Im realizing that I’ve actually been chronically dehydrated for a good portion of my adult life and I’m looking to change that. I just don’t enjoy drinking water (as silly as that may sound).
Any advice is appreciated.
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Get a big insulated metal jug 1 liter or more, keep it in arms reach when sitting around or wherever convenient for where you spend time. Get a second one for work. Make it a goal to empty it at least once, preferably twice a day. Can’t stay hydrated when the water is in a different room. Water next to the bed beacuse that shit hits different at 3am.
Store any liquor, pop, beer, etc in an inconvenient location so the water is always the lazy and low effort option. No mini-fridge at the gaming setup. Your taste will adjust over a few weeks.
Just drink water. You’ve ruined yourself over all these years by drinking juice/soda/Brawndo. You keep buying into the lie that “you don’t like water”.
You’ll get used to it and eventually come to want water. It’s literally what your body craves. Humans have existed for 300 millenia; mass produced sugary drinks have only existed for what, 100 years? You’ve evolved to drink water.
My daughter eats spicy food when she decides to drink more water.
learn to enjoy drinking it.
good habits don’t magically happen, you have to use your willpower.
You can also try seltzer or flavored waters if that helps or filtering it. plenty of tap water can taste bad.
I don’t get the whackadole ‘hacks’ people are going on about here. I drink 2-3L of water per day, and 4-5L if I’m active. I drink it because I’m thirsty and it’s delicious.
Make it the first thing you drink when you wake up.
Eat salty and spicy snacks. I like jalapeno kettle chips and wasabi almonds.
One thing to consider is that your relationship with taste might need to be re-examined.
Human beings can go most places in the world and find food. Taste is a big part of our ability to do so as a species, sure, but the fact remains that being able to eat/drink solely to satiate your desires (rather than survival) is actually an abnormality if we compare it to the rest of human history. In a sense, it is a privilege to simply be able to say ‘no’ to something strictly based on the flavor.
Try to guage it based on how you feel rather than how it tastes. You should be able to feel the difference between how a day with only water feels vs a day without water (I’m not including beer or soda here, yes it can keep you hydrated no it is not a solution to hydration unless you’re trapped in a desert). If it’s hard for you to notice a difference, give it a week. Being regularly hydrated should effect how you feel at every part of the day, especially in the mornings.
sugar free soda is absolutely fine for hydration, the addatives just go straight through your body
I think if you look at in isolation, sure, much like beer in a survival situation. Sugar free soda is still linked with things like higher blood pressure, diabetes — which, to me, sounds like you’re just better off drinking water.
source? Because all i’ve ever seen is that sugar free soda is almost identical to water
I can find sources but for one thing, aspartame has been looked at for years as a carcinogen, 4-MEI (caramel coloring) is also a carcinogen, articles like this one point to sucralose being quite bad for you in many different ways.
If your sugar free soda contains caffeine then it can actually contribute to hydration loss, this is because caffeine is a dieuretic (something that increases urine production and removes extra salt and water from the body).
Plus the simple logic is: sugar free soda cannot be almost identical to plain water because of the sheer amount of additives. You will always be better off health-wise drinking clean water.
Are you drinking water with meals? I find washing something down, even a single chip, causes you to drink more than you could by itself.
Also, keep it at hand. A refillable bottle is worth investing in. If you like it ice cold, get a vacuum insulated vessel.
I have a water bottle but I can never finish it in a day.
I think the washing down food idea is really good and im definitely going to try that going forward.
Step one, fill cup with water.
Step two, drink cup.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you’ve drank enough water.
Step two, drink cup.
I think you’re supposed to drink the water, not the cup itself
Well that would explain the problem, wouldn’t it.
All these years!
@Maven but why do you hate drinking water ?? Is it pretty cold where you live ??
I do live in a colder climate but for the most part its just kinda a chore?
Plus I’m notably bad at the act of drinking and have somehow never quite gotten the automatic “stop breathing” instinct that everyone else got when they drink something. I choke on something im drinking fairly regularly somehow.
