Many people resist drinking a lot of water for a variety of reasons. Some people claim that they don’t like the taste of water; others say that they simply must have certain other beverages in order to make it through the day (such as coffee or tea or soda). This shouldn’t be an excuse – one can always add a low-calorie sweetener like Crystal Light.

How Much Water Should I Drink

Water is essential, though—especially for dieters, yes, but it is necessary for everyone. Every human needs to drink a certain amount every day. This figure is different for each person, though most people have heard that eight 8 ounce glasses is the ideal. That amount is not the ideal; rather, it is the average amount.

Though experts disagree on the optimal amount of water, we’ve found many feel this formula is a good guideline. Take the person’s weight and divide it in half. This figure represents how many ounces of water this person should ingest each day. Of course, about 20% of this amount is generally figured to be ingested through foods—many foods are composed of high amounts of water, such as soups and many fruits. So, take the figure and subtract 20% of it to come to the real amount.

Here’s an example:
Let’s say a person weighs 240 pounds. Half of that is 120, so that would be 120 ounces. 20% of 120 is 24 (this is the amount of water this person gets from his food), so subtract 24 from 120 (120 – 24 = 96). So, this person needs to drink 96 ounces per day, which translates to 12 8 ounce glasses.

Tips for Drinking All that Water

Here’s how you can get that water into one day:

• First thing in the morning, right after getting out of bed, drink a glass of water. Guzzle it down.
• Drink another glass slowly while getting dressed and ready for the day.
• Before eating anything, whether it is a snack or a meal, drink a full glass of water. Not only will this help you ingest the right amount of water, but it can help you to eat less because you will feel fuller.
• Keep a large water bottle (at least 24 ounces) filled and next to you at all times. Sip on it throughout the day.

Lastly, be careful not to drink too much water. People might not realize it, but too much water can lead to water intoxication, as one woman and radio station found out the hard way.

Photo Credit: Ziga Zaga

Fans of the show Seinfeld know the value of a thin wallet. They are may be familiar with the episode where George Costanza experiences back pain due to an over-stuffed wallet. The episode lead to the coining of the phrase, Costanza wallet. If you think George’s back pain from his wallet is just a figment of the writers imagination, think again. The American Chiropractic Association says:

carrying your wallet in the back pocket of your pants can cause discomfort… Sitting on your wallet or card holder for the entire day will create a pocket in the muscle lying underneath the wallet, and whether your pants are tight or loose-fitting, this can result in discomfort or pain.

The recommended solution is to not carry a wallet in your back pocket. However it’s difficult for many people to carry a wallet in their front pocket especially if you take advantage of all these credit card recommendations. If you have as much stuff as I do in my wallet, you can see why it wouldn’t fit in my front pocket.

I went through a two-step process to get a thin wallet:

• Remove unnecessary cards – I did this by eliminating a couple of the credit cards that I bring with me. I don’t need to bring the Home Depot card with me – and it’s been years since I went to Blockbuster. I decided that I needed the Costco, Safeway, two credit cards, two bank cards, health insurance card, my driver’s license, and my military ID. I looked into Just One Club Card, but I’m too Lazy and I’m not sure I can consolidate things any more.
• Get a Thin Wallet – I did a lot of research and found two possible solutions. The Junior All-Ett and the Jimi Wallet. These two thin wallets had tremendous reviews.

I realized that I couldn’t go with the Jimi – I just could limit myself to the 4-5 cards and one or two dollar bills. However, the Junior All-Ett was exactly what I was looking for. It has space for 10 cards and a few bills. It arrived in a standard envelope – I almost expected it to be a notice of the item being back-ordered. Upon shifting to it, I couldn’t believe the difference between it and my leather wallet. It’s not going to win any fashion awards, but I still want to show it off every chance I get. Unfortunately it’s such a thin wallet that I forget about it in my pocket and fail to show people.

I’m not sure if it’s going to prevent me from getting back problems in the future, but I feel good knowing that I’ve eliminated a potential problem

Photo Credit: b_d_solis

Wii Tennis is a good workout

My favorite game is Wii Sports Tennis. This is the only game where my wife and I can play on the same team. (When we are on opposing teams, we get a little too competitive and it doesn’t end up well). I focus about 90% of my time on this game. After a day or just a couple games a day, my wife and I noticed that we had a case of Wii Tennis Elbow (Wiibow?). We took a day off and have been fine since.

So what about burning calories? My wife really puts her arm into every shot. She says she builds up quite a sweat that way. (I build up a sweat from trying to dodge her swings.) However, if you want a scientific study, this study showed that Wii Tennis burns 92 calories in 15 minutes – nearly 400 an hour.

Wii Boxing is a great workout

For awhile Wii Sports Boxing was up there with Wii Sports Tennis, but I got more involved with Tennis. I simply didn’t want to plug and unplug the nunchuck controller. This game has a punching component which is a little like Tae-bo workout. It adds a dodging and blocking component, so I’m moving everything from the waist up. I winded afterwards and realize that I clearly am getting a great workout. The previously mentioned article measured Wii Boxing as burning 500 calories an hour.

The Key to the Wii is Motivation

As great as I feel after I get back from the gym, I often don’t feel like going. It seems like I have too many other things to do and it gets pushed off. However, with the Wii our entertainment has become our exercise. This is a great way to not only be productive, but motivate ourselves into shape.

