Six years ago, in 2003, I made the conscious decision to remove all soda and soft drinks from my diet. I had already drastically reduced my dependence on caffeinated soft drinks many months earlier but they were still a significant part of my diet. When making the switch from soda I needed to find a substitute that would satisfy my desire for a carbonated beverage.

Going to the refrigerator for a canned soft drink had become a habit and gave me a much needed break from my work. To have the discipline to cut out that habit I had to replace the soft drink experience with a more powerful habit. I had to construct a habit that would be dominant enough at the beginning to override the desire for a can of Coke or Pepsi.

I’ve never smoked cigarettes or ingested any form of tobacco product to my knowledge but I have spoken to a lot of ex-smokers and smokers who have made a concerted effort to give up. Other than the nicotine cravings the heavy smokers were of the opinion that it was the habit of smoking that was as powerful an addiction as anything in the tobacco.

I’ve known smokers, my father among them, who would light up when they needed to mull over a problem. The physical actions of going through the motion of preparing a roll-up cigarette, the slow thoughtful puffing, it was all part of the ritual, the habit of smoking. Just about all smokers involved in a semi-social setting such as college or work will gather at a pre-designated time and place to light up and satisfy their nicotine addiction. That arrangement of meeting and talking with other people who also smoke is a huge part of the habit. Give up smoking and you cannot recall where or when you would socially interact with your colleagues when you aren’t gathered around the ash tray.

Quick pop quiz! What did you do to waste your time before you checked email every 20 minutes? What did you do with those long evenings before you started dating that girl and seeing her four times a week? What did you do instead of playing on the XBOX or PS3?

These sorts of questions can be difficult to answer. A strong habit pushes out other aspects of your life and you’re left wondering what you did before you formed the new routines to occupy your time.

Giving up soft drinks is just like that. It’s habit forming. You get up and go to the kitchen or the soda machine down the hall to get a drink because the pattern is ingrained enough that you cannot think what else to drink.

Breaking The Habit

So what can I substitute for the habit of drinking soda?

The habit had to be powerful and I had to ritualise the act of the alternate drink at the beginning to ensure the new routine was more powerful than the old. The new routine only has to stay more powerful for a couple of months then I can taper it off.

I wanted a carbonated drink so I started looking at sparkling mineral water. I did a little research on the different types available and found that they are not all created equal. Some use an “artificial” carbonation which is added at the bottling plant. Natural or artificial carbonation doesn’t really bother me that much though but a lot of bottlers add in extra minerals that I’d rather do without especially as many bottlers don’t list exactly which minerals they are adding or in what quantities. I’ll take naturally mineralised water with “trace amounts” over bottled water that has been artificially salted, sweetened and adulterated pretty much any day of the week.

After a bit of experimentation trying different mineral waters over several days I settled on plain Perrier. Perrier at the time was only available unflavoured.

During the switch over from soda to water I purchased lemons, limes and oranges which I cut in to delicately thin slices for flavouring the water. Again, the delicate slices are all part of the ritual. I purchased several iced tea glasses and nominated them my special drinking glasses. These glasses were only ever to be used when consuming the sparkling mineral water. Again, the glass formed another part of the habit.

For readers who have never tried to break a deeply ingrained habit you are probably chuckling to yourself right now at this elaborate charade I was constructing. Whilst it may seem ridiculous to many I switched away from soft drinks overnight and have not desired, craved or otherwise gone out of my way to obtain them since. There is still the occasion when I’ll drink a soda at a party because I don’t want alcohol, but this occurs about once every few months. Breaking the habit of drinking soda and switching to a different, more powerful habit made the transition trivial.

Why Not Tap Water?

For a while I had considered just switching over to plain old regular tap water, but during my investigations I decided against it for a number of reasons.

Municipal water sources in the United States are quality controlled by the EPA with federal mandates for how clean they need to be. Unless the local governing body and water authority is severely underfunded and not following procedure the water that travels from the processing plant through to the mainline nearest you is very pure and very drinkable.

