Please note, this transcript is auto-generated, so I apologize for any errors.
Jenna: Hello happy people and welcome to Office ADHD. Hey, did anybody get excited when they saw the word contest in the title today? I don’t know about you, but I love prizes and contests. That’s like one of my big motivators. I love winning things. If you’re going to give me a free t shirt or a free prize for going somewhere, I most often will be there. That brings me to today’s big announcement. I’m hosting a contest for renaming the labels on motivational water bottles. I put a link into the description so you can see a motivational water bottle, so you can see what I’m talking about. Basically what it is is it’s a big water bottle. They come in sizes from 32oz, 64oz and 128oz, which is a whole gallon in case you are curious. And they have different times on them. So it’ll say 07:00 A.m., 09:00 A.m. 10:00 A.m. And then it gives you so that you can kind of track how much water you should have drinking by that time to give you a tracker for that. And it’ll give you little motivational phrases. So like, I’ll read you mine. Mine says right here, 07:00 A.m. Ready? Go. 09:00. A.m. Go for it. 11:00 A.m. Believe yourself. 01:00 P.m. Remember your goal. 03:00 p.m. Shoot for success. 05:00 p.m don’t give up 07:00 p.m Almost there. 09:00 P.m. You made it. I just feel like there isn’t enough fun variety out there in the words and phrases next to each time. I feel like we could have some more puns. There some more things that we really want to read. So I’m doing a contest. I’m putting a link to the contest in the description. It’ll be on the website connected with this post on the Office Adhd.com. Go there, fill it out. Here’s how the contest is going to work. Starting today, the contest is open and on April 29, april, not this month because this is still March. It’s the last day of March. I am going to do a random drawing first. This is going to be a two stage contest. So hold the phone. So first stage is a random drawing that I am going to just pull up random.org, put in the number of entries and we will pick somebody at random who is going to get a $20 Amazon gift card. Then there is going to be stage two. The Office ADHD judges will look at all of the entries or as many of the entries as they have time to read. Depends on how many entries there are. They’ll look at the entries and we’ll select ten to 20 of their favorite entries. Those entries will then be reposted on May 8 and everybody gets to vote on their favorite ones. I’m going to let you rank each one so you can say, I’m not sure if it’s going to be out of five or out of ten. So you can give each one points and the two entries. So the entries with the two most points will each get $50 Amazon gift cards. So two stage and yes, you could actually win both if you got really lucky and you can enter your ideas without entering the contest. There’s a way to do that on the form, all of the rules and everything like that’s on there. Okay. Side note, did you realize there’s so many different rules and things you should really be putting on contests and things like this? I found a lot of them, so a lot of the legal things I found on different websites and put together. Also, you don’t have to worry about me using your real name. I put in on the form a place where you’re going to submit either a display name or your public name. If you want to just put in your name. Like, I probably, if I was entering, would have just put Jenna or something. That’s going to be the name you want me to use. If I read your entry on this podcast, or if you are selected as one of the ten to 20 entries that everyone gets voted on, that’s the display name that I will show on that entry. As far as voting, I’ll say, here’s the entry, and I’ll say this is by Razor Fox or whatever you put down as your display name. That way, too, you can tell your friends, hey, go here and vote for Razor Fox’s entry. When the time comes, you can submit more than one entry. If you have lots of great ideas, go ahead and submit all of those great ideas. If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments on the blog. That way everybody can get the answer all at once. Now that I’ve talked about the contest, let’s talk about why this is important to us and let’s enter into the world of a controversial topic that I didn’t know was so controversial at first in my life. I figured out when I was in college that there was a three fold thing. So three items that, if I was not watching, would pretty much destroy my outlook on every single day. So it was sleep, food, and water. I could handle one, being thirsty, hungry, or tired, for sure. One is fine. Two, we’re starting to look a little grim. Things are going down if all three are a problem. So if I got thirsty, hungry, and I was tired, all of a sudden the world just seemed like a dark and terrible place. Everything was awful. I didn’t know what to do. And I was like, Why is everything so bad? And eventually I had to be like, oh, wait, when’s the last time I ate something? Did I drink in water? I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, did I? If I go to the vending machine and get a sandwich and drink something at the drinking fountain, on the way, I would feel so much better. It was amazing. One of the things we have problems with at the ADHD I know this is supposed to be one of our Friday random episodes, but one of the problems we have with ADHD is actually remembering to take care of ourselves. Not something we’re very good at. That’s one of those boring things that you have to do every now and again. Drinking water. That’s a thing supposed to do it. This is where we’re going to hit that controversy. And some of you have already been keying up your keyboards to type in all sorts of stuff to me because you’re, like, not a standard how much water you’re supposed to drink. And you would not believe how controversial this whole subject of how much water you’re supposed to drink a day is. I was like, Holy guacamole face, people. What? Okay, so we’re going to step back for a minute. For those of you that don’t know, I have a bachelor’s degree in zoology, so I know just a wee bit about biology. And we’re going to talk just for a second about why water is important to your body. Did you realize that every single cell that is alive in your body, so every single living little tiny cell in your body at all times, in order to remain alive, must be touching hydration of some kind? So look at your little hands. Look at everything moving around. Every little cell must be touching water. Also, your