Anyone else have trouble drinking enough water??

I have hardly ever been able to drink 8 glasses of water a day.  I don't know why, some of it has to do with the taste - the stuff at our office tastes terrible sometimes!

Anyone have any tips on how to get myself to drink more water?

I probably only drink 3 glasses a day if I am lucky.  

Could this have something to do with my slow weight loss? I am just starting week 3 and have only lost 5.5 lbs...  

I have a hard time also.  I try to drink a glass an hour and I add crystal light to it; it helps with the tate.  I can usually get down 4 glasses a day with no problem, its the 8 that gets me too.

i dont have trouble, at all. actually, my trouble is drinking too much...

 

drink a few cups when you wake up.

I think 5.5 pounds in 3 weeks is a great number. If you lose it too fast you'll just gain it back. I think drinking water is so boring, but I decided to see if it would help me to lose weight too, I cut the soda out. I'm trying to find something else I like to drink without carbonation.

Good start for three weeks; slow and steady weight loss is recommended. I have a hard time with drinking enough water, too. I managed to get down a 1/2 gallon (32 ounces) yesterday, and I'm still working on finishing the 1/2 gallon for today. I have a 1/2 gallon water jug that I fill every morning, and I add a sugar-free flavored mix to it because I don't really like the taste of water either (even though it really doesn't taste like anything).

I was just wondering today if diet sodas count towards water intake. What's the difference between water being carbonated or not? I am a diet coke FIEND! If the oceans were filled with diet coke, I would be a fish! Trying to cut back and replace with the H2O (at least a full gallon).

I don't know if water actually causes weight loss, but here's what I think (and this is just me thinking out loud): drinking more water causes me to go pee more, so I have to run to the bathroom more, and all that running between my desk (or whatever) and the bathroom and doing the pee-pee dance causes me to burn more calories, thus I lose more weight! Just a theory I'm working on.

LOL Awesome theory, Tracywscott..

I have a hard time drinking water as well. Even with a flavoring, I still don't seem to get enough in.  I've had 3 bottles of water (48 oz) (with propel mix added) and that was pretty good, but I need to get on track.

It's harder for me to be able to go to the bathroom a bunch of times a day though because I am a college student and, being in class and getting up every half hour or so makes me look ridiculous.

I am trying to cut out all drinks except water and coffee,less than 8 oz, and hot chocolate on these really cold Chicago days.  The water is hard because I am drinking is ice cold and that really doesnt feel good going down when it is cold outside. 

I drink water first thing in the morning...that seems to help a little...and it wakes you up too!

I feel a poem coming on: 

Water, water, so good for me!  Water, water, makes me pee!  teehee

I don't like water either so I got some of the DaVinci sugar free syrups and I mix them with hot water and drink them like tea at night.  I really like it like that.  And there are so many flavors.  Try it.  I'm really not a water drinker and at home I have well water, which I prefer but at the office it's "city water" and that absolutely stink - literally as far as a I'm concerned.  But with the syrups, I can drink it.

Our tap water here tastes terrible too - get a Brita pitcher, it makes all the difference!  I find drinking it with a straw makes it way easier :)  And, always having a glass with me to sip on through-out the day.

My dietitian also told me to count some fruits as a glass of water - such as pineapple.  I don't know if everyone would agree with that though...

herbal teas are great (: along with any other tea!

This is too funny!  I don't drink water at all.  It's gross.  It makes me pee every 20 minutes if I drink it.  As a teacher, I cannot go pee that often.  I have to be careful to regulate my fluid consumption since I have an active bladder to begin with.  Instead, I drink coffee and tea.  I sometimes treat myself with a diet pop but I know it's not healthy and it makes me crave sweets so I rarely do that.  I sometimes drink YOP.

 My friend recently joined weight watchers and was told that 6 cups of water a day is enough.  That is 1.5 litres.  If you drink plain herbal tea instead, that counts.  It is okay to put crystal light or other mixes in your water.  I think that it is healthy to get enough fluids but honestly, I'm pretty healthy and I've lost 10 pounds in two weeks without adding icky water to my palate.  Give yourself a break.  Oh, and someone once said that you can't live on distilled water alone since it will strip your minerals from your body.  Also, avoid the water bottled in plastic.  The plastic releases carcinogens into the water.  Besides, they are just putting lake water in a bottle and charging you for the convenience of being able to carry it and buy it.  There is NO regulation to control what is actually in the water or if it is safe to drink!

 

I am a biologist, and I have to say I got an account just to counter the kind of silly statement I read in the above post.

 

1) The REASON you have to pee every 20 minutes is BECAUSE you don't drink water.

People who don't drink water, or who drink juice, booze or other items exclusively eventually develop a calcified kidney, kidney blockage, and kidney stones. Kidney blockage gives you the urge to pee. Eventually you will pee bits of calcified glass out of your urethra. Sound icky? More icky than drinking a glass of water? It is unhealthy statements about food, like something as benign as water, which is putting people in the kind of unhealthy eating and obesity patters we see every day.

 

 

2) Distilled water will not rob you of minerals. Distilled water has minerals in it. The water you are referring to is DEIONIZED water. It is available mostly in laboratories for use in molecular biology. It also will not rob you of minerals incidentally.

