Water Consumption is a habit

Increasing Water Intake isn't always easy.

Much like most lifestyle habits that take can take work improving; water consumption is no different and I often see clients struggle with consuming enough water through out the day when first getting into the proper hydration discussion. Now in the past I have met a handful of people that might NOT enjoy the taste of water (which presents a different problem)but more often than not what we're talking about is the memory/habit of regularly consuming adequate water.

Step 1. Be realistic and determine your goals.

If you're currently only consuming 3-4 glasses of water a day or less jumping to 8 -10 glasses can seem like an impossible task. Let us not focus on the goal of how many glasses we want; but how we can regularly increase water intake in general. The point being if you're only consuming 3-4 glasses a day but if I permanently get you to increase that to 6; that will do you far more good in the long run than the one week you remembered to drink enough water in your life. It should be a goal to make these lifestyle habits permanent, not a fad.

Step 2. Take a step and determine how

So now that you've determined you would like to increase your water intake where do we start? Let's ask a better question "Where throughout your day are you forgetting to drink water?" these are the behaviors we should be going after. Do you need to keep a water bottle at your work desk because you often have nothing there? Do you need to bring a water bottle with you to the gym because you're forgetting to drink during your workout? Regardless of what this step looks like we need to say not only how much we're going to improve but specify how! Be specific in your action!

Step 3. Repeat and improve

It takes 14 days for a behavior to really sink in. If you're able to perform step 1 and 2 above after 14 days you should find that your new behavior is now far more manageable and in most cases autonomic. After 2 weeks of setting the behavior it's time to reassess and decide if it needs improvement or are we adequate? If we weren't successful, it's time to implement a new strategy. Perhaps an alarm clock or calendar reminder each hour to remember to consume; regardless if you're able to get through the first 2 weeks, it's all down hill from there my friend. Don't give up trying to improve upon yourself, you can do this.