by Fern Shaw | Apr 19, 2013 | Health and Hydration
I’ve been reading through my notes for the blogs for this week and it all became a little overwhelming. So I let my brain head out West and the rest of me went to top up on the Java.
Then my brain knocked politely, ‘Coo-ee, I’m back’ it warbled.
‘What?’ the coffee-enjoying-rest of me replied. ‘You come up with anything useful out West?’
A lengthy discussion ensued ….
Anyhow, as it turns out, the brain told me it got to thinking about all the other lesser (according to it) but just as vital (according to all of them) organs that we humanoids are blessed with and guess what? ALL OF THEM need sufficient water to keep the g-g-greased lightning performance.
Kidney and Liver Function
One of the liver’s primary functions is to metabolize stored fat into energy. The kidneys are responsible for filtering toxins, wastes, ingested water and salts out of the bloodstream. If you are dehydrated, the kidneys cannot function properly and the liver must work overtime to compensate. As a result, it metabolizes less fat, your metabolism slows down to conserve water, which leads to weight gain and can contribute to belly fat.
Hence the blob factor mentioned in the heading.
The Heart
Dehydration can cause insufficient oxygenation of the tissue of the cardiovascular system. The heart rate increases in response to the tissue oxygen deficit. Tachycardia, or a heart rate greater than 100 beats per minute, occurs. Severe dehydration can trigger irregular heart rhythms, especially in people with an underlying heart condition.
Command Central i.e. The Brain
Brain cells require the right amount of water and minerals in each of the cells. If there is too much water, the cell’s membrane can break; if there is not enough, the cell will shrivel up. When there is brain dehydration, less water is available for brain cells to use.
Importance of Water
Almost two-thirds of the human body is made up of water and water acts as a natural appetite suppressant. It also helps to regulate your metabolism. When you become dehydrated, your metabolism slows down, affecting how your body burns fat. Your body mistakes thirst for hunger, which leads to increased calorie consumption. This can lead to stubborn fat gathering around your stomach, which is difficult to lose. There’s that blob factor again.
Bearing all of this in mind, also remember that water weight is not the same as ‘blob’ weight, so whereas you may think that because your body is retaining water it means you’re gaining weight, this is not the case. Your body is desperately trying to tell you, by retaining water, that it doesn’t have enough to function properly.
So, celebrate and revel in the fact that in the U.K., clean, fresh drinking water transported from source to your office, school or site is readily available from AquAid through our range of water coolers. Drink up!
by Fern Shaw | Apr 17, 2013 | Health and Hydration
Tea Time. Choose any of the innumerable varieties of teas and herbal drinks, not only to stay hydrated, but also to reap piles of benefit for your body. Black tea contains catechins, flavonoids that can improve cardiovascular health and may help prevent cancer. Green tea lowers your risk of heart disease, reduces your risk of lung cancer, and can help your body burn fat more easily – the polyphenols in the tea appear to work with caffeine to increase calorie burn.
Proper tea stemming (a-ha) from the plant Camellia sinensis includes only four varieties: Green, Black, White and Oolong. Anything else, like herbal ‘tea’ is an infusion of a different plant and isn’t technically tea.
This however, doesn’t mean that there aren’t many health benefits to herbal teas. Sage tea can help with excessive perspiration. Chamomile can help control blood pressure and ease digestion and gas. Ginger tea can soothe your stomach and ease arthritis pain.
AquAid supply a rather nice PG Tips, which is a Black Tea, with their hot drinks dispensers.
Coffee break. Let’s not kid ourselves, coffee (like tea) probably makes the world go round and has done so since its introduction to the West in the 1600’s. We’ve already discussed the good vs. bad when it come comes to coffee consumption – rule of thumb being ‘everything in moderation’, so here I’m going to talk about some of the many benefits of coffee.
Because coffee is a diuretic, many people avoid it before they work out. You might want to rethink that approach. Coffee has been shown to help your body burn fat while you exercise, aiding in weight loss. It also enhances performance by minimizing the effects of fatigue.
As with tea, coffee is full of powerful antioxidants called flavonoids, which help to prevent LDL cholesterol (bad for the heart) from oxidizing and causing heart disease.
If one avoids loading up with the sugars and creams when having one’s cup of Java, drinking coffee is also not bad when one is dieting, as black, unflavoured, unsugared coffee contains about 2 calories.
Look for the Kenco range of coffees that can come with your hot and cold drinks dispensers and keep in mind that for every Kenco coffee purchased, a donation is made to The Africa Trust, bringing clean drinking water to rural communities in Africa.
Topping up the Water Tank. As with all our bottled water, both our hot and cold water dispensers are kept replenished from water drawn from the source.
Glug, glug. Enjoy.
by Fern Shaw | Apr 11, 2013 | Health and Hydration, Water Coolers
… Rain (blizzards, snow, and sub-zero temperatures) or Shine (weak lemony coloured sun that wouldn’t tan a meringue) you begin to notice that your staff is a tad dispirited, if not outrightly unproductive. No spring in their step, no whistle in their walk.
