Hi, Friends!  I hope you had a fantastic holiday weekend and you are feeling ready to go for 2016! Today I’m super excited to announce a new Hungry Hobby series.  Before you get too excited, I’ll admit, I’m not super great at follow through on series.  I start them and get bored of them and then trail off into nothingness.  This series, though, is going to be special to me, let me explain why.

Did you know the average adult starts a diet FOUR TIMES a year?  (I don’t know the source on that one, it was a statistic giving to me in one of my training at the gym.) Instead of dieting at all this year, I want to encourage you to look at losing weight in a whole different way.  If you focus on building a new healthy habit for each week in 2016 you will have 52 healthy habits under your belt by the end of the year, not only will you never need to diet again, but you may also need a smaller belt to ring in 2017 with…

I’m planning on joining in on the fun too, and I’ll give you a mini recap of how I did in the intro of the next week’s topic!  Of course, I’d love anyone following along to share their tips and experience too! Bring on the healthiest 2016 EVER!

52 HEALTHY HABITS IN 52 WEEKS SERIES:

The 52 Healthy Habits Series is about ditching the diet mindset and making small changes to improve health overall naturally leading to a healthy body composition, increased energy and improved health. If you want to improve your health one simple habit at a time, then this series is for you!

Week 1:  Hydration

Why?

Do you know what the number one sign of dehydration is?  If you answered hunger, you are correct!  Our bodies often confuse slight dehydration with hunger, so simply by increasing your water intake you can help regulate your hunger and satiety cues.  Cool huh?

Even slight dehydration can also decrease your performance in your workout, therefore affecting how well you do and how many calories you burn (if weight loss is the goal.)

Other symptoms of even slight dehydration could be a headache, fatigue, dry skin, constipation or lightheadedness.  Many people feel these symptoms around 2 pm, drinking enough water throughout the morning might help to alleviate them!

How much?

The recommended baseline is still 64 ounces of water. However, experts agree there is no scientific evidence to back this up.  Since our bodies are composed of at least 60% water, I usually recommend at least half your body weight in water.  (For exercise, replacing sweat is usually estimated by weighing oneself since hydration needs vary dramatically from person to person and sport to sport.)

Tips for drinking more water:

• Keep track!  Use an app (I used to use the Fitbit app, but now I’m going to use water logged), tally marks on a bottle or an old school piece of paper.
• Set goals like 1/3 before Noon, 1/3 before 3, 1/3 before 6 pm.  Set alarms if needed!
• Add noncaffeinated flavor:  green tea, true lemon packets, fruit, cucumber, lemon, amino acids (post workout), etc….
• Drink water on your commute
• Drink one full glass of water first thing when you wake up to get off to a good start.