This is Day 1 of Live a Healthier Life in 21 Days Challenge. Subscribe to the free newsletter for lifetime access of personal development articles and future challenge announcements like this one.
HELLO EVERYONE!! Welcome to Day 1 of 21DHL
Today is 2011, and it's the first day of the new year. I just finished the countdown for the new year, and I'm really excited to see what this year has in store for all of us
. For sure, I'm definitely very pumped up to be kicking off the year with 21DHL, because I know at the end of the next 21 days, I'm going to be healthier than I've ever been, fitter than I've ever been, and leaner, toner and more slender than I've been before.
I've read many of our 21DHL posts in the forums and it seems that many of us are here because we recognize that our health and fitness is not at a state where we're 100% happy with. Some of us recognize that we neglected our health/fitness at some point or another. Some of us have been putting work and/or family as a priority over our health or fitness. Well you know what? With the start of 2011 now, the start of a brand new year, it all ends, right here, right now. Now that it's a brand new year, we're putting all this trash behind us. No more bad habits, no more less-than-110% healthy food, no more lifestyle that we're not 200% proud of. Today is the day when we start afresh and embrace our healthiest life ever.
Doing the challenge as 3 groups
As there are a staggering 500+ new members since 21DHL announcement was posted and over 300 officially registered members, the forums is going to go berserk! To make things simple for everyone, I've split all of us into 3 groups,
based on the first letter of your username. I might further split the groups if they get too big to manage. But for now, we'll be doing this as the 3 groups below.
- Group #1: ABCDEFG or H
- Group #2: IJKLMNO or P
- Group #3: QRSTUVWY or Z
I've already created forums based on the 3 groups above. Your job is to
- Post your 21DHL Journals into your respective group forum. If you haven't created your 21DHL Journal, now's the best time to do it. Create your journal by creating a new thread in your designated forum. Update your journal every day as you move forward in the next 21 days.
- Check on your group members' progress by reading their posts, supporting them and encouraging every step of the way. This is very important - support from one another is absolutely important to making 21DHL succeed for all of us. Also, remember that the best way to get others to comment on our entries is for us to first comment on theirs! Don't sit around and wait for others to comment in your journal - let's be proactive and read others' journals first and leave positive intentions there!
Since there are now designated forums for our 21DHL journals, feel free to rename your journal name to whatever title you want (it doesn't have to be XX's 21DHL Journal as I stated previously). I previously said that to make it easy to differentiate between the journals and normal posts, and it's not necessary to do so anymore.
If you feel that you might not have the time to read/comment on everyone's journals,
don't worry. Simply select a handful of participants you want to follow and follow their journals. It's not a necessity to read everyone's journals in your group, though it'll be nice to do so and provide support to them.
Also, even though I've split you into the 3 groups above, feel free to follow other participants' journeys in other groups as well (while supporting your own members too)! At the end of the day we're doing this as one big community to achieve healthy living!
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Day 1 - Drink 8 Glasses of Water
If you've read
45 Tips To Live a Healthy Life post on PE on Dec '10, you'd have seen the first tip, which is to
drink more water. Why? Because water is life. Water is essential for our body to function – Do you know over 60% of our body is made up of water? Water is needed to carry out our body functions, remove waste and carry nutrients and oxygen around our body. Since we lose water every day through urine, bowel movements, perspiration and breathing, we need to replenish our water intake.
![[Image: 21dhl-water.jpg]](http://personalexcellence.co/challenges/files/21dhl-water.jpg)
Furthermore, drinking more water alone actually aids in losing weight. A Health.com study carried out among overweight/obese people showed that water drinkers lose 4.5 more pounds than a control group. The researchers believe that it’s because drinking more water helps fill your stomach, making you less hungry and less likely to overeat. I agree with that, and I have an added take that your body tries to retain whatever water you take when you don’t take in enough water, leading to increase in weight. Whereas when you regularly drink water, your body knows that it’s going to get its supply of fluids, so it doesn’t try to retain more water.
