Water

My goal for June is to drink more water (this is a flylady goal that I have decided might be a good idea). This e-mail is from Leanne (from Saving Dinner) and it gives me plenty of good reasons why this is a pretty important new habit to acquire. Here is the text from her e-mail:

It's time you made peace with the FACT that your body needs
water. If you're interested in making sure your body uses
the nutrients you give it via food, you gotta drink water.
If you're battling blemishes and want nicer skin, you gotta
drink water. If you're wanting to avoid constipation,
you're gonna want get to friendly with water.

How's that New Year's resolution coming? You know the one
I'm talking about—the lose weight one. Well, water is a
pretty painless way to help you with that goal, too. If
you're wanting to lose some body clutter, you're gonna
need to keep your water bottle handy. FlyLady and I each
lost Body Clutter(you can read all about it in our book,
Body Clutter), and drinking water was absolutely tops on
both of our lists for one of the reasons why we succeeded.

Here's the deal--you're a grown up now and it's time to
stop rebelling and act like a big girl. ;-) Remember,
we're just talking about water here; I'm not asking you
to bungee jump off a cliff or take up scuba diving with
sharks.

Fact is, we don't drink enough water. But we do drink
enough soda--just look at the soft drink size you can
get at your nearest convenience store.  A "Super Gulp"
or whatever they're called in your neck of the woods
holds 32 ounces of soft drink.  Just think, you can
drink a whole quart of cola and still be dehydrated!

And you will be, too. The only thing that will truly
quench that thirst and hydrate your body is water.
Water makes up nearly 70% of the human body.  Almost
every body function we have needs water. Water carries
the good stuff in (nutrients) and it's water that takes
the bad stuff out (poop).  Water maintains body
temperature and helps the circulatory system.  Water
is absolutely essential and yet, most people don't get
enough.  Instead of listening to our bodies, we turn
a deaf ear and order another Super Gulp.

She also wrote a rather lengthy e-mail about the detrimental
effects of soda- especially diet soda!

The University of Texas Health Science Center
in San Antonio ran an eight year study to
study the effects of soft drink use. Sharon P.
Fowler, MPH, who ran the study, had this shocking
statement to say,"What didn't surprise us was
that total soft  drink use was linked to over-
weight and obesity.  What was surprising was
when we looked at people only drinking diet soft
drinks, their risk of obesity was even higher."

Of the 622 participants—all of normal weight at the
beginning of the study, about a third became
overweight or obese.

For the regular soft drink drinkers, the risk of
becoming overweight or obese was:

*26% for up to ½ can each day
*30.4% for ½ to one can each day
*32.8% for 1 to 2 cans each day
*47.2% for more than 2 cans each day.

But look at the increase for diet soft-drink drinkers!

*36% for up to ½ can per day
*37.5% for ½ to one can per day
*54.5% for 1 to 2 cans per day
*57.1% for more than 2 cans each day.

For each can of diet soda consumed, a person's risk of
obesity went up 41%!!!

That should give you something to think about next time you order
a diet soda!  Just a Suggestion: if you decide to try to drink more 
water you might want to read this first.