How to Drink More Water

Drink more water. Every health professional out there from Dr. Oz to Saharan camels advocates this. In fact, it may be the one thing they all agree on. (Well that and spitting is fun.) Which is why when coming up with my three "healthy additions" this week, it was one of the first things I put on my list. About 70% of our body weight is water - unless you are P.M.S.ing and then, as every woman knows, it goes up to like 110% - so obviously water is great for us. Which is why you'd think it wouldn't be hard to remember to drink the stuff.

Confession: I have always admired people with clear urine. (Don't ask me how I know the color of their urine - people just tell me things! That, and a I pay attention to what's circling the drain from the shower stall next to me at the gym.) Sadly, this is how it usually goes down for me:

[A toilet sits center stage under a lone spot light. A girl enters stage left and sits on it. After several minutes of giggling over the naughty unintentional pun in the daily crossword puzzle she arises and turns back to examine the contents of the bowl. (What? Like you don't look!)]

Girl: [A scream echoes throughout the theater] What is THAT?! Am I DYING?? What do you even CALL that COLOR?

Man, offstage: Relax honey, we had beets for dinner. Remember?

Girl: That was two days ago! Besides, it isn't magenta anymore so don't worry, I no longer think I'm internally hemorrhaging. (True story.)

Man: What color is it now?

Girl: Um... puce?

Man: Ew! Drink more water!

[End Scene.]

Let's just say that I had great pity for the lab techs that had to examine all my pee samples when I was pregnant. I am not good about remembering to drink water. You'd think my body would get thirsty and remind me but even in the midst of the sweatiest, longest workouts ever I rarely drink more than a few ounces. Part of it is not wanting to wet myself during air jacks but most of it is just plain forgetting. And this is not good. One's pee should not be the consistency of Jell-O.

In an effort to remedy this medical mishap in the making, I have tried many things to remind me to drink up. I've bought supercute water bottles with fancy ice cores and attached carabiners so that I can hook them to my keys and tote them everywhere. An idea which sounded good in theory but in practice meant that I had to buy a bigger purse to accommodate my now ginormous keyring and I refuse to carry a purse that I can't shove in my diaper bag. So that was the end of that. Next I tried a rubber band around my wrist as a visual cue. But that failed on account of how often I used said band as a hair tie. Finally I tried just leaving bottles of water in random places hoping they would catch my eye but thanks to my kids backwashing in all of them, it just made me afraid to drink anything I hadn't personally poured myself in the last 5 minutes - restaurants included.

And then I came across Owater. They sent me a sample to try out after I blogged about fitness drinks. Normally I am verrrryyyy picky when it comes to beverages. First off, I don't like to drink my calories. I'm also averse to artificial sweeteners. And colors. And flavors. So that pretty much rules out every drink on the market. What is calorie free, sweetener free and color free? Plain water, that's what. So I was all set to hate their stuff. But then I tried this:

It's flavored water! But with no artificial anythings! And no calories! And no cloying sweetness! Just water with a hint of fruit. I loved it. In fact, I had to start rationing my bottles so I would have something to look forward to the next day. Although I may have lost a few as I had to hide them because my kids loved them as much as I did and I was certainly not sharing these fancy waters with kids. They drink bath water and like it, is what I'm saying.

So the Owater was a tasty start but one cannot expect to dine on lobster every day so I still need to find other ways to drink more water. What do you do to remind yourself to drink water? How do you take your water - straight up tap or something fancier? And - just out of curiousity - what color is your pee? Anyone else ever eaten beets and then panicked the next time they went potty, thinking they were dying? Anyone??

PS> For those of you following along with January's Great Fitness Experiment and didn't make it into one of the 30 spots for personal coaching, Trainer Lindsey has come up with a great (free!) workout for everyone! Happy sweating!