Shockingly, most of us actually do not drink enough water. We only drink like 1-2 times a day, during the meal times, and we do not hydrate ourselves at all in the other times of the day. Hence, our first task of 21DHL is to drink water - specifically the right amount of water for our best health.
Step 1: Calculate the amount of water you need to drink
To estimate how much water you need to drink, use the method below.
- Divide your weight (in pounds) by two. This is the amount of water intake (in ounces) you need in a day. (150lbs = 75 ounces/day) Or;
- If you use the metric system, divide your weight (in kg) by 30. The answer is the amount of water intake (in liters) you need a day. (66kg = 2.2 liters/day)
Then, take the number and multiply it by 80%. Food intake contributes about 20% of our fluid intake, so this final number is the actual amount of water in fluid form that you need to drink. This is a rough estimate - if you've an active lifestyle, you live in a warm climate where you perspire a lot and/or you do high level of physical activity (sports), you can add about 5-20% more.
Remember, when in doubt, use your own body as a gauge. If your lips/throat feel dry, your lips look dry, and you feel dehydrated, that means you should be drinking more water.
Step 2: Drink this amount of water today
Make sure you drink this amount of water today (slightly more is okay too). Water here refers to pure water,
NOT soda, coffee, tea (drinks with caffeine) or alcohol! These are diuretics - mean they cause a fluid outtake rather than intake when you consume them!
Don't drink them all in one go because it's not going to solve the issue! (We're not a camel; our water isn't going to distribute itself when needed) The point is to distribute our water intake throughout the day. The best times will be when we wake up (since we've been sleeping for some time), before/after our meals, while we're working, and at night before we sleep.
If you're not sure how much water fills a glass, simply use a soda can as estimation. A normal soda can is 330ml or about 12 oz. If you have a large glass that can contain all the water in a can, that means you'd need 8 glasses for 2.6-2.7 liters of water fluid intake.
Some tips to help you in this goal:
- Carry a water bottle - You never know when you're going to get thirsty! This way you can drink wherever you are.
- Have a big drinking mug at your desk so you only have to refill once in a while
- Having a jar/flask of water right at your desk is really useful for the same reason as #2
- Buy a large flask and fill it in the morning with the amount of water intake you need for the day. Drink only from the flask the whole day so you can use it as your gauge. At the end of the day, it should be empty! If not, finish it up.
- Set reminders (either in your phone or computer) on a busy day so you don't forget to drink (by participant Rohit)
Step 3: Continue this habit for the whole of 21DHL
After you've completed this habit, continue on for all the days of 21DHL! Create a tracking table with 21 columns that represent the 21 days of 21DHL. Mark a tick whenever you have finished drinking your required amount of fluid intake for the day. Mark a cross when you haven't. At the end of 21DHL, you'll be able to see how you fare in this area.
Day 1 of Your 21-Day Action Plan
What are your tasks listed for today? Do them with excellence and report them in your 21DHL Journal! Also, read your group mates' 21DHL journals and cheer them along! Pick a few members' journals and make it a point to reply to them. By the end of a few days, I guarantee you that you'll find powerful new friendships and bonds forming, as we've witnessed in all our previous 30DLBL Challenges.
Share Your Progress on Day 1!
Some of you might be confused on where to share your progress. It's simple - for comments and thoughts
specific to Day 1's task (i.e. drinking more water), post them here. For everything on what you're doing in Day 1, post them in your 21DHL Journal. Your 21DHL Journal is your super journal where you document everything and anything that you do throughout these 21 days. Hence, your 21DHL entries will typically be a lot more comprehensive and detailed than your replies to the daily tasks' posts.
Let's all kick Day 1 into high gear guys! Look forward to reading your journals!
In the meanwhile, stay tuned for Day 2 of 21DHL on 2nd Jan '11!
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21DHL Day 1 - Drink 8 Glasses of Water
I have just under 12 hours to go.
I actually started a week ago to drink more water because I usually preferred sodas and that is a really bad habit that i want to break it.
