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When It Comes to Water, Quality Matters

hydration

Credit: Andrew Mason

We’re talking hydration over the next few weeks on Fit Bottomed Girls with our new Thirsty Thursday series. But because hydration is so important to moms and families alike, we’ve also got some good, wet, watery fun for you here, too. This series is sponsored by alkaStream and will focus on water, hydration and health. For our sponsored-post policy, click here.

How much thought have you given water? Not much? Me neither until recently. We’ve been doing some focused research over at FBG on all things hydration, so I thought I’d hit some highlights here as well.

I read somewhere that life is like a grape-to-raisin progression: We come screaming into the world around 90 percent H2O and end life closer to 50 percent. We are a majority water, which is pretty important when you think about it. Our water quality has huge implications to how we feel, function and look. If we don’t drink enough—or drink a poor quality water—then we are impacting a big piece of the total “me.”

Which raises the question, “What is poor quality water?” For most of us, when we think of bad water, we think of dirty water—water that is clearly unclear. What we get out of the tap is clear and won’t have us running to the bathroom (in a bad way) or dead within a week, so we often take it for granted.

But is what we have available what we were meant to drink? Water quality can be compared with food. We all know foods that are organic, wild or free-range are typically more nutritious than processed, packaged, fast and genetically modified foods. What’s cool is the same intuitive scale applies to water. What does that mean? We should look for a water as close to its originally intended form as possible.

We found it really boils down to just two things: toxins and minerals. Water should be toxin free. Which is hard to do considering the Environmental Working Group did a study of 20 million state water records and found more than 300 different pollutants. Over half have no regulations. Yikes. Makes me a little nervous to have my family drinking something that would have a skull and crossbones on it if it were stored under the sink.

These pollutants and toxins explain why so many people reach for reverse osmosis and distiller systems. But those are kind of like processed foods that lack nutrients. Healthy water needs a blend of minerals because our body is meant to harvest them from our water. It’s a great relationship that can easily tip out of our favor. We’d never find a water void of minerals in its original wild form. Those minerals can also do wonders for making the water more hydrating and protective for our aging bodes. (Look for more on that over on FBG in the coming weeks!)

So, how do you apply this water wisdom?

  • First, either have a filter or be a filter. Anything is better than nothing, but we suggest a filter with multiple layers of protection. And you don’t need to spend thousands to make great improvements.
  • Secondly, drink…a lot. If you’re 70 percent water, then it seems safe to assume that if you focus on improving that 70 percent, you can see huge improvements. The recommendation? Divide your weight in half and then drink that amount in ounces.
  • Third, when selecting a bottled water to drink, choose spring over reverse osmosis, and if you can find one with a lot of minerals, that’s even better. There are a bunch of brands now that advertise a pH level, and you really can tell a difference in how they go down. Paying a few dimes more is worth it.

Lastly, don’t look at water as “just water.” Water is the delivery system for good stuff going in and bad stuff coming out. The better the system, the better everything works.

How much thought do you put into your water? Do you have a filter system in your house for tap water? Buy bottled? —Erin

FTC disclosure: We often receive products from companies to review. All thoughts and opinions are always entirely our own. Unless otherwise stated, we have received no compensation for our review and the content is purely editorial. Affiliate links may be included. If you purchase something through one of those links we may receive a small commission. Thanks for your support!