Tracking My Water Intake

I love drinking water throughout the day. It's the first thing that I drink in the morning and the last thing that I drink at night. I have a bottle of water next to my night stand or on my desk at all times. Most of the times when I'm out and about I have a bottle of water with me. An hour drive or train ride without a bottle of water? No way!

So drinking water comes fairly easy and natural to me. My dad's solution to a headache is drinking a glass of water, so water is my first go-to medicine.

But I wanted to know exactly how much water I drink during the day so I decided to start to keep track. Yesterday was my first day of keeping track and downloaded a simple app.

Before breakfast I already drank my first 500 ml of water and I have to say, that one didn't come easy. Felt like I had to chug it down. But that is something I want to keep up with. Replenish my water intake after a night's sleep.

I always read that you have to drink at least 2 liters or 8 glasses a day for health but 2 liters seemed too little for me since I already had my first 500 ml that day. So I set my target for 3 liters.

Normally I refill my bottle of 500 ml throughout the day, even if it's not totally empty. But today I only tracked the water and refilled the bottle if it were empty. This is easier to track.

5:25 PM

By 5:30 PM I already had 2,5 liters of water and reached 84% of my daily goal. Wow! Not to imagine I slept in because it was Sunday and had breakfast around 10 AM. That 20 ml is an espresso by the way. ;-)

7:55 PM

It wasn't even 8 PM and I already met my goal of 3 liters! Considering it was at the beginning of the evening, I could easily drink a gallon by the time of going to bed! A gallon is 3,7 liters and sounds so daunting thinking of drinking so much. Especially because it's almost twice the daily recommendation!

A few facts of my Sunday:

• I only drank water and 1 espresso throughout the day (so no soda);
• I didn't work out;
• I didn't eat spicy food;
• I only drank when I wanted and not to get to my daily target.

Of course, not every day looks like this (I think). In the office I drink less water and more tea. Which I think, you can also consider for your water intake. But when I'm very busy at for example in a meeting or want to finish typing an email, I delay my water intake, even not on purpose.

So here is my challenge. I will keep tracking my daily water intake but the difference now is that I will have to make more effort of drinking water since not every day looks like this lazy Sunday (okay I did a lot of studying, so not that lazy!).

If I can easily drink more than 3 liters a day of water without going to the gym, I should consider drinking more than 3 liters a day on days that I go to the gym.

Guess what? While finishing this post, I finished another bottle of water! Maybe all this thinking of water just makes me thirsty! ;-)

Do you drink a lot of water or do should you increase your intake? 

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