fitness

Christine and the Giant Water Bottle

I thought I was drinking plenty of water but it turns out that I most definitely was not.

On a day-to-day basis, I mostly drink water and tea with the occasional glass of juice for variety’s sake.

GIF description: A large husky is lying on some grass with its snout submerged in its water dish and it is blowing bubbles from its nostrils. The water dish is resting on concrete.​
This husky has opted to blow bubbles instead of drinking their water but perhaps they absorbed a few drops all the same. GIF description: A large husky is lying on some grass with its snout submerged in its water dish and its paws on either side of the dish. The dog is blowing bubbles from its nostrils. The water dish is resting on concrete.

And I really thought I was having the recommended 8 glasses a day…until I actually thought it through.

If I have a glass of water with each meal and then one or two at other times during the day, I was getting a maximum of 5 glasses a day.

And yes, I know that the 8 glasses is a fairly arbitrary recommendation and I didn’t fall for the idea that ‘By the time you feel thirsty, you are already terribly dehydrated!’ that some ‘experts’ were touting a few years back. If that was the way the human body worked, we would never have survived this long.

But, still, I know that 8 glasses is a good guideline.

And I know that drinking more water can be beneficial for people who are monitoring their blood pressure.

And I just had this sense that the way I felt in the morning had something to do with not getting enough fluid overall.

And I know that my ADHD brain might mislead me about how much water I drink and when I drink it.

So, I decided to do an experiment.*

a lab coat, safety glasses, and a  blue cap covering their hair uses an eye dropper to add liquid to a series of large test tubes filled with blue liquid. Beakers and other science-related containers filled with containing the same liquid sit on their work surface. A microscope sits nearby.
This scientist is doing a far more elaborate experiment than I am. Image description: A scientist wearing a lab coat, safety glasses, and a blue cap covering their hair uses an eye dropper to add liquid to a series of large test tubes filled with blue liquid. Beakers and other science-related containers filled with containing the same liquid sit on their work surface.

I know that part of my issue with remembering to drink more water is that I have to interrupt whatever I am doing in order to refill my glass or water bottle. Any interruption in my work day has the potential to lead me down a rabbit hole of other tasks so I try to avoid extra stops in my work flow. (Hyperfocus plays a role here, too, but it is mostly a conscious decision not to avoid possible distractions.)

So, I decided to buy a large water bottle that I could fill up in the morning and then sip all day until it was gone. By getting a large bottle, I would avoid having to stop what I was doing in order to get more water and I wouldn’t have to track how many times I had refilled my glass/bottle.

I thought about buying one of those bottles with the time recommendations down the side but I couldn’t get one locally and I wondered if the time markings would get on my nerves. After all, it doesn’t matter if I drink a specific amount by 11am and I know myself well enough know that I might resist drinking it all, just because I don’t like being bossed around, especially by inanimate objects.

As you can see, the bottle ended up buying is enormous.

It’s 2.2 litres and I cannot sip from it, I have to swig which lends a fun pirate-y feeling throughout my day, me mateys.

GIF description: A light brown guinea pig in a pirate costume turns its head and the word ‘Arrrrgh!’ appears in white beneath it. The background features some ship elements and a red light that flashes on before the caption appears.​
I am not as much of a guinea pig as this one because I am running my own pirate experiment instead of being subject to someone else’s science. This guinea pig is adorable though. GIF description: A light brown guinea pig in a pirate costume turns its head and the word ‘Arrrrgh!’ appears in white beneath it. The background features some ship elements and a red light that flashes on before the caption appears.

As I write this, I am on Day 10 of my experiment and I will definitely be continuing.

Since increasing my water consumption, I have a greater feeling of well-being overall.

I feel better when I wake up, less groggy, and my movements are easier. (I feel more fluid! Ha!)

I’m drinking fewer cups of caffeinated tea and some days I haven’t had any caffeine at all.

I haven’t been having as many snacks. I still snack when I’m hungry obviously** but I think I have reduced my number of ‘unconscious boredom’ snacks.

Of course, I’m sure some of this is psychosomatic but, truthfully, I don’t care. This experiment has been all upsides so far.

At this point, I know there’s big question in your mind and it goes something like this:

“That’s all good, Christine, but do you have to spend half your day going to the bathroom now?”

Nope. Pretty much the same as before.

