Water & Drinks

Drink up!

Did you know our bodies are made up of over 70% water, and yet sadly most people don’t drink more than 2 glasses of water per day on average.

The typical American diet has a person drinking heavy cream/sugar laden coffee in the morning, soda with their lunch and afternoon, and then wine/alcohol in the evening or maybe even more soda. Most people don’t even think to drink water, even though it is one of the simplest and most effective routes to feeling better, more energized, losing weight, and improving focus and cognition (thinking power). Drinking these other substances instead is also a huge problem because many people are drinking their macros in processed form, and so still are hungry even after drinking hundreds and hundreds of calories each and every day through their coffee mixtures, sodas, fruit juices, and alcohols.

One simple way to lose weight and feel better that we’ll practice throughout your health journey with me is to get rid of the calorie heavy drinks, and focus on drinking more beverages which have one or max two ingredients. You’ll feel better and lose weight. For example, drinking water with lemon squeezed into it. Drinking 1-2 cups per day (no more) of black coffee with a little bit of almond milk (not cow milk).
Did I mention drinking more water? It’s KIND of a big deal. ;-)

Here’s more of what you need to know about beverages:

Drinking soda is perhaps the worst thing you can put in your body because of a couple destructive ingredients, most dominantly, high fructose corn syrup. However, diet drinks aren’t much better, because your body reacts to the chemicals put inside of it as if it’s sugar, even when it’s not technically sugar. Drinking diet drinks rarely leads to losing weight, in fact it leads to dulling your taste response so you need more and more processed/sugary/unhealthy foods in order to enjoy them as much. By cutting out diet drinks, you will slowly start to enjoy eating healthier food because you will regain your full tastebud function through time.

Avoid soda at all costs, if soda is something really important to you, try taking the next 30 days off. You will find your tastebuds will likely not enjoy it as much when you taste it again

Low levels of dehydration (from not drinking enough water) cause you to lose brainpower, experience constant fatigue, get sick easier, and hold on to higher levels of fat.
Drink more water!

Alcohol is a fine thing to drink (in moderation), but be careful of the calories in beer and some forms of wine.
Avoid drinking daily, instead opt for drinking 1-2x per week MAX and no more than 1-2 glasses max when you do drink. If you choose to drink, seek out organic wines. drink quality vodka, tequila, rum, either straight or with carbonated water with natural flavors.

Coffee is fine, but use a natural form of sugar like stevia or agave to mix in it, avoid processed sugar if at all possible. Or even better, get away from the sweet tasting foods and drinks all together in the morning. The last thing we want to do is spike our blood sugar first thing in the moring. I personally stick to fatty coffee’s in the morning and typically skip any ‘breakfast foods’. Use coconut cream, or an organic almond or coconut milk instead of dairy or cow’s milk to mix into your coffee if you do use it.

While fruit juices like apple juice and orange juice have been marketed as “healthy,” in reality they are full of fruit sugar and very high in calorie content. Avoid drinking fruit juice just like you avoid drinking soda. If I am going to have a smoothie, I stick to low-sugar fruits like berries and add in a lot of plants, fat, and protein.

How To Drink Healthier

Here are some simple tips to start drinking healthier this week.

1). If you drink soda or fruit juice, take away one glass of either you’d normally drink in a day and instead replace it with a glass of water. You don’t have to change all of what you drink on day 1, instead opt for small changes.

2). Over the next 3 days: Track your water intake, and then try to increase it by one glass of water daily (minimum) over the next week, then increase by one glass each day over that the following week. In time our goal is to get you to a minimum of a gallon a day of water.

3). If you drink coffee, remove sugar from it. If you try your coffee like this for a week or two, you’ll notice you may start to enjoy the regular taste of coffee better. If you need a little extra flavor, mix in some coconut cream, almond milk, or coconut milk. If you absolutely need some sweetness, mix in a dash of stevia or monk fruit.

4). Avoid drinking alcohol through the week, except for perhaps the occasional glass of organic red wine. Some studies have shown occasional red wine can have positive emotional health benefits but in excess, it can be damaging, so be careful.

5). If you really struggle with enjoying water, take the change slow. Drink one less soda, put one less packet of sugar in your coffee, and drink one less glass of wine per week. Make it easy to change in the short term, and over the next year and beyond, we’ll work on improving your health more and more.

How To Drink This Week

This week, try drinking one more glass of water per day, and if you drink 4-6 cups of coffee, reduce down to 1-2 cups or go decaf.
If you drink water instead, your energy will radically increase. Simple changes like putting a water bottle by your desk at work or in your car and keeping it full will make it easy to drink more.

If your energy drops in the afternoon (which it may in the early going), try drinking more water. You may be surprised at the boost in energy you experience from being well hydrated.

If you drink soda, then this week give up soda just to see how your body will react, replace any soda drinks with water. You may be surprised at how much better you perform and how much better you feel.

Track your water intake over the next 7 days, in ounces. What you measure gets better, so expect that it will improve your health this week, because it will.

One of the best things you could do in this program is to break the habit of drinking soda completely. A simple way to do this is to avoid it for the next 30 days, and then give it a taste after that time. You may be surprised your taste buds have adapted and you no longer enjoy the taste of it.