H2O

I’ve had another appendage for years now. Currently, its color is blue. It’s had other colors in the past. It’s my water bottle and it goes with me just about everywhere. In fact on the rare occasion that I leave the house without it I feel rather naked just like when I don’t carry a purse.

I started drinking more water years ago when I was running. It was important to replenish the fluid my body sweated off during my runs. These days I am walking but the habit of consuming water throughout my day has stayed with me.

I even take my bottle with me when I go visit someone and in the house it comes with me too. I do this so it doesn’t get warm for my trip home but do find that I continue to use it once there.

It’s just gotten to be a habit to drink water and a good one too.

Several years ago I found a travel purse that has a neat little folding pocket to store my water bottle. That comes in handy when I’m going places and don’t want to carry my bottle in my hand. This week our local newspaper had an article about a variety of fancy water bottles that are on the market now from collapsible ones that fold into a small disk easy to store to one that has a filter in the bottle to purify the water as you drink it.

My goal is to drink at least 2 of my blue bottles a day. I’ve noticed that when I drink less I don’t feel as good and tend to get hungrier too.

In “6 Reasons to Drink More Water”*, a Web MD article, it says that our bodies consist of 60% water which helps our body’s digestion, absorption, circulation, in the creation of saliva, transportation of nutrients and maintenance of our body temperature. I did not know that all of these body systems are dependent on our intake of fluids to work!

The article also suggests that drinking water can help us control our calorie intake. Water energies our muscles. Cells that don’t maintain their balance of fluids and electrolytes shrivel which can result in muscle fatigue.

Water helps keep our skin looking good because our skin contains water. Our skin looks more dry and wrinkled when we are dehydrated. Our skin functions as a protective barrier to help us prevent fluid loss.

The article states that body fluids help our body transport waste products in and out of our cells to our kidneys and into our urine cleansing and ridding our body of toxins. If we don’t drink enough water we can be at a higher risk for developing kidney stones. When we are hydrated our gastrointestinal tract keeps things flowing well preventing constipation. When we don’t have enough body fluid the colon pulls water from our stools to maintain hydration and we become constipated.

And, fluid loss is accentuated as we get older too!

I did not know most of this information…I know so very little about how my body functions. Guess I’ve just added a number of more reasons to keep carrying that additional appendage of mine around!

Do you drink enough water? How might you add more H2O into your life if not?