Eight Glasses?

When someone tells me that they feel weirdly tired or excessively hungry or just kind of out of sorts, the first thing I ask them is how much water they've been drinking lately. Then they look at me like I have an asparagus fern growing out of my head, and I don't really blame them but seriously! Drinking more water will cure a lot of what ails you!

Dehydration doesn't always register as thirst - in fact, by the time you feel thirsty chances are good you're already pretty far down the dehydration road. Before that it tends to register as fatigue or hunger or a dull but stubborn headache, or quite possibly something else entirely for you what with the fact that we're all different and whatnot. So next time you feel inexplicably weird try drinking a large glass of water and see if that doesn't help! If nothing else, drinking more water keeps your skin nice and helps with a lot of your important bodily processes (dang, I really know how to make it sound exciting, no?).

As for staving off that inexplicable weirdness? There are a lot of different rules of thumb regarding how much water we all need, and honestly I don't know if you can get too hard-and-fast about it given how many different factors contribute to our hydration levels, but I think the best one might be the simplest (apologies in advance to those of you with delicate sensibilities): as long as your pee is clear you're fine. What I recommend is getting yourself a good-size water bottle and carrying it around with you all day, drinking from it when it feels correct and necessary. It won't take too long to get a feel for how much water you generally need.

"But I don't like water!" My knee-jerk response to that is that I don't like waking up at 6:30 am but I do it because my livelihood depends on it. My friendlier and possibly more constructive response is that there are plenty of things you can do to make it more tolerable: add sliced citrus fruit or cucumber or a drop or two of essential oil (make sure it's made to be ingested, for pete's sake!), or even one of those weird little flavor packet thingies if that's what it takes to get and keep you hydrated. Just figure out what you need to do and then do it and go on with your bad non-thirsty self!

Foodie Wednesday tomorrow! Are you excited? I sure am.

- Sarah