body flushes all of those fluids constantly. If you want to stay healthy, if you want to keep toxins from your system, if you want your body to be able to transport things like, I don’t know, oxygen around your body, you need water in your system. That’s how it makes blood. That’s how it makes all of the fluids. You have a lot of gross fluids in your body. I was not meant to be a doctor. Let’s just say that right there. That’s why I call them gross fluids. But you have a lot of different fluids and fluidy things in your body that need to be flushed out and changed. Often this requires that you are hydrated. However, obviously not every single person needs the same amount of water. A little three year old does not need the same amount of water as a six foot five person. Not going to happen. So how do you figure out how much water you need? This is going to depend on a lot of things. One, it depends on your lifestyle. Do you exercise a lot or not? Where do you live? Do you live in a high elevation, a low elevation? Is it hot? Is it cold? Is it humid? Is it dry? What kinds of environmental factors do you have going on in your home? Do you take medications that either dehydrate you or that cause you to retain water? If you have a condition that causes water retention, then you may need to lower some of your water intake. As far as not drinking five gallons a day, which I know so many of you are drinking five gallons of water a day. However, if you are a construction worker and you’re out working in the hot sun, you may need five gallons of water a day because you’re going to be sweating. Let’s talk about a few different methods to figure out how much you should drink, though. One way to think about it is I’m just going to get weird with you right now. If you can’t handle this, just skip ahead like 3 seconds. I want you to think about your body for a second and then think about if some weirdo made a life size model of your body, like made a sack that was your body and they filled it with sand so that it was, like, the same size and weight as your body but instead inside it was just like a sand dummy. Now think of each sand particle as all of those little cells in your body. And then imagine, remember what I said, that in order for each of those little cells to be surviving, they each have to be touching water. They have to be moist. How much water is it going to take to fill up your sand dummy? Not necessarily fill it up so that the water is exploding, but so that every single grain of sand in there, which would represent every single cell in your body has water touching it. Or so that all of those sand grains are exceptionally moist. Think about how much water that would take because that’s how much water your body needs to flush all of these cells that are every single part of your body. I mean, not your hair, because your hair is dead, or your fingernails. Those are dead cells, so they don’t need to be touching water. But you know what I mean, there’s lots of cells inside you. One system that I really liked, I did these different Haley Pomeroy books about upping your metabolism, and her rule of thumb is to take your body weight and cut it in half. And that’s how many ounces of water you should aim for, with a maximum of 100oz a day should be your goal for water per day. And I think that’s a pretty good rule of thumb. So, for example, if you weigh 150oz, if you weigh 150oz, you probably have some issues that we need to discuss besides water drinking. But if you weigh like £150, then you’d cut that in half to be 75. So you should be drinking 75oz of water a day. If you weigh £300, you cut that in half to 150 and you say to yourself, you know what, if I get 100oz a day, I’m good. And that’s fine. And again, you’re going to want to adjust for basically everything going on in your life, any health conditions you have, any medications you’re taking. If you’re worried about if your medications are causing you either to retain water or to dry out your skin or dry out other parts of your body, please discuss that with your doctor, because they will know best about those things. Seeing as I am not actually a doctor and I can’t talk to you individually about your individual cases, Another really, really one of the best ways to tell whether you’re getting enough hydration is actually if you look at your pee when you’re peeing. If your pee is really dark, then you’re not getting enough straight water. If your pee is, you want it to be kind of a light ambery color because that shows that you’re able to process you’re flushing out enough things and you’re getting enough hydration. That because you want there to be just a little bit extra. That’s just water. If you take a lot of vitamins just so you know, a lot of vitamins and supplements, that the excess from the vitamins and supplements will go out in your pea, so that will make your pee darker. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not well enough hydrated. Just means you’re taking a lot of extra supplements. I’m going to read this to you from the website from the Mayo Clinic about why you should drink water. FYI, if you are ever looking up health information, the Mayo Clinic is amazing. They don’t support my show. They’re way too big, but they are absolutely amazing. One of the best resources you can go to to just look up different diseases. If you want to know more about it and anything like that, I would definitely recommend the Mayo Clinic as a responsible resource that is reputable. So one of their sections here and I’ll link this website to says what are the health benefits of water? Says water is your body’s principal chemical component and makes up about 50% to 70% of your body weight. Think about that. 50% to 70% of your body weight that needs to be flushed out every day. Your body depends on water to survive. Every cell, tissue, and organ in your body needs water to work properly. For example, water gets rid of wastes through urination, perspiration, and bowel movements, keeps your temperature normal, lubricates and cushions joints, and protects sensitive tissues. This is my favorite sentence right here. Lack of water can lead to dehydration. Sorry. A lack of hydration can lead to dehydration. Okay, I’ve done reading off their website for a minute here, but it just makes me happy that they tell you that. I mean, it makes sense because they’re skiing scientific, and they have to tell you this, but I just was like, scientific discovery of the age anyway. But, yes, it actually even does mention on here that even mild dehydration can drain your energy and make you