turns out you really can have too much of a good thing. From ThankYourBody.com, this article discusses the symptoms of water intoxication and a no-nonsense approach to the issue of over-hydration.
It's true that you can hydrate your body without drinking pure water - any drink, even sugary soft drinks, contain some amount of water. If you can't seem to drink the amount of water you're supposed to every day, consider other sources of fluids that will keep your body hydrated.
This BBC article discusses the truth behind the water-beauty connection. I'm a woman like any other, and when I learned that consuming more water could make my skin healthier and more beautiful, I was even more inspired to make better beverage decisions.
My husband is a life-time subscriber to Consumer Reports and puts a lot of faith in what that publication has to say about health and lifestyle. I found this Consumer Reports discussion of the best water filters really useful when shopping for ways to purify the water that came out of my tap. It turns out you don't have to spend a fortune on water-purifying devices to get high-quality water from just about any source.
I'm proud of my new healthy drinking habits. One of the unexpected benefits of increased water consumption was a renewed interest in pollution, specifically water pollution. Securing a supply of clean water for generations to come is of dire importance; The Global Water Forum's website is rich in resources, articles, and links to details on how you can help maintain a clean source of water for the future.
Links and information on water provided by the government of Canada. This is my go-to site when looking up anything about water, from health benefits to the dangers of pollution.
Among other things, my hubby is a big fan of puns, bad jokes, and annoying word and math games. My friend Gayle Leonard's blog post of four totally corny water jokes got my husband and I talking seriously about our diet. Sometimes humor is the best way to capture someone's attention . . . and I don't think the jokes are all that corny.