So, at great cost, you institute an Independent Board of Enquiry to establish the cause of this general malaise that’s affecting everyone from Mrs Tibbins, usually the whizz bang accountant, through to Mr Oogle, usually the zoomiest bike messenger ever (but sadly not for the past few months.)
While all of this is in motion, the meeker than the proverbial mouse IT person, Tad, squeaks up.
‘We’ve no water in the water coolers’, says Tad, ‘so everybody’s most likely dehydrated’.
‘What?’ splutters HOD Mrs Furthingstoke, ‘what does that have to do with everyone not performing at their peak? Pure poppycock, I’m sure!’
‘Incorrect’, corrects Tad, ‘not drinking water regularly is one of the leading causes of many illnesses and especially fatigue’.
As it turns out, Tad was proven correct. The Board of Enquiry was dismissed, the water coolers were kept replenished, productivity soared and absenteeism dropped rapidly.
Take it from Tad, dehydration can happen sooner than one thinks. Some early warning signs are:
- Light-headedness, dizziness;
- Tiredness, irritability, headache;
- Dry mouth, throat and eyes;
- Sunken features (particularly the eyes), flushed skin and skin that is loose and lacks elasticity;
- Heat intolerance;
- There may be a burning sensation in the stomach, urine output will be reduced and may appear darker than usual.
So, in the interests of having a healthy, happy, productive work environment, take the simplest route – ensure that there is always fresh, clean drinking water from source, available at the press of a button, in the workplace.
by Fern Shaw | Apr 9, 2013 | Health and Hydration
Spring is apparently upon us, so hopefully with temperatures on the rise, the keeping fit and getting in shape for summer is becoming priority One. This means (hopefully), that one’s water intake will increase too. To make your water intake more fab and fun, herewith a range of suggestions that should keep you feeling marvellous, looking more fit and keeping hydrated:
- Add cucumber. If you prefer a flavour that is less sweet, add just a few slices to your glass and the subtle flavour gives your water a fresh, spa-like taste. If you have more time, fill a pitcher with a handful of cucumber slices and let it sit in your fridge.
- Make yourself feel cocktail-ish. If drinking water can seem too bland, try it with a twist of lime or a splash of sugar-free fruit juice – cranberry or pomegranate juice are great options. Try different combinations, how about grapefruit and blackcurrant? Yowzer.
- Mint cubes. Make mint ice cubes by throwing a small sprig of spearmint, peppermint, or lemon mint into the ice cube tray, add water and freeze. You can also do this with your favourite herb, like rosemary or basil.
- Go Herbal. Add powdered or freshly sliced ginger, bruised mint leaves, or lemongrass to amp up your H2O. Or go floral. Lavender and rose hips are loaded with vitamin C and may help ease arthritis pain.
- Make It ‘Sassy’. Stay hydrated with a stomach-soothing recipe for Sassy Water. It combines fresh ginger, cucumber, lemon, and spearmint for a tummy-pleasing cocktail.
- Water as a Meal. If downing water all day is what bores you, try treating it as a meal—or, better yet, three meals. Try drinking water to a comfortable fullness 3 times a day. On colder days, it might be less; on warmer days, more. But comfortable fullness should be enough to stay hydrated. This will lower the amount of calories you eat for roughly an hour afterward.”
- Switch It Up. Simply change the way you drink water – out of a glass instead of a bottle, for example. Or drink it at a different temperature. If you change the temperature, you can change the experience and that can be enough to alter your water intake. Remember, cold water takes longer to drink. If you want to down it faster – to get your water-intake over with – drink it at room temperature instead of icy cold.
Remember, whether commuting; exercising; not exercising; working; relaxing; socialising – in fact, pretty much every –ing except sleeping, keep hydrated this Spring – it can only be good for you.
by Fern Shaw | Apr 9, 2013 | Health and Hydration
We still think water is better. Find out why we think so here.
When you start to drink more water, you’ll find that you drink fewer fizzy drinks and fewer high-calorie drinks. There are a few major benefits to this:
- Swapping water for fizzy drinks helps to decrease your daily caloric intake
- Drinking more water helps you to feel full throughout the day so you snack less
- Drinking water trains your taste buds to enjoy the subtle tastes of whole foods that are less processed and lower in calories
- Drinking sufficient water will have a pretty noticeable and remarkably fast effect (for the better) on your physical well-being
- Drinking water instead of reaching for the fizz will fatten your brain cells and not your body’s fat cells
- Fizzy drinks can act as a diuretic whereas water does not dehydrate you – in, the fact it achieves the complete opposite
- Drinking water, while you may not initially register it, is incredibly refreshing, whereas drinking fizzy drinks is falsely refreshing
And while you might drink water to lose weight, you’ll find that it’s good for your purse as well. Have you ever thought about the annual cost of your fizzy drink habit? For many people, it is substantial. A single diet fizzy drink during the day may not seem expensive, but over the course of a year, it adds up to hundreds of pounds.
This week, I’ll catch you at the water cooler where I’ll be lurking in an observational mode for research I’m doing on changing seasonal water habits and if there’s any truth to them. See you there!