(Which kind of makes me think that I really needed this additional water.)

So, I’ll be sailing on with this experiment for the foreseeable future.

Yo-ho-ho-ho and a (giant) bottle of water!

The photo shows my giant water bottle, a white mug (with yellow interior) containing ginger tea, a banana, a slice of cinnamon bread on a star-shaped plate, a week-sized pill-sorter, and a notebook opened to a white page covered in sketches of robots in yoga poses. A pen and pencil sit next to the notebook.​
A glimpse of the start of my Sunday (I’m part of an online
art group that has tea/coffee ‘together’ each week, hence the photo.) The photo is of the corner of my wooden kitchen table and shows my giant water bottle, a white mug (with yellow interior) containing ginger tea, a banana, a slice of cinnamon bread on a star-shaped plate, a week-sized pill-sorter, and a notebook opened to a white page covered in sketches of robots in yoga poses. A pen and pencil sit next to the notebook.

*I am VERY excited about my ability to do these kinds of experiments in the last few months. It’s all due to the mental space my increased ADHD meds are giving me. More on that in another post!

**I am strongly pro-snack. I cannot be swayed on this point.

injury

Sam branches out, tries Aquafit, and returns to indoor rowing

A few months ago–about six months ago actually–when I first hurt my knee, I didn’t have a lot of choice when it came to exercise. Mostly life was all about managing pain. Compression ice packs, ibuprofen, and knee physio was my world.

I could spin, in a small spinny gear, and that was about it. It was good physio but it didn’t feel much like exercise. A few months in I tried the elliptical. Nope. Too much pain. Then I tried the rowing machine. Same. Ouch! No running and no walking so mostly I did physio, a lot of it. I also got some weightlifting in.

Now I’m making my way back. First up, I could ride on the trainer in big gears and I could ride while standing. I started taking spin classes at the university gym. Bike yoga was my favorite. 30 minutes of spinning, followed by 30 of yoga for cyclists. That felt like serious progress.

The knee brace has really helped with walking. I can a walk a bit now. Here in Germany I’ve been logging some 15,000 step days. That would have been unthinkable without the knee brace. I’m also riding my bike outside. I’ve been commuting by bike and I’ve had several longer rides on my road bike.

Last week, I decided to branch out again and tried the rowing machine at the gym. Surprise. All good. I did an easy 2 km for warm up. No 2 km tests just yet! I think rowing will be my go to cardio at the gym. It’s great exercise and I like tracking times and trying different drills. If there were a rowing studio here I might even go.

Then the following day I really branched out and went to AquaFit. Not my usual cup of tea but it’s easy to go in the morning or at lunch. All it requires is keeping a bathing suit in my gym locker.

Stock photo of aquafit. A group of women of different ages and skin colours in the pool doing aquatfit. They’re wearing one piece bathing suits and holding bright blue dumbbells above their heads.

In the shallow end it wasn’t perfect. If I jumped too hard I could hurt my knee and I needed to pay attention. It wasn’t as knee friendly as I’d imagined. In the second half hour though we were in the deep water and that was great. It was more of a workout than I expected. I’ll definitely go back.

I hadn’t been to aquafit since my last pregnancy more than twenty years ago. It’s one of those things that I think is fine for other people but not me. That’s odd because I love being in the water. And I’m not a snob about dance-y fitness classes with high energy dance music and show tunes.

I did the pregnancy aquafit classes at the Y with a crowd of mostly senior citizens. Maybe my attitude is ready just ageism? I was amused then by the women who came with their hair done and wearing jewelry. They told me I splashed too much. We decreed one section of the pool to be the splash free section. There were also some flirtatious old guys. They kept going on about my youthful good looks. I was about 7 months pregnant and didn’t mind being the babe of aquafit.

I recognized that I was kind of embarrassed by aquafit when I was happy that the lifeguard thought I was there for the Masters swim practise! Truth be told that was mostly about my bathing suit choice. Next time I’ll try to own it more proudly. Aquafit here I come!

A photo of three women wearing 1950s glamorous bathing caps. I think part of my problem with aquafit is the whole idea of glamour in the water! From http://www.glamoursplash.com/2009/04/1950s-swim-cap-glamour.html?m=1

sports nutrition · weight loss

Water, water everywhere but how much should I drink?

