Magical Things: Water, Meet Straw

Just for your reference, in my personal dictionary “magical things” are things that you would call awesome, or revolutionary. I made a realization about myself today, but first I need to give you some backstory. I used to hate drinking water. Like REALLY hated it and avoided it if at all possible. A couple of years ago I discovered MIO, which was great for a while, but I rapidly got sick of the ridiculously sweet, fake-tasting flavors they provided. When Dasani and Crystal Light released their versions of MIO it was a total relief as they taste much better, but I stopped drinking them out of pure laziness after a while.

Recently, however, I decided that my healthy choice for the year would be to start drinking my recommended dose of water every. single. day. So I, the girl who hates water, was on a mission to drink it. Like, a lot of it. My friend recommended the Drink Right app to me to help me with my goal. Drink Right is an amazing app that uses your gender, age, weight and height to calculate the perfect amount of water for you to consume in a day. It then gives you a picture of a beaker with your recommended amount and the minimum you should drink each day, then gives you amount-size water droplets to drag into and fill up the beaker as you drink. The app notifies you when you’re supposed to drink water and how much you should drink at that specific time. You drink the water, record it, and reach your goal. Easy, right? Wrong. Using the app itself is easy, but my recommended dose of water is 54 ounces per day. That’s a LOT of water. If you think about a traditional Nalgene bottle (not the skinny new sissy ones, one of the BIG old ones) it’s about one and 2/3 of those. It’s a lot of water, and like I said, I don’t enjoy water.

So this was my predicament. I decided I was just going to suck it up and drink the water. So I dug out my old Nalgene, which came with the ounce measurements on the side so I would know exactly how much I was drinking, and decided that would be my vessel for water consumption. It was going pretty well, and I was reaching my goal at least half of the week and if I didn’t reach it I got close to it. But I really, really was not enjoying it. To me, the water tasted funny, it got warm way too fast, and I was constantly running to the bathroom because I’m not used to consuming so much liquid. I also had problems drinking right when the app told me to, frequently missed my morning dose and would have to play catch-up later.

My Nalgene was a big part of the problem. It’s not insulated, and because it’s old it smells pretty funky which translates into a strange flavor in the water. It also is not optimized for drinking out of, and I’d frequently pour a bunch of water down my shirt. I was frustrated, and I found relief when I took a recent trip to Montreal and decided to shirk my water-drinking responsibilities for the week. I came back and I actually did feel kind of crappy, and I was getting frequent headaches so I decided I should really try to keep it up with the water. But today, I decided my Nalgene needed to be washed, so I used my cold cup instead. I figured half was 8 ounces, which is usually the standard dose, so I’d be okay with measuring. What I found when I got to work was actually shocking. I immediately began drinking water, and it tasted good! No funky flavor, and the cold cup actually kept the water cold. It was amazing. But I think the biggest deal for me was that having the straw actually made me want to drink more. I don’t know what it is, but straws just make liquids more fun, and by 5 PM I had almost completed my goal for the day. I will never go back to my Nalgene after this and I can safely say my cold cup is my new best friend.

Now if you’re like me I can’t promise this is going to make drinking water easier for you, but it really worked for me. Try adding some of the liquid flavor add-ins or try a fun and colorful cup that makes it look pleasant. Filter your water before you drink it to get rid of icky flavors and impurities, or buy large jugs of distilled water (I don’t recommend this because it’s a waste of plastic, but whatever works). Try making it social – do Drink Right with your friends. You can share on Facebook and Twitter when you join and when you reach your goal for the day, so your friends can see your progress and congratulate you on it. It’s great for your body, great for your health, and it’s especially great during the summer when it’s easy to become dehydrated.  Good luck with your water-drinking, I’ve hoped my experience can help you on your quest to stay hydrated!