New 30 Day Challenge: Tracking Water Intake

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of taking 30 day challenges. Starting on Tuesday (2 days ago), I began tracking my water intake completely.

For those of you who don't remember why I started doing 30 day challenges (heck, the name of my blog was "Life in 30 Days" for a little while...man I liked that name), watch the  video below from Matt Cutts talk at TED. It's a great talk, and I think we can all take something away from it.


I have been trying to track entirely too much.

• Water
• Food
• Weight (daily)
• Body Measurements
• Coffee
• Vitamin Intake
• Blog Ideas
• Business Ideas
• etc.

It was overload. And it was stupid. I was in a "super motivated" state of mind, and I decided to track all of these things. Guess what happens when you do something like this? You succeed wonderfully! I was tracking everything, and I developed great mechanisms for doing so. I loved it.

...then your motivation slows, your interest wanes, and you miss a day. Then you forget your vitamins one day, then you eat a particularly bad day, or you sleep away from home (and all of your tracking tools) and suddenly...you're off the wagon.

How to Track Water

So let's look at Water. I tracked it religiously for a little while - just see the screen shot below. Then I slipped, and slipped, and slipped. Well now I'm back!

Note: I use an app for Android called Water Your Body - it tracks water, weight (if you want) and nothing else. In fact, if you input your weight, the app will give you a recommended water intake level.

The App Makes it Very Easy to track Water Intake

As you can see, I was awesome - I logged every day (and drank a TON of water!

October was Strong

November...I fell off a cliff

 When November rolled around, I tracked my intake a little bit, but not much at all. The days which do have water tracked were mostly incomplete anyway.

How will I do it?

I will use Water Your Body just like I used to. To make this easier, I'll use mostly my 16 oz. Lifefactory water bottle (picture below). I love this bottle because it is glass, so there is no leeching of chemicals or anything - it's a great bottle. Trust me, I'm not going to go into the details about what makes it so great.

Love this Water Bottle!

The app will default to 16 oz. That means that every time I finish my water bottle, I need only open the app, and tap once. That will mark it, and it will be properly tracked for me.

Is This Supposed to be Hard?

Actually, no, it's not supposed to be hard. In fact, this is supposed to be easy. If I wanted a difficult challenge, I would go ahead and try to track all 9 things I used to track. 

You see, I'm using the 30-day challenge to develop a habit. I have chosen something that is decidedly easy, and the goal is that by the end of 30 days, it will be formed into a habit. Ideally, by the end of this challenge, I will instinctively reach for my phone to track my water every time I finish a drink of water.

In fact, notice that I'm not setting a goal for water intake. I am betting that I will naturally drink more water when I track it. I'm not trying to build the habit of drinking 192 ounces of water every day, I'm setting the goal of tracking it. If I have nothing more than a 4 ounce Dixie cup, then that is what I'll track. This is not about the water, it's about the tracking.

I'm actually hoping this will serve as a bit of a keystone habit to start me on a positive upswing again. I've been falling downward lately (more on that later), and I am trying to bust out of my rut (foreshadowing: You'll get the next in the series of Rut Busters as I'm actually working out of a rut!)

But Why Water?

Because water is so damned important! It's the greatest drink in the world. We almost all don't get enough of it, too. If you increase your water intake, you will feel better. I promise that. It might be difficult at first (due to all of the extra liquid), but as your bladder catches up, but it will get easier. 

You don't have to do a 30-day challenge, but at least try this:

1. When you are hungry, have a glass of water first. Hunger is very often mistaken thirst. If you are still hungry 10 minutes after the water, then go eat something!
2. First thing in the morning drink at least 16 oz. of water (if you can only do 8 oz, that's okay) or up to 2 liters (as David Wolfe suggests). You will be amazed at your energy - you might not even need coffee (though if you're like me, you'll still drink it) Often, we get dehydrated overnight, so the water replenishes what we have lost which is making us feel sluggish. Another tip (this one comes from Tim Ferris) is to have 2 Tablespoons of Almond butter before bed. This stabilizes your blood sugar - another cause of morning fatigue for many of us.

Water has such a huge effect on us, that I want to have this tracked as a personal habit - that way I can easily diagnose it as the cause if I'm feeling particularly sluggish (see those charts? How easy is it to read that data!)

So there you go. A new Challenge. It's easy, achievable, measurable, and it will likely lead to an increased water intake which will help so many other facets of life. This is going to be a good one!