The issues with tap water occurs when the water leaves the government controlled pipes and enters into the local area pipes, pipes either owned by a local community, a housing association, or a private owner such as an apartment complex landlord. The laws that govern water quality coming out of your faucet are a lot more lax. An old friend of mine who works for the Los Angeles County water department put it very succinctly to me “the water quality in the Los Angeles water system sits at around number two in the entire country and purer than most bottled water, where it all goes downhill is when the water leaves our hands and enters the water pipes of a neglected part of the city or even a particular building.”

When I gave up soda I was living in a reasonably good rent controlled apartment complex but the plumbing in the building left much to be desired. One of the things I had to do each morning before showering or brushing my teeth was to turn on the taps and let the water run for a full two minutes before it became usable. The water would flow from the pipes in a rusty orange stream and taste foul even after the colour had cleared away.

Pretty gross.

We would have to use an additional carbon filter on the tap water for our cooking just to remove the taste of the building’s water pipes. Everybody in the apartment complex complained about the water quality but the complex is owned by a large company and the president of the company just doesn’t give a hoot about the tenants. The pipes were so bad that the building frequently sprang a water leak, at least twice a week in different locations, in some hallway or storage room somewhere. Ironically 10 months after I moved out, the building management was slapped by the city and ordered to replace every single water pipe in the building.

In the early part of 2004 whilst still living at that apartment complex I switched over entirely too drinking and cooking only with bottled water. After a lot of investigation I found that the amount of fluoride which has been identified as a toxin in a number of health studies is slowly poisoning me. I don’t need that extra fluoride added in. And that’s a story for another time. At the same time I also switched over to a non-fluoride toothpaste but that’s a story for another time too.

After investigating the various types of bottled water out there I settled on using Arrowhead Mountain Spring water. Arrowhead is one of the few bottled water distributors that doesn’t adulterate their water with fluoride or other added minerals.

Arrowhead isn’t particularly expensive in the markets of bottled water; as though any sort of bottled water could be considered cheap. But there are “budget” waters available alongside the premium brands. Dasani and Aquafina are two global brands that are perceived as being in the budget line. There are also the supermarket brands; both Bristol Farms and Whole Foods have their own house brand bottled water.

Don’t drink Dasani water!

It’s just filtered tap water!

This is a popular cry from a lot of “healthy” people. People that won’t be seen dead with a bottle of that “just plain tap water” Dasani brand.

No, no, none of that. Give me a quality brand. I’ll take the Aquafina please, that’s much healthier for me.

I’ve seen this at trendy coffee shops all across town. People won’t take Dasani so instead take Sparkletts or they won’t take Crystal Geyser so instead take Dasani.

The sight of someone dithering over which brand of budget tap water to buy is pretty comical.

The brand and perception matter more than what goes in the bottle. The marketers completely have the consumer in the palm of their hand. When you are preferring one bottled water brand over another and all of the bottles you are contemplating have “distilled water” or “purified water” or “drinking water” on the label you’re showing your ignorance by comparing tap water with tap water.

Aquafina, Dasani, Sparkletts and several other name brands you know of are all drawn from a municipal tap water.

Well here’s the deal.

Dasani may be “just filtered tap water” but if there are two companies in this world who know anything about filtered water it is the producers of Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola. Coke and Pepsi have been filtering “tap water” for decades in different bottled plants all over the world and millions of people have been happily drinking it. It’s not the water in Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola that are doing you the harm.

Remember the recall of Dasani water in Britain?[1] No, neither does anybody else I spoke to.

Frankly I don’t find anything wrong with either Dasani or Aquafina waters for consumption. I just prefer drinking sparkling mineral water and I’ve gotten in to the habit of purchasing Arrowhead Mountain Spring water that it is no longer a decision point for me.

