How much water should you be drinking daily?
The easiest answer is to drink enough so that your urine is clear to a very light yellow. The darker the yellow, the more water you need to be drinking.
So – how much water do you need to drink? That will be different for everyone – and even different each day–depending on how much you weigh, how active you are, what foods you eat, what liquids you drink, what meds you take, and what exercise you do.
Before THM I drank what I thought was a lot of water–most days I would get between 8 and 10 cups a day.
During my first month on plan someone posted the article below that suggested that people who are trying to lose weight should have at least 1 oz for every 2 lbs that they weighed. Oh My Goodness–being close to 280 at the time meant at least 140 oz a day–that was more than a gallon of water!
The more I read – the more I found this suggestion and how important water is for weight loss. There are lots of contradicting opinions out there–studies that show it’s best to begin your day with warm water or only drink cold water or finish up your day with at least 2 cups right before sleeping or… or… or…
I am including some of my favorite articles below for those of you who, like me, want to know more and like studies to back up the opinions expressed online.
And to those studies – I will add my own experience–I do not lose when I don’t have enough water to drink. I get constipated, I get leg cramps that wake me up, I get headaches, I get body aches–all of these icky things happen when I don’t give my body the water that it needs and wants–the water that it uses to heal my insides and keep me losing fat.
So – drink up!!
Tips to getting all of that water in me
I begin my day with 2 16 oz herbal teas – I put 1 scoop of Collagen into my Disney mug – pour 2 cups of almost boiling water in – stir to dissolve it – then add 2 tea bags – 1 Rooibos and 1 of another flavor. I then add a TrueLemon packet and a small squirt or two of stevia liquid. Once I drink the first one – I fill that same cup with more water – so the tea is weaker – I add in another TrueLemon packet, the stevia and drink up.
The rest of the day I drink from 32 oz containers (I love the ones that are like mason jars with the handles on them) so it’s easy for me to keep mental note of how much I’m drinking.
Usually 2 of these 32 oz are “GGMS” (Good Girl MoonShine) – each one having 2 Tbl ACV and 2 Tbl ginger juice (see post here on how to make that). I add TrueLemon or TrueLime packets and/or their drink mixes for flavor–it sure does help the liquid disappear into me quickly.
Then, I end up drinking at least 2-4 cups during the hour or two before bed–that is usually plain water–nothing added (no reason for that–it’s just what I keep next to my bed so I drink it plain). Yes, that does mean that I wake up once during the night to head to the bathroom–but for me it’s wake up for that or with leg cramps–I prefer the former.
health.usnews.com…How-much-water-you-should-really-drink
How-much-water-your-body-needs-to-lose-weight