First of all, if you have decided your beverage of choice is water over juice, pop, and coffee then congratulations.  You have made a major step up river in your health.  The first goal is to drink water.  The second goal is to drink enough water.  Focus on this first.  Once you are comfortable drinking the amount of water your body needs, then you can explore different water options.  Here are some of these options:

1. Tap Water–In the Vancouver area we have some of the best tap water of any city in the world.  The advantage is that it is easy, convenient, cheap, and there are no plastic water bottle waste or residue.  The down side to tap water is the addition of chlorine.  Some simple solutions to this problem is to boil your water or use a Brita water filter.

2.  Bottled Water–Plastic water bottles should never be used more than once, never be frozen, and never be left in the car to get hot in the summer.  When the plastic is frozen or heated it leaches the plastic chemicals into the water. These chemicals are carcinogenic.   There has been a lot of attention in the media lately about plastic water bottles and the plastics in baby bottles.  Easiest solution is to avoid using plastics as much as possible and use metal water bottles when you need a bottle for ease of travel.  These are available at most outdoor stores.  When at home, in the car, or at work use a glass bottle (such as a Perrier bottle) or a glass.

3. Spring Water vs. Distilled Water–Spring water has the bonus of minerals.  Distilled water has the bonus of detoxifying your body because it has no minerals. However, it also has the potential to leach minerals from your body as well.  A balance of both is ideal.

Sometimes we can get bogged down by the details of trying to improve out health and give up.  Water shouldn’t be one of those.  Focus on getting enough water.  An easy way to do this is to drink 2 cups before each meal.  Water gets absorbed better on an empty stomach.  Two hours after breakfast and lunch have another 1-3 cups depending on your size.  This will spread your water intake throughout your day.