A lot of bottled water comes directly from the same water lines that carry water directly to your household. I have spoken to a number of people who believe that the large Sparkletts water dispensers found outside of supermarkets – such as Ralphs and Albertsons in Southern California – actually contain a large supply of fresh bottled water stored inside. These same people believe that the Sparkletts truck delivers fresh, new stock every day. I hate to disappoint these people and burst their bubble of illusion but those machines are plumbed in to the same water lines that the store uses to flush their toilets and water the vegetables in the produce department. One person who shall remain nameless vehemently disagreed with about this subject, he had seen the Sparkletts truck unloading large cases of bottled water right in front of the dispensing machine, how could he possibly be wrong?

So if you’re currently wondering what the label on your bottled water actually means, I’ve compiled a brief list of the ones I know about from my research. Depending on which country you live in may mean some of these terms are used in different ways. In the United States some bottled waters are regulated by the FDA, some are not.

Artesian Water

This is water that is extracted from a natural aquifier[2]. An aquifier is a naturally occurring geological feature found throughout the world. Most popular brands contain at least aquifier sourced bottled water in the brand line-up.

Artesian Well Water

No different to artesian water above, just a fancier name in an attempt to distinguish itself.

Carbonated Water

Carbonated water may be naturally carbonated or have the carbon artificially injected at the bottling plant once the water has been extracted from the source .e.g. Perrier. The carbonation source may be natural in the case of Perrier or artificial, e.g. Crystal Geyser.

Distilled Water

This is water that has been heated until it becomes an evaporative steam and then the water vapour, sans any latent chemicals, is collected in a reservoir. Many of the minerals found in water are actually beneficial to humans so their removal can have an adverse effect on your health. I switched back to regular filtered water for my cats after their coats got very dry consuming distilled water.

Drinking Water

There’s no firm definition of what “drinking water” actually is. A quick informal survey at three supermarkets in my area revealed that all bottles labelled “drinking water” had been taken from a municipal source, i.e. plain tap water. The bottled water may have been filtered or purified by some means but it’s still just bottled tap water. If you’re buying bottled water plainly labelled “tap water” then make sure you are buying it for the right reasons, .e.g. the water quality in your area is terrible, and not for the wrong reasons, e.g. you want to be perceived as someone who can afford to drink bottled water.

Flavoured Water

Flavoured waters may be sweetened with sugar or by artificial means. Few of them are calorie free and many of them will have other added ingredients in addition to the flavourings. There are some brands of flavoured water on the market that are essentially a soft drink without any carbonation added.

Healthy Water

There are a few health waters on the market, Smart Water being one of them, with various chemicals added in to replenish lost salts and restore electrolyte imbalance due to you working up a sweat – and only when you are working up a sweat. Just watch out for misleading labels and marketing. The water might not be that healthy.

Mineral Water

Mineral water is extracted from naturally occurring aquifiers. Depending on your country minerals and chemicals are generally never added to naturally occurring mineral waters though it can happen. Read the label on the bottle to see if the mineral water you are consuming has been adulterated in some manner.

Purified water

Purified water is obtained by a variety of different methods, each designed to remove chemicals and bacteria before the water is fit for human consumption. The purification process may involve such methods as deionization, distillation or reverse osmosis. There’s not much difference between “purified water” and “drinking water.”

Sparkling water

This is the carbonated water that we are all familiar with, brands such as Perrier and San Pellegrino. The carbonation is natural or induced from a natural source such as is the case with Perrier. When I first switched over to drinking sparkling mineral water I didn’t enjoy the texture of Pellegrino at all but now I will drink it if Perrier is not available whereas before I would pass it over and take a bottle of still water instead.

Spring water

Spring water is pumped up from underground wells. It is rare that spring water can be drunk as is, often the pumped water needs treatment such as purifying before it is fit for human consumption.

Tap water

Municipal water supplies in the United States are generally very good. Personally I have a few issues with some of the chemicals added in to the water supply that I’d rather not be drinking long term but that’s another story. The major issues people face with tap water is when the water leaves the municipal supply lines and enters the dwelling. This is where things can get hairy. Literally! The only state I’ve visited where the water is universally foul is Florida. There are probably other states too but that’s the only one I know of in my experience. The taste of the municipal water supply throughout Florida affects anything created with it, food cooked in it, soda from the soda fountain at a fast food restaurant, coffee at Starbucks, tea brewed at home. Disgusting. And the public doesn’t know any different because that’s what they are used to.

