The Healthy Secret Everyone Knows, But Few People Do Anything About

We’re just over a week into summer.

Ahhhh. I love the bright mornings, singing birds, and dancing leaves.

There is nothing like a cool bevie on a hot summer afternoon. Don’t you agree? Most people opt for fizzie alcoholic ones, or sugary coloured ones, and overlook the most important one.

By this point I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

It’s the thing that everyone knows they should do more of but don’t. And I’m not making that up. I have the privilege of hearing about hundreds of peoples lifestyle habits in my private naturopathic practice. In our first meeting we chat about food, exercise, caffeine, smoking, and alcohol.

I ask about water.

“Oh! I don’t drink enough water.” they say.

So I have this handout I give to people on this first visit. It is 5 basic things that I consider to be the foundation of a healthy body and delightful life (which is what I want for my people.) The paragraph about water starts, “You are likely not drinking enough water. In fact you likely told me you’re not drinking enough water.”

And while I’m being a little goofy, it’s true.

Why is that? If drinking enough water is common knowledge, why do so many people not do it? I suppose that is true for a lot of things. But in the case of water I hear the following excuses:

“I just don’t like it.”
“It’s boring.”
“If I drink water I have to pee all the time.”

Heaven forbid you would have to get up, and walk to the toilet and let go of something. That is what your body is designed to do!

Oooooh, I’m getting all riled up.

And I don’t take “boring” as an excuse. There are a million ways to liven up water.

You can drink herbal (non-caffeinated) teas, squeeze some lemon in, slice up some cucumbers, toss in some berries, or even just plop in 1-2 drops of your flavored liquid stevia. Or if you like it spicy add a sprinkle of cayenne. Ooh la la.

You can dress it up, dress it down. Just drink it. (Tweet.)

How much should you drink?

The formula is simple. Take your weight in pounds. Divide that number by two. That becomes the number of ounces of water a day you need to drink. This means that heavier people need more water than lighter ones.

Lets look at an example.

A 150 pound person needs to drink 75 ounces of water per day. For the metric lovers in the audience, that’s just over two litres per day (There are 32 ounces in a litre.)

If you’re not drinking that much now you don’t want to jump up to that level right away. Your body will shake its fist and curse at you. We want body harmony, so I recommend building up to it. Say you’re drinking about a litre, and your target is two litres. For the next seven days drink 1.25 litres per day. For the seven days after that drink 1.5 litres per day. And so on and so forth until you’re a water drinking queen. That’s what you want, isn’t it?

I get that is probably not your goal. Who really wants to be a royal figurehead of the water drinking castle? But I bet you have some health concern that could benefit from more water. Skin rashes? Headaches? Constipation? Weight gain? Bloating? Even moods, sleep and energy can benefit from being properly hydrated.

Our normal physiology requires water.

A lot of it. The lungs and breathing uses about 3.5 glasses per day. The skin uses about 2 glasses. The Kidneys use about 5.5 glasses. If my math is correct (and it is) we’re already up to 11 glasses, and I’ve only listed three organs in the body.

So there you have it. My rant about water. I have more to say but it’s summer and you should be outside, enjoying patios, nature, and sunshine.

And drinking half your weight in ounces of water.

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And in the comments below I’d love to hear how you dress up your water.

Here’s to your hydrated body, and delightful, thriving life,

Dr. Tonia