I live in a very small place and don't have room for a lot of exercise equipment. I also live on a very tight budget, so I look for alternatives. I have finally finished eating my dumbells [see previous blog]. As a single person it took a while to eat all the spaghetti sauce in two 45 oz. plastic bottles. I ate it on zuccini, chicken breast, meatballs, and dumped the last of it in some soup. Now I have restored them to dumbell/water bottles. Two for the price of one! What's not to like?

I fill the bottles with water to the brim and screw the lids on real tight while they are still in the sink [to prevent any overflow spilling]. They have nice hand-holds built in for an easy, firm grasp. Now they are 5 1/2-pound dumbells! On ST days I use them as my weights. I didn't start with 5-pound weights, but built up to them, first using 8 oz. water bottles [one pound each], then larger and larger bottles. A pint's a pound the world around, so measuring weight is easy: 8 oz. = 1 pound.

Then after the workout, I pour the water into my drinking cup and enjoy. I use the dumbell/water bottles every day because they hold about 10 cups of water each [or just a tad more], making it easy to keep track of my intake.

My other trick to drink more water: I put a straw in my drinking glass, the biggest straw I can find. Who doesn't like to drink through a straw? And I can suck down more water this way. Fast food restaurants know that the bigger the straw, the more and faster everyone will drink. Have you noticed how straws have gotten larger over the past few years? It's marketing! But now I use that huge straw to drink plenty of healthy water.