To The Mat: Water and Proper Hydration

I love how often people come out with new studies proving/disproving something we've been taught our whole lives. It's like math, you learn these simple rules for years and years, and then all of sudden you take college trig and they're like "forget this rule, it's not entirely true"... W.T.F. Why not just tell me that it isn't necessarily true in the first place so it's not like you're rocking my entire world! Idiots.

Anywho, today's discussion of annoying back and forths is going to be surrounding water and proper hydration. I've seen a bunch of Diet Coke fridge packs lately toting slogans like "recent studies have proven that drinking any liquid will help you stay hydrated" - which, by the way, is so reassuring when poison tries to convince you it isn't poison... As usual, I've digressed. Of course ANY liquid will keep you hydrated, but the big picture is, hydrated at what cost!?!

Drinking any fluid that has large quantities of sugar, or carbonation can not only add empty calories, but also leach important nutrients from our systems as well as decrease bone density (i.e. higher the chances of getting Osteoporosis, and increase potential bone fractures). Diet drinks are certainly not any better with their cancer causing aspartame, and possibly death inducing sucralose (read the toxicology report on Splenda - I don't think food items are supposed to mention death that often). All of the facts on other beverages would lead me to assume that of all the things that you CAN drink, water is the best possible choice.

SO let's get a few things straight here. Water is allegedly the majority of our entire bodies make-up, as in it's in our cells, and helps encourage our cells to operate at normal and healthy levels. It helps maintain hydration, without any side-effects, aside from, of course, more frequent bathroom breaks. (I like to think of large amounts of water consumption as my excuse for cigarette breaks. You always know that smokers get like one ten-minute break an hour. If you drink copious amounts of liquid, you might just well reach that some number yourself, and you smell far less disgusting).

Now, however, more and more reports are surfacing that the required 8 glasses a day may not be required at all. That drinking water may not help your skin, or help your health. Ok, fine, so that clear, flavorless (unless you live in L.A...) fluid doesn't necessarily benefit you. I could see that, I mean it's like as close to nothing as you can get. But, let's just say, that now you're on your high horse like "oh I don't need to drink water, I can drink what I want!" and you're downing like one regular soda, three diet soda's and four glasses of juice a day - but oh don't forget that Jamba Juice you had at lunch.

IDIOT- You've had like a days worth of calories in liquid alone, not to mention an outrageous amount of carbs! If you have that many simple carbs with NO protein your blood sugar levels will sky rocket, leading to an inevitable crash, increased sugar cravings - and after awhile, A HUGE FAT ASS. So not only are you stupid, but you're also fat. Seriously.

Now that I've insulted your appearance and intelligence, let me fill you in on a little secret. If I don't force myself to drink water, I won't. I LURVE Diet Soda. I LURVE cancer-causing carcinogens. I go through periods where I ween myself, but I always go back in the end. So I guess the moral of the story is that you should own up to your shortcomings, and realize that you can make better choices most of the time. This might make you feel less guilty when you're hiding in your car chugging a Diet Hansen's Root Beer before going inside to your loving family who's still smarting from your "No More High Fructose Corn Syrup or Sugar Substitute" spring cleaning fest.

Everything in moderation. Except water... and lettuce. You can crazy with the water and the lettuce.