For many, July is the month to ditch alcohol and do a detox. Anyone doing Dry July?

Dry July started as an initiative to raise money for cancer research and continues to gain momentum as a good time to detox.

Whether you’re doing the official Dry July fundraising or just see July as a great excuse to give up the bad stuff, we’ve put together some handy tips to help you have a healthy month…. and continue for the rest of the year and beyond!

Tips for a Healthy Dry July

Morning Routine

Start your day right. Forget your morning coffee! This is a good time to cut out not only alcohol but caffeine too! So that means no coffee, tea, green tea or hot chocolate.

Instead drink a glass of filtered water with lemon.

Before breakfast squeeze half a fresh lemon into a glass of warm filtered water. This will  help cleanse your body, flush out any toxins and rehydrate your body after a night’s sleep. It also helps kick start digestion and stimulates your liver to detox.

The temperature of the filtered water is key here too. Research has shown that ingesting warm water is best as your body doesn’t have to work so hard to process it.

There are many other additional health benefits to drinking lemon water. Like the daily Vitamin C boost to help build a strong immune system, clearer skin and there is some research that suggests it helps maintain a healthy weight. (source)

Just make sure you swill your mouth with plain filtered water for 30 seconds afterwards. This is so that the acidity of the lemon doesn’t stay on your teeth. Of course, if you use a WFA water filter then the filtered water has all the contaminants removed but still has all the natural minerals and fluoride in it so it will help protect your teeth.

Lunchtime

Drink a glass of filtered water half an hour before lunch. This will help fill you up so there is less chance of overindulging at lunchtime.

Try some fruit infused filtered water, like cucumber, lime and mint or in season berries. The trick here is to soak the fruit for no longer than two hours and chill in the fridge. Make sure you cover the water so the fridge odours don’t seep in and affect the taste.

Or try some herbal iced teas. These are brewed with a tea infuser and again chilled in the fridge. Some ideas to try are Rooibos or Hibiscus tea for their various health benefits.

The 3pm Slump!

Often this is where many start to crave a sugar hit. This is the time of day when you may reach for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Often it’s because you are dehydrated and your body just needs water.

However, if it’s a warm drink that you are craving then swap your regular cup of tea for a herbal tea. Milk thistle and Dandelion teas are  great when you are detoxing to help the liver regenerate. Peppermint and Ginger teas are also good for digestion.

Use filtered water and the teas will taste better. A quick way of preparing a hot drink without waiting for the kettle to boil is with an instant hot water system.

Dinner & Evening Drinks

For some this is the hardest time. The end of a long day when you are about to reach for the bottle of wine or a gin and tonic.

Try swapping champagne bubbles for healthy bubbles. You can do this by adding some fizz to your filtered water at home with a water carbonating system like a Sodastream.

Or drink mocktails rather than cocktails and get creative in the kitchen. How about creating a healthy mojito?

It’s simple.

Just add fresh lime, mint and crushed ice to glass of fizzy filtered water. Again another tip here is to use filtered water in covered ice trays for the best tasting ice!

If you feel like a hot drink, try a herbal tea like Camomile to help wind down and relax at the end of the day.

Other Health Tips

Sleep Lots

Get lots of sleep. Drink a glass of water before bed. It will help avoid muscle cramps and help you sleep better. Some research also suggests that it can also help prevent stroke and heart attacks.

Exercise More

Take some gentle exercise every day. Like walking, yoga, pilates, swimming. Remember to drink plenty of filtered water when you exercise too.

Drink heaps and heaps of water!

Water is your best friend. Drink lots. For healthier, great tasting water, try filtered water direct from your kitchen tap. With the contaminants removed you know it’s healthy. And without the chlorine it simply tastes better…so you’ll want to drink more!

Happy, healthy Dry July!

If you’ve got a water filter then you’ll already love the taste of filtered water. And you’ll know that you can use your water filter for far more than just regular glass of water.