Other Bottled Waters

Seltzer water, soda water, and tonic water are not bottled waters per se. They are generally considered in most countries to be soft drinks. Many soda waters have artificial sweeteners added to them.

Side Effects

Other than the increased expense and the necessity to recycle the used water bottles one of the side effects I noticed was that my drip coffee maker needed far more regular cleaning. The cleaning was necessary not due to mineral deposit build up but because the taste of the water could no longer disguise the flavour of the old coffee in the machine. Caffeine is a pretty sticky substance and bonds to surfaces quite nicely once the liquid has a chance to evaporate. When I was previously using filtered tap water to make coffee the minerals and pollution from the water pipes in the building was masking that those tastes.

I also switched my three cats over to bottle water too but this caused their coats to become very dried out and they developed dry, flaky skin. After three months of experimentation with different bottled waters I had to reinstate filtered tap water in to their drinking water fountain.

Water Filters

There are two major types of filter on the market, reverse osmosis and carbon filtration. Some filter systems combine both techniques. Whilst either of these systems will remove a lot of impurities in the water they still leave undesirable chemicals behind that I don’t want to be drinking on a daily basis.

Since moving out of the complex in to a recently rebuilt house with all the water pipes replaced not more than 10 years ago along with a high capacity reverse osmosis under sink water filter I have ceased purchasing bottled water for cooking. I still drink mass quantities of Perrier each day and I make my tea and coffee with bottled water.

Whilst the water quality at the house is satisfactory I have been contemplating purchasing a counter top water distiller to filter tap water for my cats and also for cooking. I’ll write about how that goes in a month or so after I have gotten used to using it.

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[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3550063.stm

[2] Or it might be an aquifer. It depends on who you ask.

What’s the origin of the eight to ten glasses of water a day rule?

Who says you need to drink this much water a day to stay hydrated?

The average human body evaporates water through breathing and from sweat on the skin and the total amount expulsed in this way is a little less than 30 fluid ounces of water per day. If you are a particularly huge lard ball you might sweat off a bit more than that from under your pits or your overhanging and pendulous man boobs but not much more.

Having read a lot of medical and scientific literature on this subject[1] and having talked to several notable nutritionists there appears to be no medical reason for consuming this much pure water on a daily basis.

A “glass” of water at the office is about 18 fluid ounces if I use one of the regular glasses and it is about 10 fluid ounces if I use my special water drinking glass.[2] The fiction of drinking 8 to 10 glasses which isn’t even an officially accurate measurement of anything appears to have sprung up (no pun intended) out of nowhere and continues to be perpetuated by various news reporters, certain health “experts” and various websites across the world.

Drinking this much water a day isn’t a lifestyle choice, it’s a homework assignment given by a sadistic teacher with an exceptionally wide mean streak.

You do not need 8 to 10 “glasses” of water per day.

Professional nutritionists worth their salt (no pun intended) who actually know what they are talking about won’t go on record to back up the “minimum of 8 to 10 glasses of water a day” claim. Nutritionists do recommend that you stay well hydrated, and drinking that much water per day, assuming you are a reasonably healthy adult without medical problems, won’t cause you any problems except make you visit the restroom a few extra times.

There is no scientific basis for this myth, there is no medical basis for this myth and there’s not even an original attributable source for this myth. I have never in my life – even when I was doing extreme outward bound adventure sports – consumed anywhere near 8 to 10 glasses of water in a day.

Much of our daily hydration needs come indirectly through the foods we eat. Fruits, vegetables, meat, even something as dry as bread will provide a part of our daily water requirement. How much water you need to consume on a daily basis will depend on your activity level, the climate where you live, your overall health and what foods you regularly consume.

