Detox is an ugly and frequently misused word, especially when it comes to dietary matters. This blogger does not believe that various teas, herbs and juice cleanses do anything magical to ‘clean’ either your blood or your organs, and are mostly a way to make you cut down on processed food and drink more water. Oh and spend money, don’t forget that part!
In a country with some of the better drinking water available in the world, it is nuts that so many of us fail to drink enough, and the benefits of proper hydration are too long and boring for this page but include dewy skin, proper digestion, improved concentration and being generally alive. Hooray for water! There is some argument over exactly how much one needs per day, but I’m confident that I do not get enough so here’s me having one of my self inflicted experimental misery weeks and taking a daily hydration challenge so you don’t have to. Well, actually you probably should do it too but I’m not judging.
I have three main reasons for this: The first is that I’ve had a long old week in dietary terms and find myself in need today of evasive empty calorie action. Water does not make you skinny, however it does help keep your stomach full and support the function of a V&T fatigued liver.
The second is that my concentration, particularly at the day job, is craptastic at the moment. I’m tired, I’m a bit bored and I’m constantly distracted by Nanowrimo efforts, family affairs and my life as a social media giant (insert comedy tears emoji here). I need to focus and get shit done, and perhaps this will help. It certainly wont hurt, unless I spend too much potentially productive time peeing.
Finally I talk of that general pesky health thing. There’s been a lot going on, from multiple birthday planning to vehicular hiccups and a particularly nasty injury which requires multiple pharmaceutical products throughout the day. I am knackered, and I’m literally taking pills so I can take the other pills and enjoying lovely side effects like stomach aches, swollen extremities and even worse concentration that I had in the first place. My body needs all the help it can get, and proper hydration will help.
And if you hadn’t noticed, there’s been a media melting heatwave in my part of the UK at present. It’s hitting about 30 most days and not going lower than 16 at night and we haven’t had a spot of rain for 2 months and being the fragile Merchant Ivory type that I am, I am not managing this well. I need to drink more water.
But here we are back to how much is enough? The NHS has a helpful guide of 1-2L per day for an adult. That’s a pretty bloody massive range! Camelbak, seller of fine water backpack thing, has a handy calculator that suggests 1400ml a day for a lady of my age in the current climate and my fitbit tells me 1800ml a day. As the mid value, I’m going with 1800ml as my target. This is also easily calculatable with my handy 600ml bottle that is now going everywhere with me. Plus, I can then tick off my little water meter thingie in the app and at least reach one goal per day. #winning
So there’s the rules- 1800ml of water a day- and that is proper plain water, unadulterated other than the odd mint sprig which I find makes it more palatable and thus easier to drink more of. Coffee doesn’t count. Tea doesn’t count. Ice poles, melon and tonic based mixers DO NOT COUNT.
Let’s see how this goes. Please join me and let me know how you are getting on in the comments!
Food. Boom. 