Water & Lemon

For about two weeks now I’ve been doing a simple technique that has noticeably improved my physical well-being. I learned about it in a short little book I read during those often-wasted moments: waiting in grocery store lines, waiting at traffic lights, waiting for my work and home PCs to boot up. It’s a quick read and I will review it completely later.

One of the techniques the author advocates is hydration. You all heard the standard line: drink 8 glasses of water a day. That’s 64 ounces. This author’s contention is that we are all massively and majorly dehydrated, which is one cause that leads to disease, and what our bodies crave most to achieve better health is a massive and major influx of water. He recommends drinking 50 to 75 percent of your weight, in ounces. I’m tipping the scales at about 195 (an easy 15 pounds over my ideal weight), so that figure for me would be about 98 to 146 ounces of water a day, or 12 to 18 glasses of water.

I settled on 15 glasses of water, almost double what it commonly recommended. The author is vehemently against water straight from the tap, so I’m drinking only bottled spring water store-bought by the case (about 25 cents per 16 ounces), or drinking PUR-filtered water at home.

(Oh, and I cut back on my soda and sugar drinks considerably; I think I’ve had about seven or eight, or one every other day, where I used to average probably two, even three a day.)

But what makes it all palatable is to add lemon to your water. There are many reasons why lemon juice is healthy for you. The Romans used it as an antidote to poisoning. It’s alleged to help with heartburn, hiccups, nausea, and constipation. Many believe it stimulates the liver in its production of bile and helps to dissolve gallstones. High in vitamin C, it is a good preventative against infections. It’s also a diuretic, so it helps the body flush out accumulated toxins.

Even if all these reasons were just old wives’ tales, it at least makes water tastier. How much lemon to add to your water? Squeeze the juice from a quarter of a lemon, preferably organic, into a large 16-ounce glass of water.

So after two weeks of doing this I’ve noticed I’m sleeping better, I feel better, and I’m naturally eating better. And you’d think I’m going to the bathroom every five minutes, but I’m not going any more than I used to in the past.

Try it, and see.