7 Reasons Why You Need to be Drinking More Water (& How Much)

Let’s touch on the importance of drinking enough water. What are some benefits you ask? Well, the obvious one is hydration. Drinking enough water helps keep your organs flowing, specifically, your kidneys. Yeah, you get up to go pee every 40 minutes give or take, but hey you get your steps in.

7 health benefits of aqua:

1. Water is crazy important for fitness and athletic performance. You can start feeling dehydrated after losing 2% of your body’s water. It’s normal for athletes to lose 6-10% in an intense workout. This can cause you to feel fatigued and lower performance if you aren’t staying hydrated.
2. It’s necessary for brain function. Mild dehydration has been shown to cause headaches, decreased concentration and memory, and increased anxiety (1).
3. Water improves skin health and beauty. Without enough water, you are prone to premature skin aging and wrinkling. Keep a glass by your side to keep your skin in tip-top shape!
4. It keeps your digestive system in check and running smoothly. Not drinking enough water has been shown to cause constipation and heighten the risk of heartburn.
5. It helps with the absorption of certain nutrients (2). Vitamin C and all the B vitamins are water-soluble, meaning they require enough water to be properly absorbed. Without being hydrated, you won’t see the benefits of these vitamins. So even if you’ve been eating healthy all day, you’re losing essential nutrients you’ve been working hard to get in.
6. Water puts you less at risk of getting hangovers. Alcohol is a diuretic (alongside caffeine, so this tip is relevant to coffee too). Drink a glass of water in between every drink, to help combat the dehydrating effects (1).
7. It can help with weight loss. If you switch out your sweetened beverages for water every day, you’ll be consuming fewer calories without even realizing it (2). Let’s say your normally drink a Coke every day, and switch that out with water instead. You’re now taking in 140 fewer calories a day, which is almost 1000 calories a week! Just from switching one drink each day.

But how much should I be drinking?

A good rule of thumb for how much water you should drink is to aim for 64 oz/day. This equates to eight 8 oz glasses of water. If you want to be more specific for your body weight, you should shoot for half an ounce to one ounce for each pound (3). So if you weigh 140 lbs, you should be drinking between 70 oz and 140 oz/day. Of course, you should most importantly be going off how your body feels. If you feel thirsty, drink!

If you’re interested in seeing what it’s like to drink a gallon of water EVERY DAY – check out our gallon challenge here. 👇🏼

Ladies and gentlemen,

In the far corner of the stage…..let me introduce to you these beautiful and colorful 73 oz babies…..DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN…..the HYDRO JUG. It’s a little absurd to be calling inanimate objects babies, like they are apart of your family, but I kinda treat these jugs like they are a part of me. I dress them up in their Sunday best, which entails suuuuper cute coats (aka sleeves). I am currently using the coral colored jug with the tye-dye sleeve. These jugs literally go everywhere with me. I mean everywhere. Grocery store, movies, your mom’s house, etc. (small joke….I’m obsessed with ‘your mom’ jokes just FYI). But really all jokes aside, everywhere I go my jugs go (lmao, pun unintended).

Before you ask me, “Mary does it really help you drink more water?” The answer is yes and no. It can seem pretty daunting to drink half your body weight in ounces of water each day, but honestly, I try and do what feels right. Yes, however, I will try and drink at bare minimum 1 jug a day, and if I have the audacity to push the boundaries into the unknown of more to reach my goal of 1.5 hydro jugs a day, then I will do so. Obviously some days are better and worse than others, depending on the foods I have eaten, the exercises I have done that day, and whatever else my body presents with all are my factors for drinking water.

What’s great about this brand of jug is that they come with all sorts of accessories! If you want to purchase a jug of your own, you can check out my link which will support your girls. It will save you some monies with a 10% discount. If not, no pressure at all!! We just appreciate the visit to our pad of a blog.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through an affiliate link, we will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This allows us to continue running our site & providing free content to our readers. Read our full disclosure here. Thank you for your support!