But how about putting some fizz in your filtered water? Have you ever tried that? Did you know that you can make your own sparkling water at home with fresh filtered water?

A simple, quality carbonating system, like a SodaStream is a great way to put some sparkle in your water.

Here are five good reasons why filtered water tastes better in a SodaStream.

The Taste

When you add bubbles to your tap water you can still taste the chlorine. It’s almost exaggerated once the water is carbonated. Switch to filtered water in your SodaStream bottle and you’ll taste the difference. There’s no nasty chlorine taste or bad smell, just fresh, filtered, sparkling water. Great taste and a great base. Drink it fresh or add your favourite fruit or flavour. And really taste the delicacies of that particular flavour.

A tip here is to fill your SodaStream bottle with filtered water straight from the tap via an inline water filter and then chill it in the fridge. By sealing the bottle no fridge odours can affect the taste of the water. Then when you’re ready for your fizzy drink. Use the chilled water from the fridge and fizz it up. Cool sparkling water straight to the dinner table and ready to drink. Especially handy if you entertain a lot!

Save Money

The rise of the recent health and wellness movement has seen many families ditching sugary drinks and making the swap to sparkling water.

“Recent market research says that the sparkling water category will grow by 40% in five years (2015 – 2020), and it is officially the fastest growing carbonated drinks category in the  country.” (Source – SodaStream)
According to SodaStream, the cost of a glass of bottled sparkling water in Australia is $1.70 compared to 10 cents a glass when you use a SodaStream.
Sodastream Australia Managing Director, Mark Fenton says,

“It costs 40 cents per litre to make SodaStream sparkling water, compared to the $6.86 per litre you would pay for a competing brand. Sodastream users average three gas refills a year, which is 180 litres of sparkling water. Therefore, over one year Sodastream users would save, on average $1,162.80, compared to what they would spend on a premium bottled water brand.”

With a SodaStream you can have sparkling water whenever you feel like it for only 40 cents a litre! So there’s more money left over for the fun stuff!

Ditch the Plastic and Save the Environment

Single use plastic bottles are a huge problem for the environment. Surprisingly only 44% of plastic bottles are recycled and the rest go to landfill where they can take up to 1000 years to break down.

The production of plastic water containers requires finite resources. In Australia it’s estimated that it takes 200 ml of oil to and up to seven litres of water to manufacture a single use plastic bottle. These bottles are heavy and expensive to transport and as a result also cause transport-related pollution.

According to Clean Up Australia, 10% of the rubbish found on Clean Up Australia Day was related to bottled water. Many plastic bottles end up in the ocean where they break into pieces and are a huge problem for marine life.

Ditching the single use bottles and using a reusable bottle to make your own sparkling water on demand will help the planet and our precious wildlife. More on why we should kick the bottled water habit here. 

The Health Benefits – People WANT to Drink More Water

For many people it’s hard to keep up with the recommended eight glasses of water a day.

According to SodaStream, if you carbonate water, people will drink more.

“SodaStream USA surveyed 3,680 Americans and discovered that people with a SodaStream consumed 43% more water and water-based drink than those without a SodaStream. That’s about 3 more glasses of water per day per person!” (Source – US Water Study 2014)

It’s often hard to get children to drink enough water. So by putting some fizz in filtered water you are encouraging kids to drink more. Children also like the process of making their own drinks with a special machine.

A top tip…Make it a fun kitchen activity! Try adding some healthy fruit and your kids will want to drink their creations.

Keeping Your Teeth Healthy

Using filtered water in your SodaStream is better than bottled sparkling water because WFA filtered water still contains fluoride which protects your family’s teeth. It will keep your dentist happy too!

The easiest way to make sure that you have fresh filtered water on tap ready to make your own sparkling water is to install an inline water filter to your existing kitchen tap. You’ll have filtered water available 24/7 to make your favourite sparkling water drink.

So get creative and bring on summer!