1. Add more spice to your meals
While a spicy meal is always delightful, an unexpected benefit is that it makes you feel as if your throat is on fire, forcing you to drink some water.
If you keep a glass of water at the table each time you have a spicy meal, you’ll automatically drink more water without having to remind yourself too hard.
2. Drink a glass of water after you wake up and before you go to bed
This is perhaps the most well-known hack to drink more water, yet it turns out this is the most ignored.
How often have our parents reminded us always to keep a bottle on the bedside table so we can take a sip as soon as we wake up? Drinking water the first thing in the morning can keep you alert and productive throughout the day.
3. Set an alarm
Set the alarm for every hour to remind you to drink water. While this might seem a really far-fetched approach to a simple problem, it can go a long way in helping you stick to your hydration goals.
If you drink more water, you’ll also have to pee more frequently, take timely washroom breaks with making sure you walk a lot, don’t sit for long hours, and get some exercise done in what would otherwise have been an unproductive few minutes.
4. Drink before every meal
If you have 4 meals a day, having a cup of water before each meal adds an extra 1L of water to your daily consumption.
This is not only a great way to meet your daily water goals but also helps you curb your hunger and eat less than you’d normally have — going a long way in aiding weight loss.
5. Take your water bottle with you wherever you go
Whether you’re working outdoors and traveling from site to site or staying at home all day long, never keep your water bottle out of your sight. Even while moving from one room to the next, carrying your water bottle with you is a great idea as it makes sure you don’t attribute “I’m feeling too lazy to get some water now” as an excuse.
As for when you’re working outdoors, you save yourself some bucks from having to buy a water bottle, as well as save the planet from excessive plastic use.
6. Dilute your favorite sugary drink with ice
If you love drinking something sugary like lemonade, coke, or fruit juice, water it down with ice. This way, you’ll still get to savor the sweet taste of your favorite drink while making sure your body gets water.
If you’re making conscious efforts to cut out sugar, then this tip might not work for you. But sometimes, when I’m ordering a diet coke or a glass of guava juice, I add lots of ice to get the best of both worlds.
7. Include water-rich foods in your diet
Eating food items with high water content is a great way to meet your daily water requirements without stressing yourself too much. Here are some vegetables and fruits you can include in your diet: cucumber (96% water), zucchini (95% water), watermelon (92% water), and grapefruit (91% water).
Have them as a side dish, dessert, or make salads out of them. Either way, you’ll be treating your body with lots of nutrients, antioxidants while at the same time making sure you get a lot of water into your system.
8. Use a Habit Tracker
Marking your daily water consumption in a habit tracker is a great way to make sure you don’t fall off the wagon. The easiest way to do it is to set your daily water goals and mark them on a journal or calendar.
You can also download a free habit tracker and mark the days you managed to meet your daily goal. Seeing an unbroken streak of a lot of days can be a huge motivator and go a long way in making sure you don’t give up on yourself.