Bonus: Wii Tennis Tips

I am a 1700 skill level (2000 is near the top) tennis player now and it goes up a little with each game I play. I’m sure there are better people out there than me, but for beginners this may help

• Fast Serve – I found that I can fast serve more often when I press A to toss the ball up in the air. It’s worth trying if you can’t get the swing timing right.
• Net Guy – If I can hit it with the net guy I do. He rarely hits the ball out and if you miss you get a second chance with the back guy.
• Swing Early – This is especially true with the net guy. If you swing early you can often spike the ball in such a way that the computer had to dive out of bounce just to return it. This sets you up to slam it on the other side of the court.
• Tire Them Out – The computer players start to sweat after awhile. Their abilities goes down and you can take advantage of that. Annoyingly they are very good at slow lobs when they are tired, so they can get back into position. This leads to a drawn out game. I’m happy with that because it means more exercise.

That’s all I have for now. I haven’t worked on any spin shots or anything of nature. Maybe in the next two weeks I’ll get that down.

Photo Credit: Thivierr

The big news is that the United States government seems to be conceding a connection by compensating the family of a girl who has autism-like symptoms. The government officials deny that the money concedes that connection and says that it is “a very special situation.”

The article goes on to explain that the girl’s father is a neurologist. I imagine that make him more qualified to recognize the signs of autism in an 18-month girl. Her mother is also in the medical field – she’s a nurse. Lastly, the mother is trained as a lawyer. I wonder if the “very special situation” is the fact that these people are professionally able to link the autism to the vaccines AND be able to litigate it properly. The only thing that could be better is if the grandfather was the government official giving them the money.

Later in the article, they say that there is very little in the way of testing of vaccine-autism link. It doesn’t surprise me, I don’t know how you’d go about testing it. You certainly are not likely to have a control group of children who do not receive vaccines, right?

A reader, Kitty, sent us this Heart Attack calculator from the American Heart Association. When my wife took it her risk was actually 1% despite the high cholestrol. I don’t know if that invovled some rounding, but even 1% is a little high. This is very comforting at least until we can schedule a follow-up meeting with her doctor.

Here are some changes that we are looking into:

• Garlic – We don’t eat a lot of garlic, but one of it’s benefits is lowering cholesterol. I’ll try to sneak some more into her diet.
• More Salads – Last Thursday, I surprised her with salad night for dinner. It was simply a huge salad. I can’t remember the last time we had a vegetarian meal.
• Enteric Coated Baby Aspirin – With my wife being a pharmacist she’s already got an informed opinion on this. We plan to talk with the doctor about this as aspirin regimen can cause adverse side effects (like ulcers for instance). However, if the doctor agrees this may be a wise plan before she undergoes rigorous exercise. If you couldn’t tell, we are going to be cautious with this.
• Supplements – Again, I’ll check with the doctor, but I’m a believer of some herbal medicines. When I read Fantastic Voyage supplements (within limits) made sense to me. Every recommendation was backed up with one or more scientific studies. I have looked into these studies a little more and some seem promising. They sell a Cholesterol Therapy product that combines niacinamide, policosanol, gugulipid, plant sterols, and garlic. The dosage is a little low compared to what the book recommends, but I think it could still be helpful. I’d also pick up Phosphatidylcholine (PtC), which was referenced in the book as helping cholesterol.

Would you do any of things? What would you add, if anything?

Other people use body mass index (BMI) as a tool. It’s a better indicator than just weight since it at least factors in height. However, it is far from perfect way to measure your body. It uses only two factors: your height and weight. What happens if you are a “vertically challenged”, lean, weightlifter? You’ll have a high BMI – possibly even qualify to be “obese.” However, if someone were to look at you, they’d have to conclude that you are far from obese. The problem is that this measuring simply doesn’t account for muscle weight.

Lastly, some people use body fat percentage (BF %) as a measure. I think this is the best of all three, but it’s still not perfect. One can imagine a dangerously thin person with an eating disorder. This person’s body fat percentage could be dangerously low, definitely not a sign of good health. But what would happen if they suddenly ate more and didn’t exercise? Their body fat percentage would rise to healthier levels, but chances are they’d have very little lean muscle – not a good thing.

The more I look at it, the more I think that a combination of BMI and BF % is in order. If you can toe the line between a healthy BF % while increasing your BMI, you’d be adding more muscle and not fat. This is something that I’ve been trying to do with my own health. I need to be a little more consistent in grabbing these measurements. Then I need to start plotting a 50-day moving average of them to smooth out the fluctuations that appear from day to day.

If that doesn’t convince you about the research that suggests beer has the following benefits:

• If you have heart trouble there’s evidence to suggest that a Guinness a day might prevent blood clots.
• If you are at the risk of kidney stones, perhaps you should raise a glass of beer
• Guys: If you are risk at prostate cancer, perhaps beer can help. Unfortunately, it seems like you need to drink 17 beers for this effect. I don’t recommend that at all.
• Gals: Don’t feel left out, scientists are working on menopause beer for you.

If that doesn’t convince you, the great Benjamin Franklin once said, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” There’s some scientific proof that being happy aids your health. That might be reason enough to have an occasional beer.

The disappointing part of the study is that it didn’t test any specific aspect of being on a diet. It simply tested how people spend money while they were preoccupied with other thoughts. Those other thoughts may or may not be diet related.

How can you do be on a diet and save money at the same time? From the study, the scientists didn’t tell people that how they spent money was part of the test. Thus the result was to test the subconscious effect of spending money. However, you are aware of this connection now. If you think a bit about saving money while on your diet, you may be able to break that subconscious connection.