Drink Your Water Challenge Finale: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

by Hope Wilbanks on June 4th, 2008

Now that our first weight loss challenge has ended, I hooked up with each participant to find out how the challenge helped, or didn’t. I didn’t want to just issue “some old challenge” without following up and gathering some results.

Based on the survey I sent to participants, here are some highlights of the results of the Drink Your Water Challenge:

Drinking 6-8 glasses of water every day is a challenge.

By the end of last week, two of us were drinking our 6-8 glasses of water every day, while one person was downing hers almost every day. Only one participant admitted to not being able to drink her water daily.

Drinking water every day is difficult.

One thing we all agreed on was that consuming the recommended 6-8 glasses of water per day was difficult. For those of us not accustomed to drinking water very much at all, drinking water period was not an easy thing to do.

Sometimes you have to trick yourself to drink water.

Another common thread among all participants was the fact that using “tricks” was almost always helpful in downing water. Spicing up water seemed to make the water more enticing and easier to drink.

Certain days of the week are more conducive to water consumption than others.

While one participant admitted that each day was equally difficult to drink all of her water, the rest of us agreed that some days are just easier than others to drink water.

Hydration Tips & Tricks

Based on the responses from each challenge participant, I’ve compiled a list of tips and tricks that will help all of us consume more water. The key to this challenge was not just to try to down a bunch of water every day for a couple of weeks then stop. On the contrary, I wanted you to think about how little, or how much, you are staying hydrated on a daily basis.

For me, drinking water has been crucial to my weight loss. I know when I don’t drink at least 40 ounces of water every day I tend to eat more and feel hungry more often. Plus, drinking water faithfully just helps me feel better, physically, in general.

Now for those hydration tips and tricks…

• Develop a habit of drinking enough water every day.
• When you feel hungry, drink a full glass of water then wait 20-30 minutes before eating.
• Use reminders to prevent you from forgetting to hydrate.
• Find a special, fun, or funky cup or bottle to drink your water from.
• Drink 10-20 ounces of water first thing in the morning (before your coffee).
• If you’re drinking from a glass or bottle, as soon as it’s empty, refill or grab another right away.

Gabrielle, Kristen, Alicia, and I all had one thing in common. We like to spice up our water now and then. Here are some tips from each of us to give your water a little zing:

• From Gabrielle: Add slices of lime and fresh mint
• From Alicia: Mix in Wal-Mart’s Great Value brand sugar-free flavored drink mix
• From Hope: Crystal Light has several varieties of “diet” sugar-free flavored drink mixes; my favorite is

Bonus Tip

Kristen included a note that I had to share with you because it’s brilliant. This is a tip for those of us who drink water from a bottle:

Kristen says:

“In the past, I’ve also put rubber bands on my water bottle and moved them down the bottle throughout the day to keep track of how much water I’d had so far.”

Share This

Related Stories

• Weight Loss Challenge #1: Drink Your Water
• Are You Drinking Your Water?
• Drink Your Water Challenge Finale: Meet The Participants
• Weight Loss Blog Top 5 Posts For May
• How To Get Back Up After You Fall

POSTED IN: Weight Loss Challenges