Greetings Dear Readers,

Often times people will tell me they drink “enough” water. Generally, we drink enough to satiate our thirst. That’s all well and good, but did you know that if you are not drinking enough water it can cause your thirst reflex can diminish? That means you drink even less, leaving you chronically dehydrated resulting in poor outflow of toxins through the kidneys and intestines, constipation and inflammation to name a few?

A better way to know how much water to drink is to take your weight in pounds and divide that in half. This number is how many ounces a day of water you will need, minimum, for healthy body functioning.

Weight in pounds i.e. 150 pounds divided by 2 = 75 ounces of water = 9.3 cups of water.

Now that may sound like a lot.

Let’s remember, 8 ounces = 1 cup of water.

Now some of you may be thinking, well, I just feel so bloated or water-logged if I try to drink that much. Yes, this can happen when you combine water with your meals. The key thing is to drink water BEFORE the meals and not after. Really important. If you drink water with or soon after your meals, you will water down your digestive enzymes and make it hard for your stomach to digest your food, resulting in poor absorption of nutrients, bloating etc. A little water or tea/coffee with meals is fine. The good things is that your water intake measurement includes soups, juices, smoothies and other drinks.

So for example, my water intake goes something like this:

2 cups before breakfast

2 cups before lunch

2 cups before dinner

2 cups before bed (at least an hour after dinner)

This may be a new habit for you and it will pay off. At first you may notice that you are urinating more, but generally this should not be a concern because your body is now finally getting the chance to flush out toxins that it wasn’t able to before because of the lack of water. Over a few weeks this should subside. You may also notice that your bowel movements are more frequent and regular. This is a good thing. Thank you water.

Yes, you can thank your water. There are many places in the world where people have to walk for miles to find water or where water is contaminated. So if your water is easily available, abundant and fairly clean, thank your water today.

Yours in health,

Cynthia