OT: Drinking water, suggestions please

[newhosehead]

Thanks in advance for responding to this if you have some ideas! I really need to break a long-standing addiction to Diet Coke and drink more water. I thought I had the problem licked a while back when I discovered a peach flavored water that I really liked. But, it seems not. The flavored water in question is carbonated and contains aspartame (which is probably why I like it).
I know I can get off Diet Coke and would really like to drink more water. Here's the rub..I cannot stand the stuff. Literally, I hate it. I am always very thirsty (yes, I am diabetic) and was just wondering if anyone could recommend a flavored water that a) is not bad for you and b) actually tastes good.
All suggestions are welcome!

Jeanette

[Madalot]

Hi Jeanette,

This is tough for me because I think plain water all the time and love it!

My daughter drinks Fuse water sometimes and I've tried it and like it...

I hope others have suggestions for you!

[newhosehead]

Hi Jeanette,

This is tough for me because I think plain water all the time and love it!

My daughter drinks Fuse water sometimes and I've tried it and like it...

I hope others have suggestions for you!

Oh, I wish I loved it too. Do you know if Fuse water has the "bad stuff" in it?

Jeanette

[Madalot]

Hi Jeanette,

This is tough for me because I think plain water all the time and love it!

My daughter drinks Fuse water sometimes and I've tried it and like it...

I hope others have suggestions for you!

Oh, I wish I loved it too. Do you know if Fuse water has the "bad stuff" in it?

Jeanette

I don't know, but we have some in the garage frig so I'll check when someone comes home and can grab me a bottle to look at...

Plus, I'll ask my daughter after school about the ones she really likes...for more ideas.

[Bodhi]

.

[Drowsy Dancer]

Check out the mint flavored waters made by Metromint. http://www.metromint.com/ They have NO carbonation, NO artificial sweeteners, and NO calories.

The chocolatemint water is wonderful if you like chocolate. I buy it whenever I find it at the grocery store. The chocolate stuff is the most likely to be sold out.

DD

[ColCpap]

Jeanette,

I am in the same exact boat, ok not exactly, my drug of choice is Diet Dr Pepper. Prior to CPAP (3 weeks now) I was downing 7-8 a day, mostly to stay awake. During a hospital stay my wife got me a Vitamin water Zero.
These taste great to me, have a ton of vitamins, and get this... are naturally sweetened (stevia) with zero calories. Sobe Water are zero calories and offer a few different flavors (also naturaly flavored and zero calories).

I now drink at least two a day. My trick at work is to drink about half the bottle, then fill it up with water. This streches the flavor out a little bit longer. I am down to 2-3 DDPs a day now... hoping to get to zero by the end of May.

Here is what I noticed from these efforts. My habitually dry hands and elbows... getting softer. My normal afternoon headaches... gone. A lot of this could also be from finally sleeping after 15 years.
Only negative that first week was gaining about 5 pounds in water weight (I'm guessing). But that leveled out.

Hope this helps!

Fletch

PS you can buy both Vitamin Water Zero and Sobe at SAM's and save a little cash!

[mstevens]

Count me as another water-liker, so my advice may not help much.

"Flavored" water is flavored with chemicals that give you no benefit. They may not be a problem, but in terms of risk/benefit ratio they still don't look good due to the lack of benefit.

The age-old way to flavor water is by turning it into tea. If you're concerned about caffeine (despite the relatively low caffeine content of brewed tea), herbal teas have no caffeine at all. Mint tea, for example, is cheap, quick, and tasty.

[napmaster]

It might be the brand you've tried. There are a lot of bottled waters that I can't stand. However, two that I like is Kirkland's premium drinking water from Costco (36 bottles for ~$4, 16.9 oz/bottle). Another one is Sam's Choice purified water (with flavor enhancing minerals) from Wal-mart. I haven't been able to find the Sam's Choice lately. Now they have Great Value. I don't know if it's the same and have not tried it. The rest of them, Evian, Deer Park, Nestle's, etc., yuk....

About the only tap water I have ever liked was in Honolulu, Hawaii. It is very pure. Otherwise, I won't drink it.

Another thing I've done: Add a small amount of lemon juice to the water.

[robysue]

Wow. Finally something I'm NOT overly sensitive too : The taste of (plain) water.

And I like the stuff pretty much as it comes out of our (filtered) tap that we have. And I don't really mind the unfiltered tap water, but do notice the chlorination slightly.

Now back out in the midwest, I do remember not particularly liking the tap water since it had some off flavors. But mainly it was much more heavily chlorinated for reasons that I don't know or recall. And simply letting the water stand for a couple of hours before putting it in the fridge in a pitcher seemed to help.

And I do appreciate the difference between high quality water and middling quality water. Loved the "winter" water where I spent the second half of my childhood: Spring water from limestone bedrock in the Shenandoah Valley---summer water was not so good because lawn watering would force the (small) city to draw on other sources than the main spring(s) that supplied the city's winter water.

[Janknitz]

I'm not a big water fan either, and I managed to kick a diet soda habit, too. Now the thought of diet soda makes me slightly queasy.

We discoverd "cold brewed" ice tea last year. I take 4 to 5 teabags and put them in a gallon of cold water on the counter all night. In the morning, remove the tea bags and refirgerate the tea. The trick is that there are so many deliciously flavored and often caffiene-free teas out there with no artificial flavors or "stuff". Zero calories. Often with "healthful antioxidants". We do NOT add sugar and many flavors are delicious just on their own. Cold brewed tea is a little more subtle and smooth than heating the water to make the tea. On ice this tea is very refreshing.

Teas are really reasonable at places like Walmart or Target, or I even indulge in those cannisters of Republic of Tea bags from Whole Foods. They SOUND expensive because it's $10 for a cannister, BUT, there are FIFTY tea bags in a cannister and that makes that tea less expensive than many grocery store teas. We had fun experimenting to find teas everyone liked. Peach tea from Celestial Seasonings was a big hit with my kids. (They are now selling Peach tea specifically for "cold brewing" but you don't need to spend any extra money for that).

[nanwilson]

How about water with a slice of lemon, orange or lime in it. Real water & real fruit.

[dukemom1]

I was tired of regular water and tried Syfo sparking water (their lemon-lime flavor). I love the stuff and it's no problem drinking 64 oz. of it during the day. There are no artifical sweeteners, no sodium, no caffeine, and according to their website it's Kosher.

http://www.syfobeverages.com/

[xenablue]

I too, am diabetic and found that that constant thirst went away once I got my glucose numbers under control.

That said, I drink a gallon of water per day for a number of other reasons - either in the form of plain water or mixed with things like Crystal Lite or that new Mio, or even a slice of lemon. I happen to love plain water, but it does become boring, so I make sure that half of my day's fluid intake is plain water with the rest flavoured in some way.

If you hate water and don't want artificial sweeteners, then a slice of lemon in plain water should make it more palatable. Something else I like in summer is a big glass of cold water with a sprig of mint in it. If you bruise the leaves a little it releases the wonderful mint into the water.

Cheers,
xena

[snuginarug]

I am rather suspicious of the new so-called water products. Once you put something in it, it is not water anymore. Herbal teas sound much better for you, and less expensive. The diet coke addiction, however, is seriously bad for you, and just about anything (without aspartame) would be a BIG improvement. It's really great you are attacking this problem. You'll feel much better after you wean yourself off of it.

I hope you find something that suits you and gets that super important hydration into your body. Good luck!