Keep Alert and Drink More Water

Do you drink enough water? I can say without hesitation that until January 1st, I definitely did not. In fact, most days I drank a cup of coffee and a cup of tea and that was about it. Then I made a new year's resolution to drink 1600 mL of water every day, and my life changed. Literally.

Honestly, so many things in my life are better now that I keep myself hydrated. The best is that I need loads less sleep. I honestly believed that I needed 8-9 hours sleep a night (which I usually didn't get and was consequently tired and grumpy all day). Now I'm happy with 7 hours, and when I get up in the morning I drink a mug of hot water rather than necking two cups of coffee.

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Other changes? I have more energy, I'm more on-the-ball at work, my workouts are better, I snack less often (turns out it's true that we tend to mistake thirst for hunger) and my skin already looks clearer. This morning, after possibly having one too many pear and apple martinis last night, I stumbled into the kitchen looking for water rather than coffee. I seriously cannot believe that such a small and simple habit has changed my life so fundamentally.

If, like me, you could do with drinking more water, I can heartily recommend the Waterlogged app. Free on iTunes, the app helps you keep track of your intake over the day, as well as giving you your numbers for the preceding week in handy graph form. If you pay for an upgrade (I haven't) the app will  keep track of all your data since you first started logging. You can also set reminders throughout the day to encourage you to keep drinking.

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As a slightly (my husband would say very) anal person who believes that everything is better when in list or table form, I adore this app. I am so much more motivated to drink my daily water quota when I know I can enter it on Waterlogged, and I still smile every evening when I get to click the "I am successful" button the app developers have kindly programmed to pop up when you reach your daily goal. You know what they say about simple things and simple minds...