Take the quiz below to find out the best way to start better nutritional habits for life.
What one food item do 75% of Americans not get enough of daily?
- Twinkies
- Dark chocolate
- Ice cream Sundaes
- Water
What is one system of your body that typically feels like hunger even if you know you are not?
- The emotional heart break
- The Mind games that are played at work
- Stress after looking at our bank statement
- Thirst. Instead of drinking you tend to eat
The number one cause of daytime fatigue is?
- Not taking a break at work
- Eating too much at your lunch hour
- Having to sit at a desk all day
- Lack of hydration, you need to drink more water
What can you consume to ease back and joint pain for 80% of people?
- Bacon, (Hint: not everything is better with bacon)
- Ketchup, (another hint: you can’t cover up pain, it’s inside you)
- Sprinkles or Jimmies, (rainbows and sparkles roll right off your back and don’t stick to your joints)
- Water (hint: water aids in lubricating our joints)
5 Glasses of water a day can decrease the risk of?
- Colon Cancer by 45%
- Breast Cancer by 79%
- Bladder Cancer by 50%
- All of the Above
If you are just 3% dehydrated, what starts to slow down?
- Short term memory- Ever walk upstairs and wonder why you did?
- Our intestinal tract
- Metabolism
- All of the Above
By now you might have guessed that the last answer was the correct answer to each question.
Water is the most important nutrient we can feed our bodies. Let’s face it we all know we can survive a lot longer without food than without water but we certainly don't act like it. If you are like me, I sometimes feel like I am starving (like every few hours) and yet I rarely say I am dying of thirst. If I truly believed that water is the most important nutrient I would be drinking water all the time. Again I usually drink with my meals and rarely in between. To me that looks like I am giving just as much focus on the food I eat as the water I drink. Science tells us that the body would die without water in just a few days and yet we could survive 3-4 times that without food. Some of us could go even longer. What do we need so much water for?
· 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (Likely applies to half world pop.)
· In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.
· Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3%.
· One glass of water deters hunger pangs for 98% of the dieters observed in a University of Washington study.
· The biggest trigger of daytime fatigue is lack of water.
· Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
· A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.
· Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, breast cancer by 79%, and develop bladder cancer by 50%.
· Water serves as a lubricant
· Water forms the base for saliva
· Water forms the fluids that surround the joints.
· Water regulates the body temperature, as the cooling and heating is distributed through perspiration.
· Water helps to alleviate constipation by moving food through the intestinal tract and thereby eliminating waste- the best detox agent.
· Regulates metabolism
Did you see that last one? That is how our bodies use the fuel we give it.
This list is not exhaustive but it only touches the surface. Our bodies are 98% water so we need to replenish it and renew it.
So how much water does all this take? Researchers say to take half of your body weight and drink that in ounces. So if you weigh 150 pounds that is 75 ounces of water a day. Remember the 8-10 glasses that your doctor told you to drink. If there are 8 ounces of water in each glass you are not getting enough. (10 glasses times 8 ounces is only 80 ounces of water, so make it 16 ounces of water or two cups in each glass and you are there.)
Drink up,
Coach Nancy
