Eat Pretty Week 1: Hydration

We are kicking off the challenge with this weeks theme being- hydration. Did you know that according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, women should drink 9 cups of water per day? I don’t know about you but I definitely don’t meet that recommendation. Staying properly hydrated is essential for getting healthy. So why is water THAT important for us? Here’s a few reasons why!

Health benefits of water

You have always heard that you should drink more water bla bla bla- but WHY? Well first starters, water is your body’s principal chemical component and makes up about 60 percent of your body weight. Your body literally depends on water to survive! A few examples of what water does:

Gets rid of wastes through urination, perspiration and bowel movements
Keeps your temperature normal
Lubricates and cushions joints

When you don’t get enough water you become dehydrated, which causes your body not to carry out normal functions. Even mild dehydration can drain your energy and make you tired. Dehydration also effects our beauty and causes wrinkles. When our body is dehydrated it releases stress hormones, which lead to an increase in aging inflammation. No bueno!!

This Weeks Challenge: Hydration

So here is this weeks challenge- you can ONLY drink water for a week {Monday – Sunday}. For some of you this might be incredibly easy, while for others it might be the most difficult week. Rules:

Carbonated water is allowed but cannot be flavored- according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics carbonated water is a healthy way to add flavor to your water.
Adding fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs to your water is allowed and encouraged.
Black coffee {with ZERO added anything!} is allowed this year. I know, I know- this might be a death sentence for some of you but this is a challenge not a walk in the park. If you absolutely cannot live without coffee, drink it black but try to challenge yourself to live without it for 1 week!
I dare you!
Wine is unfortunately not water.
As mentioned yesterday, this year you are also allowed ONE cheat day! The reason behind this is to introduce you to my 80/20 rule. You can read more about it from yesterdays post by clicking here.

Why Only Water?

Still not convinced on why we are only drinking water? No problem-I’ll break it down and give you more detail on why we are giving them up for this week!

Coffee: There are very few things in life that are better than that first, warm cup of coffee in the morning. Researchstudies have generally linked coffee consumption with positive effects – yet consuming too much caffeine might potentially have some negative effects on your health, such as indirectly causing damage to your skin. Another way coffee hurts our skin is by causing dehydration. Coffee is a diuretic, which means it increases the body’s production of urine. This doesn’t necessarily cause you to get dehydrated, but if you aren’t replacing that output of urine with water, than you have a problem. Dehydrated skin causes inflammation (redness) and premature aging (collagen loss). Additionally, without enough water flushing your system, toxic buildup in the skin can also cause acne.

Alcohol: Do I even need to convince you why alcohol is bad for our skin? How many of you have drank a few glasses of wine or other alcohol and woke up feeling 100%? Okay maybe back in college but definitely not in our 30’s! Alcohol makes our liver work hard, which then affects blood flow to our skin. Also, drinking basically makes it impossible for your body to stay hydrated. “Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it causes you to pee more,” says dermatologist Whitney Bowe, MD. “But it also hinders the production of the hormone vasopressin. That hormone helps you reabsorb water. So alcohol is kind of a double whammy, in that it’s forcing out water and making it harder for your body to rehydrate itself.”

Sugary Beverages: Unfortunately, sugar is pretty much straight up toxic to your beauty. We will go into much greater detail about WHY sugar is bad for us next week but in regards to our skin, it’s basically a toxic. Sugar directly contributes to wrinkles, age spots, blemishes, lackluster skin, and cellulite (Eat Pretty, p.20). Sugary beverages cause your insulin level to spike, which leads to a burst of inflammation throughout your body. This inflammation produces enzymes that then break down collagen and elastin, resulting wrinkles and sagging skin.

Recipes

Instead of sharing a healthy recipe for this weeks challenge, I will just give you a few ideas for naturally flavoring your water. Try adding cucumber, strawberries, lemons, limes, watermelon, mint, and fresh herbs to create flavorful water. Make a big pitcher of flavored water at the beginning of the week to help you stay on track. I posted a few great ideas on my Pinterest if you want to re-pin them!

Beauty Challenge

Now that we understand this weeks eating (drinking) challenge, lets talk about the beauty challenge! This one is easy to achieve- apply moisturizer every morning and night. Also, make sure your day time moisturizer has SPF in it! Here are a few I love to use: