31-Day Water Challenge

Last night I read an article about a woman who drank almost a gallon of water (3 liters) per day for a month and experienced amazing beneficial effects.  Many ailments she'd been struggling with disappeared and her face started to look much younger.  Her before and after pictures looked dramatically different.  Now, I am no fool and realize that her pictures could have been easily enhanced by lighting and digital effects (in fact, the pictures could have been taken on the same day), but this article still got me thinking.

I have been struggling with a lot of health issues lately (in addition to my celiac symptoms) that are caused by dehydration or could be alleviated with more water intake.  These include:

severe dry eye syndrome
dry, chalky mouth
dry skin
headaches
bloating

I KNOW I need to drink more water.  I am absolutely horrible at it.  I could easily go all day just sipping on coffee, with only a small glass of water in the morning and at night when I brush my teeth.  Water just isn't something I desire to drink.  It's boring.  I like taste.  But I'm also pretty darn sure that I'm very dehydrated. So I should probably fix that.

I've decided to take on a 31-day water challenge.  I'm going to drink at least the recommended amount of water daily, if not more, and see what happens.  Perhaps (hopefully!) I'll see many of the above-mentioned issues disappear and I'll want to continue with the hydrated lifestyle after the 31 days are over.  It just so happened that I decided to start this on July 1st, so I'll do the challenge throughout the month of July.

I'm using a free iPhone app to help me along on my journey.  It's called Plant Nanny.  It makes drinking water fun, because I get to grow plants as I drink water, and anyone who knows me well knows I like plants. :) Based on my body weight and activity level, the app says I need at least 77 oz of water per day, so that will be my goal.  That's about 0.6 gallons.  I'm going to carry my Nalgene around and see what I can do.

I'll provide updates throughout the month to let you know if any changes occur when I actually adequately hydrate myself.  Exciting times ahead. :)