You do not need a 64oz container of water with you before leaving the house to run a few errands. You are not crossing the Kalahari Desert here![3]

Many foods contain high amounts of water so the extra water you add to your daily diet does not need to be a great amount. The overall amount of water that you actually need to consume depends on your lifestyle, your diet, your health and the climate to name just a few factors that influence fluid intake. A reasonably healthy person that isn’t particularly overweight with a regular and not particularly strenuous office or retail job requires around 12 fluid ounces of additional liquid on top of their daily food intake. Twelve fluid ounces! That’s only a single can of soda. That’s just two small semi-dry lattes from Starbucks. That’s a reasonably sized glass of water.

If you go to the gym and work out like a mad man for three hours straight all that happens is you get thirsty. You don’t get dehydrated and you don’t get a chemical imbalance (unless you have a really unhealthy lifestyle).

You get hot, you get sweaty and you get a mild thirst.

The mild thirst occurs because of two things: you’re breathing hard through your mouth and nose drying out those mucus membranes and your skin is sweating and evaporating moisture to cool you down. You lose a little salt which can marginally alter your body temperature enough to signal your body and brain that it might need a drink in the near future.

Working up a sweat for a few hours won’t make you dehydrated. You would need to sweat about ten times more than you can in a few hours of intense exercise to need to drink even one 8oz glass of water.

Here’s what’s really happening: The body is losing a few salts and minerals. This is where cleverly marketed sports drinks will help you. The drink gives your body a few ingredients it needs to stop feeling thirsty and put back some of the salts and minerals you’ve lost in your sweat and breath.

A bottle of Smart Water does this in addition to brands like Gatorade. But the Smart Water is designed to be sipped over time by dainty girls in tight lycra whereas the Gatorade is meant to be gulped all at once by manly men dripping in sweat after a hard set on the basketball court with their bros. Gulping down an entire 20oz sports drink in one go because you think you have a raging thirst is pretty much pointless because you didn’t lose that much fluid through your exertion.

Two employees of mine swear by Smart Water and the benefits it conveys when they are working on rebuilding one of the project Mustangs parked in the driveway on a hot day in the middle of Los Angeles. I agree with the assessment too, Smart Water stops me feeling so darn thirsty all the time when moving boxes around in the storage locker unlike regular “not smart” bottled water.

I was pretty sceptical about Smart Water at the start but it really does help quench the thirst more than water when you are exerting yourself. Sitting around and you just feel like a drink? Total waste of money.

If you only go to the gym for 45 minutes and do the usual aerobic and anaerobic exercises of a moderately fit human being you can easily get by with one of those tiny little bottles of water they often give away at conferences that contain around 250ml of water.

Seek out a way to replenish what your body needs not what you think it needs. Listen to what your body is telling you. A raging thirst is an incorrect signal. Wait a few minutes before guzzling water and see what the body really wants. Sip your water at the gym. Don’t guzzle it. Guzzling huge amounts of water from the bottle or water fountain will just make it sit in your stomach and make you feel like puking when you get back to working out for your next set.

This desire to throw up is your body’s way of telling you “you screwed up, get this crap out of me now!” Too much regular water when you have been working up a sweat can, though rarely, leads to hyponatremia, and is the most common – though still fairly rare except in long distance runners – imbalance that most people experience.

Hyponatremia – you lost some bodily salts and they need replenishing.

When you visit the gym you do not need to lug around a 20oz or 50oz bottle of liquid. Small bottles of Gatorade or Smart Water or any of the other “sport drinks” out there that promise to restore your electrolytes to their proper balance are more than sufficient when working out. Drink a third of the bottle around 20 minutes prior to working out – just make sure you pee before you drink. When you’re working out drink a third more by sipping and then consuming the remainder of the sport drink after your exercises are complete can prevent that post workout crash a lot of people feel that starts with the headaches, mild heat cramps and a few other other ailments.

Toxins are flushed out of the kidneys by consuming large quantities of water, say, 8 to 10 glasses water per day.

Right?

Well, actually, no.

The kidneys don’t store up any significant amount of toxins on a day to day basis and any fluids passing through the kidneys, even that unhealthy soda you’re consuming whilst reading this, will flush the kidneys out of whatever fluidic contents are currently in them. The kidneys act as a filter, not a store house. We’re currently not sure of all of the toxins the kidneys currently filter from your body so we can’t be sure what’s flushed anyway. Any imbibed fluids such as water, soda or coffee flush toxins from various organs in the human body but according to current medical research what toxins are actually flushed, and in what amounts, is completely open to debate and is heavily influenced by a person’s current dietary habits.

