About Hydration Made Simple

Just about everyone knows the benefit of proper hydration.  Whether you are an athlete or not, this is one of the staples of good health.  Before I get to the meat of this post, here's a quick reminder:

The amounts of water that is recommended to drink is staggering.  Well, staggering if you don't drink enough water.  Actually, the recommended daily intake of water is determined by a host of factors... body weight, activity, weather, etc.. again, we're not here to talk about this...

For me, it's recommended that I compliment my daily intake with 64 oz of water. "Compliment" because water comes from a bunch of different sources, mostly the foods we eat.

I always had a hard time trying to drink up.  Took a bottle of water with me around all day long, and it usually made it home at night.  Hardly touched.

I think the issue was that I was looking at the 64 oz and figured "I could never do that".

So I broke it down to it's lowest common denominator, or to an amount that I could easily put my hands around.  It turns out that if I drink 4 oz per hour for 16 hrs a day, I would consume my recommended amount.

Second problem was to figure a way to remember to do this each and every hour.

Here's the solution:

This Nalgene water bottle holds exactly 32 oz.  As you can see, I made hourly marks on the bottle every four ounces.  After drinking the 2 pm portion, I refill the bottle and it's ready for the rest of the day.  This bottle is BPA free, made in the USA and there are no plastic bottles to throw away.  Added benefits.

It was difficult at first getting used to drinking all this water.  The timing of being away from facilities had to be just right.  But now my body is getting used to this new routine.

Yes, it was as simple as that.  Take the big picture (64 oz) and break it down into manageable pieces ( 4 oz /  hr).

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