Today we read an article discussing how the President’s wife, Michelle Obama, encourages people, as part of a healthy lifestyle, to drink more water.

For several years now Michelle has encouraged Americans to make better dietary choices and get their lazy butts off the sofa.

Why? Because she believes both of those lifestyle changes will help the population combat not only obesity in general, but more specifically childhood obesity.

“Drink Up!” she says. “Drink Up!”

On average the American adult drinks far less water than the 8 glasses a day (64 ounces) suggested by experts in the medical profession.

Even worse, children and teens tend to drink even LESS water than adults — and that’s NOT a good thing!

By simply substituting one glass of water for another beverage each day some health experts believe a person will begin to feel better and could start to show a bit of weight loss over time.

And our opinion?

We definitely think the American population, as a whole, needs to shed a few pounds and do a bit more exercising… and we include ourselves in that population, by the way.

For our own hydration needs we take the time to make sure the water we drink will not only meet our hydration needs, but also not add unwanted pollutants to our bloodstream, not add a lot of unnecessary expense to our budget, and not add a bunch of plastic containers to the recycling bin at the end of the day.

To that end, we suggest:

• City/Tap Water: Test your tap water for quality and make any needed adjustments to quality and/or taste with the appropriate water treatment system. Tap water will serve as your most convenient and least expensive source of drinking water in the long run.
   
• Well Water: Should the aquifer from which your well pulls its water become contaminated, no one will come out and tell you about the water quality problem because responsibility for the quality of the water your well produces belongs to you. Periodic testing allows you to know for sure that your well water contains no harmful contaminants and that means your well water will serve as your most convenient and least expensive source of drinking water.

• Reusable Water Bottles: Yes, a lot of water bottles these days get made from plastic, but if reused over and over again the footprint left in landfills becomes a mute point. One can also look into using glass water containers and portable metal water containers, as well.
   
• Bottleless Water Coolers: If you would like the convenience of filtered water at home or in an office setting and don’t want to install a water filtration system or deal with heavy 5-gallon water jugs, then you may want to consider bottleless water coolers as an option. You can even get one that has a hot water tap so you can have instant hot water for a cup of tea or cocoa!

So more or less we wish the First Lady had pushed a little more towards avoiding the use of bottled water as a source of hydration, but, in the absence of other acceptable sources of safe drinking water (assuming the bottled water is a actually safe, ‘cuz we have heard some ‘rumors’ about bottled water quality…), “Drink up, America! Drink up!”

One thing a person needs all the time but especially once the weather gets warmer: W-A-T-E-R. Rarely can a person ever get too much fresh, clean water in their system when working or playing in the heat.

As a matter of fact, one of our very own staff found himself on the not-so-pleasant end of dehydration and mild heat exhaustion this past weekend even though he did his best to stay hydrated while attempting to dig out an area for a recessed fire pit area in his backyard… in the middle of the afternoon on a 94-degree day w/ zero shade whatsoever.

Needless to say he learned his lesson and won’t EVER attempt such a stupid thing ever again and will start early in the morning or turn on the lights and work late into the night with an even bigger cooler full of water and gatorade/powerade close at hand.

Learn from our friend’s mistake and keep drinking that water, take breaks often, and time your activities to reduce your overall exposure to the worst/hottest times of the day.

Tap water, bottled water, or no water?

In situations where you have the option of drinking tap water or no water, 998 times out 1,000 we would suggest drinking tap water even if you normally loathe the taste of tap water. If dealing w/ bad tasting tap water means staving of the unpleasant effects of dehydration, then get over yourself and suck down a glass of tap water.

What about those two times when we would not suggest drinking the tap water? Common sense will let you know if you have had the unfortunate luck of encountering tap water so disgusting in taste, odor and appearance that you just KNOW bacteria or some other funky, not-good-for-you stuff lives in it.

On the topic of bottled water, however, we hope that plenty of people have smartened up and started using devices such as the Filtrete Four Bottle Water Station which gives people the power to bottle their own filtered water at home and take fresh, filtered water with them to work or school instead of buying disposable bottles which may or may not get recycled.

There’s no need to buy costly bottled water, which often is nothing more than filtered tap water anyway. By using the Filtrete Water Station (aka the four water bottle filler) to bottle your own water, you’ll be saving yourself money and saving the environment from the many plastic water bottles that go unrecycled every year. ( source )