When it comes to the new year, it’s a time for new beginnings. There’s no better time to start living healthier than now, so, regardless of whether you want to lose weight, have more energy, or maybe improve your cholesterol levels, here are some New Year’s resolutions that can help you on your way to achieving your fitness goals.
For Caroline Passerrello, a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics and a registered dietitian, ensuring that your body is sufficiently hydrated can help keep the body maintain its efficient function, allowing it to work smarter instead of harder. Among some of its benefits include keeping hunger at bay, preventing fatigue, and even boosting one’s metabolism. Apart from these, water also helps you save on calories. Imagine drinking a can of soda which contains 150 calories every day.
Instead of soda, drinking water instead can help you cut back on calorie consumption of over 1000 calories in a week, and that leads to about a weight loss of about 15 pounds in a year. Drinking a glass of water prior to a meal can also help fill you up so you will consume less. If we can plan our meals, there’s also no reason why we can’t plan our water intake too. This is very important especially when we get older, as thirst can be a sign of poor water intake.
Thirst can sometimes be mistaken as hunger too and lead to unnecessary snacking. Keeping yourself hydrated all throughout the day ensures that you don’t inadvertently eat too much as a result. Passerrello also said that making water a part of your routine can come in handy. She uses a water bottle with a hook in it, and that’s where she also attaches her keys. Carrying a refillable water bottle around reminds us to constantly drink and to drink more.
If you find plain water less than appetizing, you can try adding slices of fruit or vegetables to add some flavor. Some of the commonly used fruits and vegetables include lemons, cucumber, oranges, and even strawberries. Carbonated water can also help make it more appealing.
Seltzer and different kinds of flavored sparkling water are available in the market today. Passerrello reminded us to make sure to choose those that are sweetened naturally and don’t have any added calories.
How to measure water intake: Set a daily water goal for yourself. The average number of glasses per day is 8, not including water and fluids from food. This may increase or decrease depending on a person’s activity level and other factors, like pregnancy for example.
As a rule of thumb, you can go for 2 glasses of water with every meal plus a glass of water with each snack. You can simply track your fluid intake with the help of a journal, not unlike a food journal. Simply using a journal with pictures of cups that you can simply cross off can be quite handy. You can also use an app called WaterMinder, a tool that can help you keep track of your water intake. It features charts where you can monitor your progress and you can set reminders so you can drink up.