Water Is Good for You

I resolved not to make any New Year’s resolutions, but instead am doing small changes over the year to take care of myself and make things easier for myself. My first “promise to self” was to drink more water. I have been able to do this by making three changes:(1) drink one glass of water before each meal, and then one more with each meal; (2) drink a glass of water in every meeting or conference call at work; (3) drink a glass each evening when I take my vitamins. These small changes quickly add up to 6-8 glasses of water per day.

Now that I have been doing this for a couple of weeks, I can say there are definite benefits to drinking all of this water. Based on my own personal experience, here is my list of the Ten Reasons Why Drinking Water Is Good for You:

1. It helps you lose weight. Maybe it’s because I drink a glass of water before each meal, plus while I am eating, but I’ve noticed that I definitely get full faster and am taking in less food without feeling deprived. This has been an easy way to kick up my weight loss efforts.
2. It’s easier to be hydrated for exercise. Since I am always drinking water, I start my runs already hydrated and don’t have to take in as much water to stay on top of my hydration. When I am well hydrated, I run better–my times are better, I don’t feel sluggish and it takes longer for me to feel tired. I did not expect simply drinking water would be so beneficial to my running.
3. Your skin texture improves. I’ve read that your skin gets plumped up and dewy because you are hydrated. I don’t know about that, but I am definitely breaking out less and generally having fewer skin problems since I started drinking more water.
4. Drinking water helps maintain digestive health. I have definitely noticed that water helps with digestion, and (this is probably an overshare) helps to keep you “regular”….with your “evacuation” processes by making things easier and more frequent. If you don’t know what I mean, then email me and I can send a more graphic description if you’d like.
5. Drinking water helps flush out toxins. Although most people refer to the benefits of drinking water to flush out toxins that come from our food and the environment, the best proof I have is how water helps to prevent hangovers and minimizes the effects of alcohol. This is probably more of a hydration effect than a toxin-flush effect. I noticed before that whenever I had a glass of wine the night before a run, I used to feel pretty sluggish and drained during my run. Now that I am taking in extra water, I can have a glass of wine and still feel fine for my run the next day. Being able to drink more alcohol is definitely not one of the benefits I expected from drinking water….but I’ll take it!
6. Speaking of exercise, I definitely get more exercise as a result of drinking water. This is because of all of the bathroom breaks I need to take during the day. I have to go about 5-6 times while I am at work, and the bathroom is at the end of the hall. If I wore a pedometer, I bet this would add a couple of thousand steps to my daily tally.
7. Taking in more fluid helps reduce fluid retention. Like many women, I retain fluid and get some swelling around the time I menstruate. However, I’ve noticed that I am now less swollen since I began drinking water.
8. You have more energy. I don’t know why, I just know that I feel more alert and have fewer days when I hit the afternoon slump since I started drinking more water.
9. You save money. Bottled water is definitely cheaper than most other drinks, and tap water is free! Most people in the US have access to good, clean, safe tap water. In my opinion the water in New York City is some of the best in the country. If you want to learn about the quality of your local tap water, the Environmental Protection Agency monitors and publicly reports the quality of tap water throughout the US.
10. You know the location of every bathroom. Have I mentioned how much you go to the bathroom drinking all of this water? Let me just say that a benefit to the popularity of Starbuck’s is you are never very far from a bathroom. If you are stuck, with no Starbuck’s in sight, a good back up is a nice hotel. Most of them have bathrooms somewhere in the lobby.

So this is the list of benefits of drinking water that I have observed in the past few weeks. I think there are worth making the effort to drink more water (aside from the excess bathroom breaks) and would encourage you to drink up!