But Water is So Boring!

We all know how good water is for us. For some folks, drinking tons of water a day is an easy task, for others (like me), I have to constantly remind myself to keep my water glass full. I will be honest, I've done so well with drinking water as of late that if I don't drink at least three 24 oz. glasses of water, my body reminds me. How does it do that, well oddly enough one evening I started noticing that my lips were getting chapped and I had not been outside in the cold at all. I drank two 24 oz glasses of water and the next morning, my lips were fine again. I guess it could be worse, eh? 

My problem is, water is so boring to drink. All that watery goodness is just hard to handle unless you figure out a way to drink it without the boring factor. So, I have several methods that help me stay on top of my water in-take. 

Method 1: Keep the little food keeper (Tupperware or whatever you call it) full of lemon and lime slices. I will drink water all day long with lemons and limes squeezed into it. I will not drink as much water if I don't have the fruit sliced up so I make sure that I always have slices of fruit (again, for me it's lemons and limes...you might prefer a different fruit). I will also admit to being lazy about the whole fruit slicing thing, so I make sure that when cutting up veggies and such at night for dinner, that I take that time to slice more fruit. 

Method 2: I use a 24 oz. Cool Gear cup. Not only does it keep my water nice and cool, I will drink water more quickly if I am drinking through a straw. Not a big mystery, really, but it definitely helps me, otherwise I sip and I do not refill my glass as often. 

Method 3: TEA! I try to always keep a pitcher of tea in the fridge. Seriously, tea is just flavored water and how you choose to flavor your water is all up to you. Here's the deal with me, I do not like hot drinks so I always drink iced tea. My all time favorite tea: Wild Berry Plum by Republic of Tea. I used to sell ROT in my store in Alabama so I always had tea on hand. Now that I'm in Idaho, I can't find ROT so easily so I settle for the next best thing Red Zinger by Celestial Seasonings. Quite frankly, I love any tea that has hibiscus in it! 

The cool thing about herbal teas is that you get lots of flavor with no caffeine. However, even with green tea, the caffeine is minimal but the health benefits with polyphenols and EcG cannot be beat. Don't take my word for it, Health Benefits of Tea. The great thing is there are so many tea varieties to choose from that you just cannot go wrong...well, unless you don't know how to steep your tea. If you are brewing white tea, you only steep for 1 minute. White tea is as close to a pure tea leaf as you can get so it can be strong. If you over-steep white tea, you might end up with it tasting so strong that you wondered why you paid so much for tea that doesn't taste all that great. If you brew green tea, you only want to let the bags steep for 2 minutes...again, you don't want to make it too strong or you may not like it. Black tea should steep for 4 minutes and herbals are the longest at 5 minutes. ROT makes this cool little hour glass timer for tea and I use it. 

Normally I will drink my tea with nothing else in it but on occasion I might put in a tsp of raw honey per half gallon. Honey has its own health benefits and at 22 calories a tsp, I'm not getting that much raw honey. There are so many tea choices that you are bound to find something to satisfy even the most particular of tastes. 

Republic of Tea

Wow...I'm getting thirsty and I hear the teapot calling my name! 

--Kim