Sigg canteen
Description: Sigg canteen

If you’re interested in fitness and nutrition, the answer used to be obvious: lots and lots. If you saw a diet counselor or a sports nutritionist, they often had the same question: How much water are you drinking? And it was never enough.

We were told not use our body’s cues, that these were unreliable, By the time you’re thirsty, they said, you’re already dehydrated.

If you’re like me, you’ve carried stylish non-disposable water bottles everywhere with you. I own the one pictured on the left. I love it. But I confess that I feel virtuous drinking water and that sometimes I drink water when I’m bored in a meeting, not always because I’m thirsty.

Intuitive eating? Maybe. But intuitive drinking? Maybe not so much.

And drinking lots of water is often touted as a sure way to lose weight.

WebMD has a water based weight loss diet. They report:

“Research has also shown that drinking a glass of water right before a meal helps you to feel more full and eat less. “Many people do find that if they have water before a meal, it’s easier to eat more carefully,” says Renee Melton, MS, RD, LD, director of nutrition for Sensei, a developer of online and mobile weight loss and nutrition programs.

One study, for example, found that people who drank water before meals ate an average of 75 fewer calories at each meal. That doesn’t sound like a lot — but multiply 75 calories by 365 days a year. Even if you only drink water before dinner every day, you’d consume 27,000 fewer calories over the course of the year. That’s almost an eight-pound weight loss.”

But now it’s not so clear.

First, came the marathon deaths due to over hydration. These were usually women, often beginning runners, non elite athletes, who stopped to drink at every water station thinking they were doing their bodies good. The deaths resulted from hyponatremia, a sodium imbalance that results from drinking too much water.

From Shape Magazine’s article, Is it possible to drink too much water?

“Clinically called hyponatremia, it’s a condition in which the level of sodium — an electrolyte that helps regulate water levels in the fluid in and around your cells — in your blood is abnormally low. When this happens, your body’s water levels rise, and your cells begin to swell. This swelling can cause many health problems, from mild to severe, and can result in death. Hyponatermia has been in the news for the past few years after a study in the New England Journal of Medicine listed overhydration as a serious health issue of some runners at the Boston Marathon. “

You can read about the dangers of overhydration here  and here.

You can also read  Krista Scott Dixon’s Waterlogged: Interview with Dr. Tim Noakes. 

Second, came the research that showed that the “8 glasses per day” recommendation is just false. It was based on a bad research funded by the manufacturers of bottled water. See the CBC’s 8 glasses of water a day ‘an urban myth’

“The common advice to drink eight glasses of water a day doesn’t hold water, say nutrition and kidney specialists who want to dispel the myth. “What drove us to drink two litres of water a day?” asks an editorial in this week’s issue of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. The recommendation was driven by vested interests rather than health, suggests author Speros Tsindos of the department of dietetics and human nutrition at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia.”

“What drove us to drink 2 litres of water a day?” was published in the Australia New Zealand Journal of Public Health. It begins by noting that the Saharan nomads do just fine with very little water in a very hot and dry environment.

A Scientific American piece Fact or Fiction: You Must Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day? concludes: “There is no clear evidence of benefit from drinking increased amounts of water.” They say that the recommended amounts of fluid that we hear quoted were meant to include liquids from all sources, including those foods such as fruits and vegetables, as well as beverages such as milk and coffee. A National Academy of Science panel in 2004 wrote that “the vast majority of healthy people adequately meet their daily hydration needs by letting thirst be their guide.”

Third, came controversy over maintaining a reasonable metabolism and the over consumption of water.  Listen to Matt Stone here. Read Pee All That You Can Pee? How Much Should You Drink? a guest post by Stone over at Krista Scott Dixon’s Stumptuous.

Read Cheeseslave’s 10 simple tips to raise your metabolism:

“1. Don’t Drink When You’re Not Thirsty: This sounds like common sense but most of us don’t follow it. We drink too much water because we think it’s good for us. We drink lots of coffee and soft drinks for the stimulant effect. We drink too much alcohol to relax.

None of these things are bad as long as they are done in moderation. You don’t have to avoid coffee or alcohol. Just watch how much you consume. Drinking too much and drinking for reasons other than thirst lowers your metabolism.

Limit the fluid intake, increase your body temperature, boost your metabolism.”

Me, I figure my body probably can sort this one out on its own and I’m going back to drinking when I’m thirsty.