I’ve always been the kind of person that doesn’t drink enough water. As a kid, every year my pediatrician would remind me that drinking water is a crucial part of life, and every year I would promise to try harder. It wasn’t really that I drank too much soda or other substitutes for water; I just didn’t drink. Period.
This wasn’t to say that I didn’t have minor health problems because of this — please, ladies, drink water! I would often complain of headaches to my mom and ask my friends for skincare tips because I felt splotchy. Over and over again my friends, family, and doctor would implore me to up my hydration. There are many benefits to staying hydrated, including clearer skin and increased metabolism, and so at the end of my senior year of high school, I downloaded a water tracking app on my phone.
I didn’t use the app as much as I would have liked to get consistent results, but over winter break here at Drexel I decided that I would keep up with it — I wanted to become healthier, and this was a great way to start.
I guess you could call it a New Year’s Resolution — one that came as a sigh of relief to my loved ones.
After deciding to put the effort into my hydration health, I looked up a few different simple water-tracking apps and settled on My Water, available for free to download. I liked how the water swished around the phone screen when you tilted your device. After two weeks of daily tracking, I decided to invest in the app (and my health by proxy) and purchase a full “membership,” which allowed me to track many types of liquids.
The Basics:
I started tracking my water through the My Water app (for iPhone) starting January 5th and continued every day with the hopes of making it to a full month of tracking. I’m happy to report that I am still tracking.
I told my friends and family — the ones who were most concerned with my hydration — about this water adventure and they were very nice and receptive about it. My grandfather even texted me a few times throughout the month inquiring about my progress which I thought was super sweet.
With the basic, free version of the app, I was able to track water, coffee, and tea. I really like this app in particular because it has pre-calculations of how much water is in different types of drinks. I added my daily goal of 101 oz (which is 3 liters). Even though the daily goal for the majority of people is 8 9-oz glasses of water or 64 oz, I aimed a little higher to ensure that I would reach this goal.
What can I say is that I’m an overachiever.
App Upgrade and Perks
I input my gender and weight to aid in the calculations and then set up notifications to remind me to drink water throughout the day. With the upgrade, I am able to track a range of different beverages, including smoothies (gotta keep track of all those Urban Eatery strawberry banana smoothies!), milk, juice, or even kombucha.
I can also adjust the default volumes of drink input and order of drinks, which came in super handy when I accidentally logged 1200 oz of seltzer instead of just 12.
The Results
I’m happy to say that I have started and maintained a habit of tracking my water throughout the day, and I definitely feel better about myself and my health because of this. Though I have yet to hit a day where I hit all 100 oz, I am really proud of the progress I’ve made.
The most I’ve been hydrated so far on this journey was January 10th, after many water refills throughout the day.
My day-to-day water intake can be anywhere from just 12 oz of water a day to hopefully more in the higher (and healthier) range of 40-60 oz.
I noticed it was way easier to reach my girl if I prepped ahead of time, like filling up my water bottle to take to class with me on the go.
I would recommend this process of water tracking to anyone that feels like they struggle with being hydrated. If My Water isn’t for you, no worries! There are a handful of other free water tracking apps to get started with.