Ooooook. Did you all think I’d disappeared? I know, I know… Sometimes life gets in the way.
So let’s go back, let’s go back, let’s go way on, way back when. (Bonus points if you know that that line is from.) When last I left you I was about to tackle my water challenge on week 4. 100 ounces of water every single day was the goal. I have this water bottle that holds 32 ounces so I figured 3 of those a day plus another glass somewhere in the day.
I don’t know why this has been so much of an issue for me lately. I literally carry a water bottle almost everywhere I go. I mean, I won’t carry one into a restaurant, but I will into a store, to work, to the movies, into friend’s houses. My friends Kelly and Joe are always making fun of me for bringing water to their house. “We do have water Jamie… Is our water not good enough for you?” Your water is plenty good enough. It’s just a habit at this point.
I mean, I live in Florida and its flippin hot here most of the year. I admit, I always slack off a little in the cooler months. Hydration falls to the back burner, but then it’s not nearly as big an issue then anyway. But in the summer… I am the hydration nazi. I have been known to make someone sit down and drink a glass of water before I will let them do anything else. Now being that I work in entertainment with performers who are sweating their tuckases off, this is not as crazy as it sounds. Being properly hydrated can be the difference between life and death, and that’s not an exaggeration. More often it can be the difference between functional and non-functional. Not drinking enough can cause all sorts of issues from headaches to just plain being tired, let alone more severe things like muscle cramps and heat stroke.
But more than that, there’s just so many damn good things you get out of drinking enough like awesome skin. For me one of the biggest benefits is how it helps in weight loss by making you feel full. They say that often feeling hungry is actually your body’s way of telling you that you are thirsty. And if you are drinking the correct amount of water you can’t help but be filled up a lot of the time. For me, if I ever actually feel thirsty I know that I am already dehydrated. And I attempt not to ever let that happen. You can ask a couple of my friends about the day I was already dehydrated and didn’t realize it and then had a couple of drinks… It wasn’t pretty.
And if you need more about the awesome benefits of water try some of these:
Until recently. I guess the biggest issue is that over the past year I have spent more time indoors at my job and the times when I am outside are very irregular. When I was stage managing in the parks I was on a very regular and rigid schedule. If I had, let’s say, 6 shows a day, the show times rarely changed. So I could gauge my progress through the day. I would often think, okay I need to drink half of this bottle of water by the 2nd show, then the other half by lunch, then another bottle full before I leave by the end of the day. It just became routine, I didn’t even think about it. My days aren’t like that anymore. Probably a good 75% of the time I am working in an office and I don’t have the same meetings every day. So often the day is broken up into before lunch and after lunch. And while I’ve tried to think ok, a bottle before lunch and a bottle after lunch, I will often find myself getting to the end of that time frame and realizing I have 2/3 a bottle to go and the only way I’m gonna make it is if I chug.
The other 25% of the time I am working an event. And during an event there is no such thing as a regular schedule. It used to be that we generally provided water bottles everywhere we had techs or performers. So I made it a point that anytime I stopped anywhere I would grab a bottle of water and chug it down before I left wherever I was. We’ve gone green now, and so we have water coolers lots of places but not so much on the bottles. This is absolutely the right way to go. Better for the environment, more cost effective. Absolutely the right way to go. Except that it kind of throws a wrench into my plans. Yes, I can still carry my own water bottle but then I have to worry about remembering it, finding a place to fill it up, not leaving it sitting anywhere, etc etc etc.
Which is kind of what happened during this particular week. I was working an event on the Friday and Saturday night, with overnights on the Wednesday and Thursday before it. I was absolutely spot on with my water consumption all through the week. We didn’t have a water cooler out at my stage but there was a break room nearby that did so I just set goals for myself- You will drink this much by this time. And while I barely made it, I did make it… Until Friday night. Friday night at my stage was a big ol’ mess. A freaking monsoon swept through, damaging my equipment, flooding my area… It was a nightmare. Once it finally stopped we had to set up as fast as we could and then it was go go go to get all the scheduled entertainment in. I barely stopped.
Now this is not all that odd on events. I mean, if everything went smoothly all the time there would be no need for my job. That’s why I am there, to take care of things when they get messy. And I did try and try to remember to keep drinking water but I would set the bottle down and forget where it was or I would put it out of view of everyone but that included out of my own view! And it was kind of out of sight out of mind. A few times I went back to the break room for a second and when I was there I would try to remember to chug at least a glassful. It’s so important when I am in that mode; it helps you stay alert… Not drinking enough can make me feel like I am crashing. I think I ended up close to my 100 ounces that night, if not actually getting there. But it was not without a lot of thought about it and if I had not had this challenge to do, I don’t think I would have hit it.
The next night of the event I was much better. I had seen what happened the night before and concentrated on making sure I got enough. And that was a long night. In at 3pm, out at 6am the next morning. And it was hot. Really, stupid, muggy, sweaty hot. It would have been a lot easier with water bottles, which makes me wonder if I should just buy my own when it comes to events like this. I know it isn’t green, but I would recycle them and then I wouldn’t be so damn freaked out about leaving the bottle somewhere. On this particular event I was stationed at one stage, but that is very often not the case. I have to go from one location to another and I may or may not be back.
That was the case with an event I just did the weekend before last where I would check in places once and then never see it again. It would have been super handy if I could have grabbed and gone. It’s something to consider I guess. And I suppose it depends on the event. Regardless, I have to find the answer because this is my life (which I love) and I need to make it work within the reality of what I have. In the weeks since this challenge I have not been good about keeping up with the water and now that the weather is finally turning a bit cooler I continue to struggle to get it all in. I need to keep working on this one. Especially because it has never really been an issue before. I really just need to find a way to make it a habit.
There is one other thing I should talk about that is going to fall into the realm of to much information for some of you, so don’t say I didn’t warn you… When you are drinking the correct amount of water… You have to go to the bathroom all the damn time. Seriously. All the time. And while this is a little bit of a duh, and a little bit funny, it actually is kind of a problem. If I am in my office it’s no big deal… Unless I have a day full of meetings and I have just chugged a half a bottle and I am looking at the clock realizing that there are 20 minutes left to go and these people always run late and so more like 30 minutes to go and good lord I don’t know if I can make it that long. OR I am in the middle of an event and I have people on stage, or coming to stage, or from stage, or I’ve got equipment failing, or performers getting sick, or any other number of issues to deal with… Sometimes it’s not only inconvenient to leave for a few moments, its not possible. So you try to find this balance between drinking enough at exactly the right times so that you will be in a good place to run to the restroom when you have to… You laugh… But if you have been in my shoes you know exactly what I am talking about… This act of timing is damn near an art.
That all said, I still probably drink a lot more water than a lot of the people I know. You will be hard pressed to see me at a meeting without a bottle, or in my car, or anywhere else for that matter. So maybe I am being a little bit harsh on myself, and it’s also possible that I think I need more than I do (the standard is 64 ounces, but there are some schools of thought that say drink half your body weight in ounces). I think there will be more to come on this one and hopefully when I do an update I will be able to tell you that I am being better about it. In the meantime I am going to finish this bottle I have next to me. All 32 ounces of it. Which is by the way, the 2nd bottle that I have had today. So at the very least there is my 64. Working on it...
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