tired, which is very true. That’s one of the benefits of drinking water is that you do feel more awake, you feel more energy, your body just feels better. Now, a very common question that people ask when we start doing these things, trust me, I know. I once upon a time, set up a health competition and this was like question number one, do we only have to drink water? Is straight water the only thing that will work? Let’s talk about that. I mean, simple answer no. Your body will extract H 20 from other sources. For example, if you’re eating a lot of watermelon or other juicy fruits and juicy vegetables like a cucumber, then you will get hydration through that. Side note the tomato. Sorry, this just made me think of it. Here’s the ADHD kicking in. Is the tomato a vegetable or a fruit? I have your answer. So there are two different definitions of a fruit and a vegetable. There’s the botanical definition and the horticultural definition. So the botanical definition has more to do with structural and anatomy, and horticultural definitions have more to do with uses. And according to the botanical definition, a tomato is a fruit. According to a horticultural definition, a tomato is a vegetable. So tomato is both a fruit and a vegetable. It just depends on which definition you like best. There you go. There is your official answer. Anyway, back to liquids and water. Yes, you can get fluids from other sources and in fact, I am going to be straight with you here. If you are exercising a lot, you do need to drink things that have electrolytes in them. There’s a lot of different ways to get healthy electrolytes. You need to make sure you’re getting those, especially if you notice that you’ve been working out more and you’re getting shaky even if you’re drinking fluids. A lot of times that means you need electrolytes. Your body needs sodium and chloride and different things like that in order to make the cells work. There’s a lot of different pumps and things and you need your magnesium and all of those different trace minerals in order for your cell transport systems to work properly. So if you feel like I said, especially if you feel like you’re getting shaky or lightheaded while you’re drinking water, you may need to make sure you’re drinking some water that has electrolytes in it. So you may need to get a sports drink or grab something that adds powder to your water if you feel like you’re getting shaky and lightheaded while you’re drinking water, because electrolytes should help fix that. If it’s not going away, definitely go talk to your doctor. That’s a problem. You shouldn’t be shaky and lightheaded most of the time unless you know you have a condition that causes that. However, let’s talk about in general. The reason you want to drink mostly straight water is that your body doesn’t have to sift through all of the other chemicals to find the water. Think about the fact that your body is using the water to flush out impurities. You don’t want to be adding a lot of dyes and a lot of other things that your body has to flush out. However, if you just simply are not going to drink it, if it’s pure water, then it’s better to get something that you will drink. Drinking maybe like some herbal tea, throw some peppermint in your water, that’s great. Then your body’s getting the benefits of the peppermint too. You can grab infusers that infuse fruits and other flavors into your water. And those are great, wonderful things. Get flavors in there. I just hate cleaning them out. That’s why I generally don’t use them. Also, start yourself off small and drink as much water as you can. Get a goal going. If you can get yourself to do it for two weeks, then honestly, this is how I started drinking water. I was in a health class, and we were setting fitness goals, and I started drinking water. We were drinking 64oz of water a day for two weeks. Wow. After that, nothing else really quenched my thirst. The other thing you should do is figure out what your barrier is to drinking water. My barrier was I didn’t want to be bothered to go fill up my cup again. That’s why I now I went to Goodwill or where I’m at. Di is kind of the equivalent, and I got a bunch of giant smoothie cups. I also ordered some of these motivational water bottles after I saw them. I’ve got a big 64 ounce one, and I’ve even got the gallon one. That’s what’s sitting on my desk right now is the gallon sized one. Filling that up so that I don’t have to be bothered to go fill up the cup again makes a huge difference. It means that I actually drink the water because I can just reach over and drink it. Anytime I think about it, I can look at it and say, all right, I should be drinking more water by now. That’s the other thing I actually really like about the motivational water bottles is I can say, oh, what time is it? Oh, wow. I should have drinking a lot more water by now, because I know my goal for me personally is to drink the entire bottle, or at least most of it, so I can see, oh, whoops, I need to chug some or drink a little bit more here. So like I said, the biggest thing is to say, what is my barrier? If your barrier is simply the taste, then just get yourself a healthy electrolyte powder or get yourself some juices that you like. Or grab a one or two ingredient herb that you want to add to your water. Something that will just make it taste how you like it to taste it’s. All right to start out how you need to start out, you start where you are and you keep going. And you say to yourself, this is a good step. It’s all right to say to yourself, this is better than doing nothing. It’s okay to not be at the, oh, this is the perfect, best, most absolute healthy thing to be doing, but this is healthier than doing nothing. It’s okay to be on the path. You can still reward yourself. You can still give yourself a pat on the back. You can still say yes. I’m amazing. Because you drank even just one more gulp of water today than you normally would have, you celebrate those wins. Even if you drink more yesterday, it doesn’t matter. You go drink another extra gulp today and say to yourself, yeah, I’m awesome. And I think that’s where we’re going to end. Feel free to tell me all of your thoughts on how much water you should and shouldn’t be drinking, but in the end, drink enough water so that you feel good, you feel hydrated, because you’re awesome and you deserve it. As always, thanks so much for listening. And if you want to know more about anything we talked about today, or if you want to be part of the discussion, join us at officeadhd.com. Thanks so much for listening. See you next time.