What’s In Your Water? Finding the Best Way to Hydrate
What’s in your water? Hydrate up Credit: makelessnoise
Now introducing Thirsty Thursday! Every Thursday for the next few weeks, we’ll be doing a series of posts on Fit Bottomed Girls and Fit Bottomed Mamas that have been sponsored by alkaStream and focus on water, hydration and health. For our sponsored-post policy, click here.
Did anyone else seem to drink a lot of water this summer? Same here. Which set us on a bit of an investigation. What is the best way to stay hydrated?
Finding the Best Way to Hydrate
1. Sports drinks. These are marketed as the best thing for hydration since sliced bread. There are shelves full of colors and flavors. And while we did find some research that says hydration and performance is slightly improved when drinking sports drinks, most of us aren’t professional endurance athletes who need that extra 1 percent. Especially when we balance it against the increased sugar and calorie consumption, dental erosion and acid build up in our bodies (which we will talk about more later). So while an occasional sports drink is okay, we aren’t going to be loading up on these.
2. Tap water. This often tastes terrible, and there are so many different chemicals added you that absolutely must have a filter—and a good one at that. Since so many toxins have been added either directly (like chlorine) or indirectly (like pesticides), tap water isn’t even that safe anymore. But, there are also beneficial minerals in tap water—things we should drink that have historically made up part of our daily nutrient supply. The problem is that in order to drink the good stuff, we have to drink the bad stuff, too.
3. In-home filters. There are endless filters available with a wide range of capabilities. We found the lowest costing filters really don’t take that much out. Of course, anything is better than nothing. But to really do a good job, we have to find a filter that eliminates as much as possible, and this takes a bunch of different filter media. Some do this with multiple canisters; others just layer them into one canister.
4. Reverse osmosis and distilled. These are the cleanest water options available. But the cleaning process also removes the vital minerals resulting in a very acidic drink. Research points to long-term problems resulting from drinking too much of these.
5. Bottled. Most of the name brands are reverse osmosis. If they do have minerals, it’s usually in such a small amount that they really don’t do much for us. Spring water is a bit better, and if you can find one that says “alkaline” or has a pH number on the label, it’s even better. Essential and Evermore are a few brands around that do so.
6. Alkaline water. There is a lot of stuff on the web about the benefits of alkaline water. Some makes sense, some does not. The most shocking thing we found were the prices of the systems used to create it. $4,000…really? However, the concept of higher pH water was interesting and led us to the below video. It’s worth watching.
Can’t see the video? Click here to learn about the effects of pH on your health and waistline.
We’re going to focus on the category of alkaline water a little more in next week’s Thirsty Thursday post because we found some much more affordable options that work. We’ll have a review of them soon, so stay tuned!
So…let us know your thoughts: What do you drink? Have you ever checked out your local water report to find out what’s in your water? What’s your favorite way to hydrate? —Jenn