That sounds like it probably has a lot to do with your problem! Does it happen regardless of how you drink? Straw, cup, bottle, etc.?
@lovely_reader @Maven maybe you like nipples ??🤪🤪
Kidding… How about eating your water since you hate that word drinking ??
Probably in your culture, drinking means something else, but I’ve never drunk alcohol. And l don’t remember when l had taken my last coffee or tea.
Don’t. Drinking water with meals dilutes your stomach acid. Just eat less processed food and less salt and you’ll barely need to drink any water. Cooked vegetables and fruit are both mostly water.
Only time you need to drink water is when exercising outdoors for extended periods, and even then it’s about 3-4 liters per day (including food).
Also despite a lot of bogus advice out there, coffee is water, beer is 94% water. I have gone months with only coffee and beer and it’s not a problem.
Finally that brings us to kidney stones. Avoid high oxalate foods, and if you are worried about stones drink lemon water or other acidic beverages, as it dissolves stones better than plain water.
Chronic mild dehydration is not a disease and it does not need treatment. I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice.
Drink when you’re thirsty. Water or any other liquid other than soda pop. You’ll probably be fine.
OP, please don’t listen to this person. Most of this is terrible advice.
To start, it’s still advisable to drink water through the day even if you’re getting some from your food intake. A typical diet will provide around 20% of the recommended daily amount - the rest needs to come from actual fluid intake. Even with a diet with a high proportion of fruits and vegetables, it doesn’t come close to meeting the ideal amount.
Coffee and beer are not the same as the equivalent amount of pure water. Caffeine and ethanol both function as diuretics - that is, they promote urine production which in turn reduces your overall hydration. Ethanol is worse in this category to the extent that alcoholic drinks can actually dehydrate you. Caffeine has a more mild effect and is overall hydrating, but a cup of coffee still isn’t equivalent to a cup of water.
Citrus fruits do help prevent kidney stone formation, but it’s primarily via a different mechanism involving the citrate found in those fruits/juices rather than the acidity itself. Not that this matters too much in practice, but I point this out due to the inclusion of “other acidic beverages” as an alternative.
Chronic mild dehydration (generally) won’t kill you, but it will prevent your body from functioning at its best and can potentially cause issues with electrolyte imbalances, blood pH, and plenty else. You should aim to stay optimally hydrated as much as possible for the benefit of your overall health.
“Drink when you’re thirsty” is the one solid piece of advice here. Your body has evolved cues like this over hundreds of millions in order to get you to take good care of it, and its best to listen to them as much as possible. That said: these cues only works when you’re cognizant of them, and it’s still important to be actively mindful and intermittently remind yourself to follow them, especially when you’re involved in tasks that would otherwise distract you from them.
We don’t know OPs diet. All we know is that OP feels some kind of societal pressure to drink more than they want to. Nobody should do that. We should consume the amount that feels right and it’s as simple as that. Those who consume a high fat diet, or are overweight may have plenty of metabolic water through fat.
Water pushers are just as wrong as I am. Hyponatraemia can be fatal and it can have similar symptoms to heat exhaustion, leading people to chug more water. The only safe advice for water is to drink what feels right.
Respectfully, what on Earth are you talking about? OP has only indicated that they’re trying to be health-conscious by maintaining proper hydration - the weird “societal pressure” angle is being superimposed by you. As I alluded to in my previous comment, it’s easy to ignore mild dehydration and sometimes a conscious effort is needed to maintain optimal intake. “Drink when you’re thirsty” is fine in a vacuum, but to distill (no pun intended) hydration advice down to just that is to ignore how people work in real life.
I don’t know why you’re bringing up hyponatremia. Water toxicity is exceedingly rare and one would need to consume an inordinate amount of water in short time before it becomes “unsafe.” You’re unnecessarily fearmongering and pushing misinformation when you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Also, there’s no “water-pushing” conspiracy at play here. It’s just a reality that most people don’t consume as much water as they ideally should, and as a result people sometimes draw attention to that reality as a means of improving the general health of society.
