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AGING
with an
Attitude
Drinking Water…
It Doesn't Have to be Tortuous
I
t was in one of my Gerontology
classes that I realized how danger-
ous dehydration can be and I made
it part of my mission to do what
it takes to prevent dehydration when I
opened Visiting Angels. Boy, was I sur-
prised to fi nd out how tough it would
be to get older adults to drink water! I
too hated water, so to practice what I
preached, I got on the research trail.
So far, I have found the
following to work:
• Adding fresh fruit, veggie slices, or
herbs seemed to make water tastier.
A little bit of coconut water (with
the least amount of sugar): add just
enough for taste to control sugar
intake.
• Virginia, a centenarian client, sug-
gested squeezing lemon into the
water and warming it, to cleanse the
colon fi rst thing in the morning if I
want to live long.
• Virginia credited sipping water
before any activity for her great skin.
Sip before you pick up the phone to
make a call, sip before you order a
meal, sip before you get up to do the
laundry.
• Diluting sugary drinks with water
and ice does not sound like fun but
stay with it – you will notice that you
feel better with less sugar intake!
• Get a pitcher and fi ll it with water,
to remember to drink (you may have
to entice your brain to like what is in
the pitcher (tastier water).
• Vegetables and fruits with high water
content helped. (e.g. cucumbers,
zucchinis, watermelons, lettuce, cab-
74
bage, cantaloupe, honeydew melon
and grapefruit contain more than
90% water).
• At work, if fruits are not available
– put a small cut of fresh ginger or
herbal tea in your water!
• Experimenting with water tem-
peratures helped. The warm water
fi rst thing in the morning made it
easier to wake up. The colder water
or popsicles during the day gave a
welcome jolt on a day that seemed
to drag!
But what worked for me, some cli-
ents scoffed at.
Here are other ideas…
• With the help of the family, we made
a deal with those who loved salty or
sweet stuff: they could get some but
they needed to drink more water as
they enjoyed these snacks.
• We got some bright-colored water
bottles as a bold reminder.
• Some responded to the alarm on
their smartphones (yes, they rolled
their eyes before drinking).
• On a cold day, brothy soup helped
with hydration.
• On a warm day, milkshakes, smooth-
ies, watered down Ensure and sports
drinks helped.
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
SPRING 2020
Some enjoyed monitoring their
water intake with a free app like Daily
Water Free or Daily Water which can
be downloaded onto one’s phone. Then
there’s the high-tech DrinKup which
comes in different cool colors and is
super sleek, and its accompanying
app. This water bottle recommends a
personalized daily water intake, sends
alerts when it is time to sip and docu-
ments water intake. It keeps drinks
cold for 24 hours and hot for 12.
In yesteryears, 8 cups of water was
recommended. But that is not based
on science, it turns out. So how much
water should you drink a day? Experts
agree that it depends on your size and
weight, your level of activity and the
climate where you live. The easy way
is to take half of your weight (that will
be your minimum in ounces) and your
actual weight as your maximum. For
example if you weigh 110 lbs, your
minimum will be 55 ounces. (A small
bottle of water usually has 16 ounces
so in this case, about 3.4 of these
bottles). If you are sedentary, you can
go for the minimum. For the very
active who lives in a hotter climate, the
recommended amount in this example
would be 110 ounces (i.e. 6.88 of
those small bottles of water). There’s
the unknown – how active is active
and all those undefined factors. Your
urine tells all: if it is clear or light yel-
low and has no smell, you are being
good to your body!
Whether you are motivated by the
knowledge that your body is about
70% water and drinking enough of it is
critical to your health; or that water is
important to your electrolyte balance,
gmhtoday.com