Drinking enough water? What is enough + some easy tips

Even healthy people sometimes need advice from other health practitioners. For instance, I still haven't figured out why I have a mysterious allergic reaction to.... something mysterious. While going through my eating and drinking habits with a health practitioner, we found out that I really don't drink enough water. Not sure if this will solve the issue but still, I find it intriguing. It's one of the first things I learned at my nutrition school: a lot of issues can be resolved by simply drinking more water. Head ache for example?

I know it's healthy to drink more water, I've learned it, I advice it to other people and still I'm not doing it myself. I can think of various reasons why I don't: water tastes boring, I'm too busy, I just don't think of it, I don't want to go to the bathroom all the time etc. etc. Probably the same reasons why you might not be drinking enough. So as of today, I'm trying to improve my drinking habits, and a few tips I can give you and I will be using myself:
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• It doesn't have to be water! I can be tea or any other not too sugary drink
• You can add flavour to water: add strawberries, pineapple, kiwi, raspberries, cucumber, mint.
• Keep a bottle or thermo with you so you keep track of how much you drink a day

We still don't know exactly what is 'enough' but I believe it varies from person to person. A very simple rule is to keep an eye out for the colour of your urine, see very handy picture below. If it's light in colour, you're doing great! If it's dark, take action! I have seen this chart for the first time in the bathroom of a school in the tropics, but I think this chart will be great anywhere. We, in the northern hemisphere, also get dehydrated by the weather, despite the cold during the winter.

My practitioner advised me to drink 4,5 liter water. A day. Yes, you heard that right, 4,5 liter of water!!!! I might as well move my office to the bathroom. Anyway, I get the point. If I can't make the 4,5 liter a day, it might be 2,5. Even that is better than my 5 cups of fluid a day. 
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What I personally also really like is the Hydranome water bottle. They are reasonably new on the market and I have been using their water bottle for a while now. They have thought of an easy way to keep track of how much you drink during a day and you can even download their app to make it even easier for you to keep track of your water intake. Also positive, at least that's what I think: it's a family owned business, the bottle is made in the NL, of good quality and safe material. Check out their website for more information:

http://hydranome.com/
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