As I sit here drinking my eleventh cup of tea of the day, I just heard some health expert on the TV talking about the importance of drinking water and exercise. In fact, they actually said, and I quote, “We should really drink around eight to ten glasses of water per day to replace the fluids we lose daily through perspiration, excretion, and other bodily functions”. They then went onto say that teas, coffees, and sugary soft drinks are no replacement for the daily recommend intake of fluids, as many of these flavored beverages have caffeine in them and caffeine actually dehydrates and not rehydrate our bodies.

Of course, there’s nothing new in the above facts, as drinking lots of water and exercise are perhaps the most commonly-known basic health tips going, but if we all know this, then why is half the country walking around overweight and in a state of constant dehydration?

Well, a lot could be to do with our addiction to caffeine based drinks which actually prompt the body to lose water rather than retain it, but my guess is that most of us find drinking water so darn boring! I mean, who the heck wants to drink water when they’re not thirsty? Especially when we have all these wonderfully flavored hot and cold drinks to choose from. But here lies the problem. Many of us have sugar and caffeine in our drinks, we dehydrate when we should by hydrating, and we don’t exercise enough. On the face of it, there could be no simpler health tip than to drink water and exercise. We don’t need any fancy diets or complex health plans, just move more, and drink a lot of water.

In fact, if we cut through all the hype, water and exercise are perhaps 2 of the main components we need (notice I said ‘need’ and not ‘want’), in our everyday life. Anyway, I’ve decided to do what I did a couple of years ago, which is to keep a simple little chart handy and get into a regime. There’s something gratifying about ticking off the items on a list that keeps one away from procrastinating and slipping into bad habits.

I used to do 3 power walks a day, keep a simple food diary, and eat only things on my list at the designated times. At the end of each day, I’d look at the list with a little pride as all the things I was supposed to do, I did, with nothing more, and nothing less. I’m going to start a new list for water intake, exercise, and diet. It’s crazy when you think about it, because to be honest, I have never felt better both physically and mentally when I’m taking care of my health, which makes me wonder why so many of us so often chose to slip back into old unhealthy eating patterns, stop exercising, and return to drinking all the wrong stuff. And for what? So we can feel fat, miserable, and ugly again!

Another important reason for monitoring water intake is that we quite often don’t even know when we’re dehydrated. We shouldn’t only drink water when we’re thirsty, because at this stage we’ve already become dehydrated to a degree. One of the early signs of dehydration is the color of your pee. The more yellow it is, the more dehydrated you are becoming. I’ve had piddle the color of mustard before and still not drank because I didn’t feel thirsty. So that’s it, I’m about to re-embark on a regime of health eating, water and exercise. I love simplicity so will be mindful of that old acronym KISS - which stands for Keep It Simple Stupid!

I’ll be wring a future piece about how the water and exercise has helped me to become fitter and healthier and whether drinking lots of water has helped to wean me off the quantities of unhealthy beverages that I’ve become so accustomed to. Stay tuned.

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