So, I saw in my Facebook news feed recently a story about a lady who drank one gallon of water per day for a month and the outcome of being that hydrated. Some of the things mentioned that this water challenge did was to clear up her skin, improve her bowl functions, curbed her appetite…  well the list goes on.

I became very curious if this was one of those articles just looking to pull in site visitors and the photos were fake or if a gallon of water per day for 30 days could really change things even more so than the standard half your weight in ounces per day. At first glance I really looked at this women’s photo on my screen and thought “yep photoshop”.

I have been drinking half of my body weight in ounces of water per day for almost 2 years now and the results of the gallon per day seems to be a bit more noticeable to say the least. Well, I decided to try this ‘experiment’ out for myself.  At the start of this challenge I will tell you I weighed around 162 lbs. I have suffered from very dry skin and rosacea as well as some breakouts on my neck which I am working to clear up. And honestly despite addition a fiber supplement to my day I was still, um…  “backed up” (sorry for the TMI but I want to show you the whole picture of where I am starting from) and I have stalled out a tad in my weight loss – which of course may be because we have just come off of the holidays where I really ate all the wrong things… a LOT… plus I am very close to my goal weight which tends to allow down progress as you reach that mark.

So I began my day yesterday by filling up a gallon jug with water. The way I did this so my water tasted good was I cut up one half of a fresh lemon into small chunks and dropped them into my jug, I then filled my jug with hot tap water.  Yep you heard me HOT TAP WATER. Why?  Well I am one of those who enjoys warm water vs cold iced water plus there are some health benefits to warm water as well – strange? Maybe.  But thats just how I roll 😉  And yes I do not buy bottled water, I use straight up tap water – you can find out why in my article about tap water vs bottled water.  If you don’t like hot water my suggestion is do this process the night before so the lemon flavoring gets into the water and refrigerate to get it cold.

So, the day began I was already behind because I had woken up late and I always start my day with a big cup of black coffee.

As the day went on I can tell you on day one I am already seeing a HUGE decrease in my appetite. H-U-G-E. At lunch I made a tuna fish salad with cottage cheese and tuna and could barley eat it all!

The other thing I noticed – bathroom breaks!  Oh the bathroom and I became VERY good friends yesterday.  I actually lost count of how many trips I took to visit my new friend “John” because I had to pee soooooooo badly!  By the end of the day “John” and I have now developed a pretty close relationship and he is now cheering me on and supporting my efforts…. LOL – here is a photo of my new BFF “John”….

Finally, around 10pm SUCCESS the gallon was EMPTY! Well hallelujah I completed day 1!  I will also say that I only got up one tie all night which was a bit surprising given how many times “John” and I had seen each other during the day. So that was a pleasant surprise to not spend every few hours getting up (especially since I get all snuggled up under my electric blanket and get very tasty warm – so that makes it even harder to have to get up in the middle of the night!)

You would think after only one day of doing this routine that the only thing I would notice was increased bathroom trips but I also notices a BIG drop in my weight – I went from 162.0 down to 158.4 – YEP seriously! I use my Aria Scale on fitbit to track it automatically via wifi each morning so no joke I lost 3.6 pounds on the scale yesterday yes yes I know what you will say “water weight” but we are only on day 1 so we will continue to track that for sure).

I will continue to report in on my 30 Day One Gallon Water Challenge – with photos of course! I will update the blog weekly but you can follow my daily updated on my Facebook Page and on Instagram where I will be loading a LOT of photos (and with the support of my friends John and Aria this should be easy peasy – after all a good support system is the key LOL).

Before I go… a few tips if you are thinking of taking on a 30 day water challenge. First of do not try to guzzle down a gallon of water in one sitting, not only can you potentially experience water intoxication, also known as water poisoning or dilutional hyponatremia (which can be fatal) you can really mess up your electrolytes and cause some pretty serious health issues.  You will want to sip at that gallon throughout the day.  I am a pretty visual person so I made marks on my gallon jug so I could gage my intake throughout the day as well as know I was on track, ahead or behind. I would also recommend you start this on a day where you can be near a bathroom! You WILL be urinating a LOT, especially on that first day or two as your body adjusts to the new hydration it is getting.

FOLLOW MY PROGRESS: Day 1 | Day 10 | Day 20 | Day 30 

Sue Hall, Health Coach

My name is Sue and I am an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Ketogenic Living Specialist and Amare Global Wellness Partner. Coaching others is my passion. I want to be the change and help others take back control of their health and happiness!