 

Firstly, your intenstines do not absorb water without sugar and salt. That is the reason you are drinking water in the first place. It fills you up. Too much water will frankly just pass through your system. If you are really worried about mineral depletion (i.e. you are sweating during a marathon) take a multivitamin, which we should all do anyway.

If deionized water entered your blood stream it would logically do so only with the minerals that are present in your digestive tract, essentially adding minerals to your bloodstream. This would later be expelled by your kidneys. Expelling low minieralized water through your urine is a way to prevent KIDNEY STONES.

 

3) Thirdly, THERE ARE NO CARCINOGENS released by Plastic Bottles. Do you honestly think that the FDA doesn't notice what is in a plastic bottle but somehow YOU do? There have been many many studies on plastic of all kinds.  The scientific consensus is that nothing is dangerous in plastic.  I don't like plastic litter, but.-Plastic is inert.

 

4) Although I agree that most tap water is as good as most bottled water (unless you have well water with arsenic or uranium in it). BOTTLED WATER IS INDEED REGULATED FOR SAFETY. Did you notice the expiration date on your water?  Maybe a little entity called the FOOD and Drug administration, has rules about water.  The idea that they are putting LAKE WATER in Cancer filled plastic bottles that make you pee too often is possibly the most ridiculous paragraph written about water since the parting of the red sea.

And this from a teacher....

 

I hope your teaching fiction, not biology.

 

 

p.s. I love water I drink about a half gallon to a gallon a day. Try it on ice.

 

I'm glad you said what you did flyingpumpkin.  It amazes me sometimes the things that people believe.  Thanks for setting the record straight.

For a long time, I didn't drink enough water.  In fact, I was lucky if I drank even 16 ounces in a day, let alone a gallon.  My problem was that I didn't want to interrupt my work or my train of thought to get up and get a drink.  I knew on an intellectual level that being that under hydrated was bad for me, but I would get into a work rhythm and not want to break it.  I finally saw the light one day when I passed out in the street in front of my house while playing with my dog during the hot Texas summer.  After that, I made it a point to keep a water bottle with me whenever possible and to force myself to drink more.  Sometimes it just takes a kick in the head to make me realize that I am doing something really dumb (or in this case, a bump on the head from it hitting the pavement) and to change my ways.

BTW, now that I drink the recommended amount of water per day, I don't feel the heat as much as I used to and I just feel better in general. 

Original Post by flyingpumpkin:

I am a biologist, and I have to say I got an account just to counter the kind of silly statement I read in the above post.

The idea that they are putting LAKE WATER in Cancer filled plastic bottles that make you pee too often is possibly the most ridiculous paragraph written about water since the parting of the red sea.

And this from a teacher....I hope your teaching fiction, not biology.

That was freakin' HILARIOUS!!!

Where do these myths come from? Thanks for the info.

5.5 lbs in 3 weeks great!  But I agree about the water - I just don't get thirsty when it's cold.  I buy 1.5 liter bottles by the case and leave them in my car (but not it's hot outside) and take one to work with me every day.  I work at a bank and we have a glorious giant ice machine and I have Crystal Light on the Go packets and styrofoam cups in my desk - that helps too - but sometimes I just end up drinking water straight from the bottle...  I drink throughout the day and by the time I leave, I know I've had at least 6 glasses.  I am working to change my "tapes" - one of which is "But I'm not THIRSTY!!!" to "I want to hydrate my cells and flush toxins."  This may not work for some, but it helps me...  Good luck!   (I don't like plastic litter, either, flyingpumpkin, but I do recycle!) 

Easy

 

Drink 6 - 8 oz of water before and after each meal

 

You may find it grows on you

I try to start my day with a very big cup of herbal tea. Not straight water, but it isn't caffeinated, it warms me up, and herbal teas do count towards water intake. Tazo teas are particularly good. I like Refresh and Calm best. After that I get the coffee out XD. I tend to have a bottle to sip on absent mindedly during classes, and when buying a spring summer purse, it should fit a bottle of water (which kinda sucks when it makes a $150 or more difference in the price) In the winter, I drink loads of herbal teas just to keep warm as I am a very cold person by nature (and at war with my menopausal mother over the thermostat) Sugarfree hot chocolate is also an option, though not as good as herbal teas or plain water. Try to also finish an entire bottle or large cup of tea with each meal. I tend to eat less at dinner that way. 

I find sparkling water is much easier to drink, 2 litres cost 40p in  ;my local supermarket, so  ;it's not expensive.

I hate drinking water too.  I take it like medicine.  Down it straight and fast.  If I'm behind in my drinking water I'll down 2 glasses at once so that I've got all my glasses in before 5:00pm.  This way I won't wake up during the night. 

I'm HORRIBLE at drinking water.  The first thing I did to start losing weight was cut out my soda drinking...I lost weight but wasn't drinking anything.  Until I found out that I had kidney stones :)  Then I was drinking water to save my sanity!  After they were out...back to no drinking water.  What an idiot but I've always been like this.

 Now I make sure that I always have a bottle of water with me in the car, it's an easy way to drink water without really thinking about it.  Also, I have a fairly long commute to school so I try to drink an entire bottle of water on the drive over and back.

I also read somewhere that most liquid counts towards your water intake since most liquid has so much water in it.  Fruits also count.  Don't take that as science (seeing as tho we have a biologist that will surely jump in and let me know if I'm accurate or not) but it makes sence.