Drinking a glass of water with a meal fills you up faster and makes you eat less. Not quite. According to current studies the only thing that drinking a glass of water with your meal will do is aid, very slightly, the lubrication of the passage of food in your large intestine, that’s why cookies (dry) and milk (wet) or cake (dry) and milk (wet) are so good together.

Drinking sparkling water with your meal may make you feel bloated and gassy but again it won’t cut back on the quantity of food you eat.

Don’t even get me started on soda with meals. Drinking a soda that contains artificial sweeteners may actually be detrimental to your health and weight as a number of studies have shown that there is a causal link between those same sweeteners and hormone production that informs your brain that you need to stop eating now.

There is not a single study or scientific paper in any of the medical literature that prove drinking water with your meal will reduce the amount of food you eat at one meal. The only conclusion to date is that consuming water 30 minutes before your meal may reduce food intake by less than 9% if you are fit, healthy and over the age of 60, the study was unable to conclude if this would contribute to any significant weight loss over a period of time other than just the two meals that the study examined.

No studies to date have concluded that drinking a large volume of water over the course of the day inhibits the number of calories ingested. The liquid content of the stomach, which is never very high for very long appears to have little bearing on an individual’s food intake.

For the majority of us in the Western world, and especially America, all of our hunger pangs are answered almost immediately. We consume processed foods ready from the microwave in minutes. We purchase fast food from factory kitchens. We pick up pre-packaged snack foods laden with salts and sugars from local convenience stores.

Many of us have lost the ability to read our bodies subtle signals that indicate hunger and thirst. When we do eat we ignore the signal that states we’re full. This missed message is often the case when eating food combined with certain artificial sweeteners or other appetite suppressing additives. If you’ve just eaten or ate within a few hours and thinking you might be hungry again, try a non-caffeinated, non-sweetened drink instead. It may just be a mild thirst masquerading as a desire to eat.

Often we know we want something to eat, we just don’t know what it is we want. We crave a particular type of food or ingredient, for example salt or potassium, but we’ve suppressed our body’s signals so much with the noise that junk food creates in our hormones and the chemical imbalances in our body that all we know is that we’re really hungry right now. Moving your diet away from junk food to healthier food choices can let you get back in tune with those messages. When there is very little junk food noise being propagated the body’s signals come in loud and clear.

If you suffer from dry skin regularly this has nothing to do with your hydration level and everything to do with how the cells in your epidermis develop and shed. Skins cell development is affected by a number of factors such as hormone production, chemical ingestion due to drugs or particular types of food, and also by illness. Skin cell production is rarely if ever affected by external factors in the environment.

And when I say “rarely” I mean rarely.

Periodic dry skin as that experienced by people visiting a mountainous region or a dry climate such as a desert is caused by atmospheric changes not how much water you drink. The human body has plenty of water in reserve to ensure your newly produced skin cells aren’t drying out and the skin cells you can observe right now are weeks old. The dry skin you might observe within a few hour of arriving somewhere new is mostly being caused by the evaporation of water and essential oils from the skin’s pores.

Severe dehydration, such as greater than 3% water loss, which is bordering on the critical levels will affect the condition of your skin but you’ll have a lot more to worry about besides some wrinkles at this point. Over hydration of the human body, i.e. consuming a large amount of water has no visible or physiological effect on the visible epidermis.

So go drink water, it’s good for you in so many ways, just not the ways you may have been lead to believe.

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[1] The scientific and medical literature research covered how much to drink and had nothing to do with huge lard balls.

[2] Everybody needs a special glass they can use to drink out of it. Whatever is put in the glass just tastes better. It does, it does and I don’t care what you say.

[3] If you really are crossing the Kalahari or Mojave deserts you can politely ignore the information in this article and do the correct thing.