I drank 8 cups of water a day and it was not pretty

"Drink your water." I’ve been hearing it from my grandma and my doctor and my parents for years now. Did I listen? Of course not. So I wanted to see what would happen if I drank 8 glasses of water a day for two weeks. That's right folks, the bar is so low I’ve decided to treat myself like a human being for 14 days.

Bitch WHAT hangover?

The most miraculous change I experienced over these two weeks was the near disappearance of my hangovers. I’m talking no headache and no nausea after a night out where I not only ended up at Recess, but in the cesspool. This is a tremendous feat for me, because I have never been a person who gets mild hangovers. I get the kind of hangovers where I throw up in public the next morning, and parents stare at me while they whisper to their kids that I’m the kind of person they never want their children to become. Thank you, water.

I woke up like this

Because I was so hydrated, my skin was also looking glowy and delicious. I was walking around with a painfully full bladder, but more confident than I should have been. As someone who usually has a ton of blemishes, it made a big difference in my attitude to see my face clear. It actually motivated me to dress a little nicer to match my new, more radiant skin.

Because I was constantly full of liquid, I found I didn't eat as much. Over the two weeks, I lost 4 pounds. Four pounds doesn’t seem like a lot, but for not changing anything else in my diet or lifestyle, it was pretty significant. I felt less bloated on a day to day basis and my tummy was visibly more flat. On top of the physical benefits, it just felt nice knowing I was making an effort to be super kind to my body.

Uh, could you point me to the closest bathroom?

I want to say that these two weeks were all rainbows, and that afterwards I was not only glowing on the outside, but feeling a new sense of compassion for people as a whole.

Sadly, there were some low points with my two weeks of hydration. Perhaps most obviously, holy shit was I in pain. When I was not drinking, I was peeing, and when I was not drinking or peeing, I was in pain because I had to pee. This would not have been so bad if I were able to be in the comfort of my own home. But alas, life and classes called. I found myself leaving class an inappropriate number of times to pee. Even for someone with an abnormally small bladder, I found that my trips to the restroom were getting in the way of my life and my overall productivity.

At the end of these two weeks, I found my happy medium. Four cups of water a day is enough for me. While I do not plan to continue the same rigorous hydration schedule, I am exponentially more conscious of how much water I drink. I may never be as hydrated as I have been, but that’s something I can live with, if it means I can go through my daily life comfortably, and without living bathroom to bathroom.