4. Step One - Water | The Get Fit Game Plan - Quarantine Edition

I started this step in the beginning of August 2020, before I decided I needed to lose weight. My stats reflect a few more changes I have made since.

If you want to follow my journey from the beginning, start here: 1. My Introduction

This is a continuation of my previous post: 3. Get Fit Game Plan - Quarantine Edition

DISCLAIMER: As per usual, this will be a long one, only because I'm trying to cram as much information in one post as possible. Keep in mind that this is what works FOR ME. You can do whatever you may please. Buckle up!

Stats:

• F, 28.
• Height: 5' 3"
• Current weight: 143 lbs
• Starting weight: 145 lbs
• Goal weight: 125 lbs
• Highest weight: 152 lbs
• Lowest weight: 121.5 lbs
• Dietary preference: Vegetarian

Step 1: Drink More Water

Cue the eye roll. I know. It's the same old "You want to lose weight, you should drink more water" overused advice. But that's not why I'm doing it. Hear me out.

The Why:

Why do I need to drink more water?

• *Generally:*You know this. 60% of the human body is made of water. It is an essential component for our bodies to function properly. Dehydration can have many adverse effects and can even cause death. Although our bodies are designed to prevent deadly levels of dehydration in the absence of external factors like diseases or a crazy person trying to kill you, there are mild to moderate side effects of dehydration that can also affect weight gain, such as messing up your hunger and thirst cues, lack of energy, body holding on to excess water, etc. Long story short, water is important. Seriously, look it up.
• *Personally:*I noticed that I had, unintentionally, significantly reduced my water intake during quarantine. This lead to a lot of problems for me: Getting mild to moderate headaches, dry eyes, dry skin, dry sinuses, feeling extremely low energy, digestive issues, constipation, acidity, bad breath,etc. It started becoming hard to do any sort of physically exertion. Eventually, my body stopped telling me that it was thirsty, I peed way less than I have ever peed in my life, and my pee turned into the darkest yellow I have ever seen it become. I did not want to see what was coming next.

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The How:

How much water is enough water?

• There's a lot of different information out there. There's the age old 8 - 8 fl oz glasses a day spiel. There's the more recent gallon a day deal. I've even seen websites use a formula of 0.5 - 0.7 ounces of water X body weight (in lbs). Honestly, these all seemed super arbitrary and I could not find any solid evidence based information out there as to how much water is enough water for daily intake. There's a reason for that.
• A lot of factors determine how much water you need to consume every day: your water intake through the foods you eat, your daily physical activities, your weight, your hormones, the climate you live in, the amount of diuretics in your diet (coffee, alcohol), medications you take, etc. Additionally, just like with food, your body can make do with whatever amount of water it is getting up to a certain point. It knows it's not getting enough so it will hold to as much as possible. You'll pee less, it won't let you perform activities hard enough to sweat it out, and eventually start shutting down non-essential bodily functions. So you really can get away with not drinking enough water.
• I went down an internet rabbit hole, until I found a really old research paper telling me exactly what I suspected. It's hard to tell how much water you should drink every day. If you're interested in reading the study, here's the link:Water Intake, Water Balance, and the Elusive Daily Water Requirement
• You'll find other water intake related studies in the "Similar Articles" section on the right.
• After spending an unnecessary amount of time on it, I decided to measure my daily intake requirements by the easiest way possible: looking at my pee.
• Doctors have recommended that you know you consume adequate amount of water when majority of your pees are a pale, "lemonade" yellow. I say majority because depending on the day, 1 or 2 may be clear or 1 or 2 may be darker. I find this is the best measure for me and takes into account all of the aforementioned variables.

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The What:

What am I going to do to achieve this, and what can I expect to happen once I have achieved appropriate level of hydration? What caused me to stop drinking enough water in the first place?

• This is easy. A long time ago, I found that I can mindlessly drink pretty much anything as long as there's a straw. This is true for a lot of people, which is why American culture has giant soda cups with straws available everywhere. It's easy to consume a lot in that format. In the past, I largely applied this to alcohol. If I wanted to get drunk as fast as my friends, I'd drink with a straw. If i wanted to be less drunk, I'd drink without a straw.
• I realized that since I spent majority of my day outside my home, either at work, in a gym or out with friends, I always had a water bottle with a straw on me. 80% of my hydration came from my water intake while at work. Since quarantine started, we had no idea when anyone was ever going to go back to work, so I left my water bottle on my desk, in the office.
• First I had to retrieve my water bottle from my workplace. It's a 40 oz water bottle. Then, the plan was three fold. Drink at least one bottle a day, bare minimum. The rest of the times, any time I wanted food, I was to drink a few sips of water first. This was NOT (and this is very important) in any shape or form to suppress my appetite. I only did this because I found that my body's thirst cues were so messed up, I couldn't figure out if I was thirsty or hungry. Keep water bottle filled up and on me at all times. This was also easy because I'm at home all the time. At desk? Water bottle. Couch? Water Bottle. Cooking? water bottle. Bed time? Water bottle. Shower? WATER BOTTLE. I'm not kidding!
• Do this consistently for a week or two before assessing the color of my pee, the headaches, the dryness inside and out, etc.
• I peed a lot at first, and the color of my pee after the first pee in the morning was almost always clear. Having the bottle near me at all times meant I was mindlessly drinking water instead of mindlessly snacking. It took my body about two weeks to adjust to the amount of water I was drinking. After two weeks, gradually, the number of times I peed in a day came back to normal. My pee now is a pale yellow 90% of the time. I average about 80 to 100 oz of water a day. I've been doing this since beginning of August, and I find my that thirst cues started to normalize in about a month. I discovered that every time I used to think I was hungry, 50% of the times it was actually thirst. Now I get a very distinct thirsty feeling as opposed to a "I need to consume something" feeling.
• My pee frequency has returned to normal. My headaches, dry skin, sinuses, eyes, low energy, constipation, acidity, bad breath, etc. are all gone. I can now tell the difference between thirst and hunger. That was all I was expecting to achieve from this step, and I achieved all those. The only bonus I got was how much less I felt the need to snack on something. But the credit for that goes more to the water bottle, less to the water.

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My suggestions to anyone trying to make this change:

1. Get a bottle with a straw! Seriously, this will change your life.
2. Give it time. It will take 2-3 weeks for your body to adjust to any more water you decide to give it.
3. Be prepared to pee a lot in the beginning.
4. Don't set some crazy goal like "1 gallon a day" right off the bat, even if that is something you want to do, get there gradually.
5. I personally am not a big soda drinker or a non water beverage drinker. I also don't drink a lot of caffeine, and if I do, it's only once a day, in the mornings. I drink alcohol only socially, and try to pre-game with a ton of water on days I know I will be drinking. That might not be the case with you, so may have additional steps you may have to take in order to increase your water intake.
6. Right down your why before hand, and track every day to see if you're noticing any improvement. It might take 1-2 months to see all the major changes.
7. Speak to your doctor. You may have a condition that this post does not cover details of.

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Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Would love to hear from you guys. Thank you!

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