Drink Healthier: Key Water Facts and Tips
With August being National Water Quality Month, I wanted to
share my busy mom tips about drinking water, which is the most important of all
lessons in my book, “Busy Mom’s Cheat Sheet: Raising Happy Healthy Kids”, and a
habit to ingrain into our children’s everyday routine.
Did you know that water makes up 60% body weight, more than
½ of our body weight!
Water is so important because it is involved in every
cellular activity in our body and when you don’t drink enough, our bodily
processes are not as efficient.
Even the mildest dehydration drains your energy, makes you
tired, causes overeating, constipation and prevents weight loss.
So in reality, a lot of the weight gain we are seeing in our
kids today can be attributed to not drinking enough water. Not liquids as in
soda, juice, ice tea, sports drinks and other sugary beverages but WATER!
To that end, I’d like to share two busy mom cheat sheet
water tips with you:
Cheat sheet tip #1: Most cravings are due to dehydration so
if your child is having a craving, give them a glass of water and see if
subsides first before giving into it. I tried this myself when I wanted that
2nd scoop of ice cream.
Cheat sheet tip #2: How much water should you be drinking?
Where it used to be 8 glasses water per day one size fits all, it is now more
customized to individual needs and activity levels. A handy metric to help you
gauge is to drink ½ ounce to 1 ounce per pound of body weight. So if your child
weighs 50 pounds, (s)he should be drinking 25-50 ounces of water per day. Did you know that not all water is created equal?
So in addition to making sure that you are drinking enough
water, you want be drinking the ‘good’ water and not the ‘not so good’ water.
What do I mean by that? We need to consider the pH balance of the water.
pH can either be alkaline or acidic on scale 1-14. Water
should be at least 7.4 pH, which is the same pH as our blood for optimal health
and hydration. Our bodies work best when alkaline; if too acidic, it can cause
inflammation which is a breeding ground for ailments, disease and health
issues. For example, imagine a fish tank. When a tank is clean, water is
flowing through the filtration system, water is clear and fish swim quickly to-and-fro. As the fish tank gets dirty, the water gets cloudy, algae starts to
form on the surface and fish don’t move as quickly since they are not getting
enough oxygen in the water in the acidic environment. Eventually, if the tank
isn’t cleaned, the fish will ultimately die.
Since this isn’t labelled on water (even though some brands
are now starting to do it), how do you know?? Check out the water experiment I
did with my son where I tested the pH of many popular water brands as well as
my faucet’s filtered tap water. Prepare to be shocked at the results!!
If you want to test your tap water at home or do this water
experiment with your kids, this is the pH drops bottle I bought on Amazon.
To figure out the best water filter option for you and your
budget, check out the Environmental Working Group (EWG) water filter buying
guide. Go to www.ewg.org and search for
‘water filter guide’ and it’s the first search result.
P.S. More tips like these as well as 45 healthy, quick and
delicious recipes even the pickiest bellies at home will love can be found in
my book, “Busy Mom’s Cheat Sheet” available on Amazon today! For a limited time only, give yourself or a
loved one the gift of “Busy Mom’s Cheat Sheet: Raising Happy Healthy Kids” for
20% off. Learn the tools to lead and teach your kids to have a healthy happy
life. Enter discount code VV4APGS4 at checkout.
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