Gradually increase the amount of water you drink. I find that many people are not drinking very much water, they are drinking sweetened drinks; fruit drinks, bottled iced tea, diet sodas, coffee, tea or whatever. The way to start increasing water is to start with two cups a day and gradually increase it. As you increase water, some of the bottled drinks will sort of fall by the wayside. For people who don't like the taste of water, I would recommend that they flavor it and there are several ways it can be flavored. One of my favorites is to put slice of raw ginger in the water because ginger is a very powerful herb and it really helps the digestion, enhances circulation and reduces inflammation. I like to take raw ginger root and slice it up and put a bunch of slices in my water bottle and then I keep putting water on top of that and change it once a day. Of course you can always put fresh lemon or lime juice another good thing to add would be unsweetened cranberry juice. So that means strictly unsweetened without fructose or any type of artificial sweetener. So this is a kind of cranberry juice that's very bitter that you wouldn't want to drink by itself but just putting a splash in the water is a very nice thing to do. It makes the water taste good and it has some health benefits too. Next I try to eat something every three or four hours. So one of the biggest problems that I feel with people who are trying to lose weight or trying to gain weight is they end up either skipping breakfast because they are not hungry, eating a small lunch and then eating the bulk of calories in the evenings when they come home to relax. Eating is obviously a social thing so they relax with their family. They tend to eat the bulk of their calories at night and then they go to bed or they watch TV. When you eat small frequent meals, you are actually triggering your metabolism. So if you go all day without eating you are pretty much putting your metabolism to sleep and then just when you have it all nice and calmed down, you are loading on all of your calories for the day and then go and sleep yourself. That is not healthy for your metabolism. It's not good for your digestion, not good for your blood sugar. So definitely you need to eat breakfast and then try to eat something every three or four hours. For most people what that means is adding a snack in the afternoon.
