Is there any alternative to drinking water all day, every day?
The question I’m asked the most is there is an alternative to drinking pure filtered water because you either don’t like water or you are fed up drinking it.
Bear in mind that your body is up to 75% water, and your muscle tissues are 99% water, so in many respects, it’s one of the most important things you can do hydrating yourself efficiently across the day. Not just one day, or just in the week or when you are training but every day, consistently, and it’s often the consistency that is the issue for most people.
But the hard facts are that you need to be drinking plenty of it pure still water throughout your day, every day! When you are feeling tired in the day, or your brain isn’t able to think straight, you are probably suffering from a level of dehydration, your brain is 85% water, by not drinking enough daily you are putting your body under great stress. It leaves you with neck tension, tension headaches, and aching in the body, never mind just less overall energy.
Water is one of the most amazing substances in our world, it can be solid, liquid or gas, and it is vital for cell function and the aging process is accelerated when we are dehydrated. It’s a vital force for our body and your life depends on it because it’s a carrier for nutrients within the body and waste out of the body. Water is truly an amazing element on our earth that we just don’t pay enough attention to drinking.
Within your body there should be flow in the form of your lymph and circulation, this flow is incredibly important, as Dr. Faridum Batmanghelidj said: “you are not sick, you are thirsty”. When we start to become dehydrated we start to become in some respects blocked within our tissue cells, and our metabolism can not function as efficiently. Often bowel dysfunction is a case from my clinical experience of just the individual not drinking enough water across the day. Therefore we shouldn’t be seeing drinking water as a hindrance but as a resource that helps us to nourish ourselves.
But during my presentations I always get asked the same question, do I have to drink so much water or can I drink squash, or juice, or tea, coffee instead, they have water in them.
The thing is your body needs to be hydrated to work properly, squash, juices, tea, and coffee just doesn’t do that, they tend to dehydrate the body further, so your body is always in a deficit because it needs more water than they contain just to digest them. Caffeine due to the effect it has on your adrenal glands causes it to act as a diuretic, which means you end up removing more water than you drink. Also, your sodium and potassium levels are changed which also affects the water balance in the body.
So drinking about 1.5 – 2 litres of pure filtered water depending on your weight, environmental temperature and physical exercise a day is vital, but I know you get bored of drinking it, and you might not even really like drinking it. Well, you must make sure you drink your daily amount first, but then why not move onto some of the following:
Herbal teas are fabulous for supporting the body, botanicals are powerful, so always listen to your body when you are drinking them and watch the response that you get. Too often we eat and drink things without really paying attention to the response it’s giving us within the body. But the body will feedback if it’s not right.
- Peppermint – use to settle the digestion, it’s antispasmodic so if you have diarrhoea it won’t be helpful.
- Chamomile – used to calm and relax with, and I quite like having it with a drop of doTerra Lavender Oil!
- Valerian– use to help you to sleep, and can be particularly helpful in menopause or with PMS insomnia type symptoms.
- Ginger and lemon – lemon helps to cleanse, ginger helps with nausea, and they can help with the digestion.
- Lemongrass – helps to detoxify the body, cleanse the skin
- Lemonbalm – lovely and relaxing. It is also easy to grow in the garden because it’s part of the mint family.
- Gingko – use in the afternoon energy lull instead of the coffee, tea, cigarette, and a biscuit! Great for concentration.
- Ginseng – use in the afternoon energy lull because it’s a great pick me up, particularly if you are feeling stressed.
- Pau D’Arco – helps fight inflammation, a great fighter of pathogens, and is therefore good for an immunity boost.
- Cats Claw – improves the immune response and is also quite good for an immunity boost.
- Turmeric and ginger – helps to fight inflammation.
Hot or cold
Mint, chamomile, lemon balm, and lemon and ginger are all lovely after they go cold as well, I often have them just from the fridge as a light refreshment instead of juice, so that’s an easy way of getting rid of your squash or dilutant.
Adding berries, cucumber are also a great way along with some mint to make a refreshing drink, they add trace minerals which can also be helpful and you get to eat them at the end!
I never use the same tea’s day after day, we tend to be creatures of habit, often getting into a rut having the same foods for breakfast and lunch and drinks across the day. But we would have not had access to foods all the time, and therefore changing what you eat and drink and following the seasons is important to help the body achieve balance.
