Scale It Down

The reason why you should drink a lot of water every day, (and we mean those annoying 8 glasses worth) is, it gets rid of the junk you put into your body!

Having said that, if you want to know about all the medical validity to this statement go to the library. If you want some ideas on figuring out how to develop a relationship with water, read on…

We never EVER drank water. Our daily liquid intake was based exclusively on the 3 C's: Coffee, Cola, and Caffeine - always. What bothered us in the past with respect to drinking 64 oz. of water a day was that it came in servings of 8. Who has 8 glasses of anything to begin with? Except maybe in college - but liquor is a whole other ballgame. The worst part about booze is that you need to match it 2:1 with water, oz. per oz., to void the dehydrating affects. For caffeine, the ratio is 1:1.

Changing containers helped us make the switch to the real un-cola. Drinking 4 - 16 oz. cups or 2 - 32 oz. sports bottles worth of the stuff went down a lot quicker. When we started carrying the bottles with us wherever we went, especially during exercise, we zipped right through the daily requirement. If you just can't deal with idea of filling and refilling your jug throughout the day, grab a 2 liter bottle and be done with it.

Another major obstacle to drinking a lot of water, is, or so we thought, the lack of carbonation. Some of us, just couldn't live without bubbles. We found contentment when we replaced the 64 oz. of tap water with 64 oz. of seltzer and sparkling waters. Cost, was not a prohibitive issue either. Warehouse stores like Sam's Club, sells La Croix by the case at $4.99, and whenever we find the 2 liter bottles of seltzer waters on sale for $.79 - $ .99 a piece, we stock up. If you're a big pop drinker, going the carbonated water route really helps to make the switch. If bubbles aren't a factor, try home water delivery. Filling up from a cold tap is accessibly easy and pleasing.

We're talking about Gatorade, Powerade and all those other fancy ades that are supposed to help you revitalize when you exercise. We've got just one thing to say: take a look at the calories on the bottle! A 20 0z. bottle has 170 calories in it. We'd rather eat those 170 calories than drink them. The funny thing is we never even thought to look at the label until we started rethinking our approach to food to begin with. When we did, we couldn't believe all the calories we were wasting acting like jocks. Needless to say, we stick to our water bottles now and save a buck to boot.

There's a big discrepancy among the weight loss experts when it comes to liquid intake. Some of them say as long as what you're drinking has little or no calories, you can chug whatever you want to, regardless of the caffeine content. And then others vehemently point out that caffeine and any other liquids other than tap, bottled or carbonated water, is counter productive to the body's purifying process.

There is one thing we can say for sure and that is through trial and error we could see a difference between these philosophies. When we drink water all day, we run all day to the bathroom. When we eat a lot of junk and still drink a lot of water, we run less. When we eat a lot of junk and don't drink water, we don't run much at all and definitely feel blotted. Granted some of this is do to the sodium content of the food we're eating, but it seems evident that water is the best way to keep those pipes running at an optimum.

One other detail worth mentioning…how can you tell if you're properly hydrated? Check your pee color - it should be faint in color, a very pale tint, if you will. And if you use those blue toilet discs, what happens when you mix yellow with blue? If you're drinking enough water - it's faded green.

We still feel that what you chose to drink is a personal decision - especially when it comes to caffeine. We know there's nothing worse than thinking you have to give up diet pop, coffee and any other low-cal liquid you like to drink when you're trying to lose weight. (That's definitely, a denial file monger.) We certainly didn't start out with the mentality of a waterholic, but when we started to add water to our daily regimen we actually began turning down pop and second cups of coffee. Amazing! It was truly a natural evolution. Now when we do opt for an occasional pop, we definitely feel sluggish and unsatisfied as far as thirst goes.

Maintenance Note: Having successfully maintained weight loss for years now, we can honestly tell you that drinking all this water helped us to do so. In fact, we're convinced of it - especially in defense for all the times we stretched the "stints" of the 90/10 Rule.

Yeah-buttal

STOP wasting money on all those metab-o-crap products. The only metabolic thing they supposedly do, if we can call it that to begin with, is exactly what drinking water does - gets rid of what you put in. If you're intent on using an accelerant, try drinking 80+ oz. of water a day.