Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“Good hydration brings a range of benefits, but the most important is it enables us to live.”

A few years ago, I’d suffer from headaches an awful lot. After a normal eye test result, I put those headaches down to excessive screen time, as my job had me looking at a screen for 8 hours+ per day. It wasn’t until a LOT later that I realised that I wan’t drinking half as much water as I should each day, which was the main cause of all those nasty headaches. Water – such a simple solution to something that knocks you out and reduces productivity to the bare minimum. When the chance to review this book came along, I was eager – everyone needs to read this and understand how drinking enough water is essential for your health, especially in recent times!

Water Wellness by Kriss Smolka is designed to help you drink enough water every day to achieve optimal health and maintain the right fluid balance. With COVID-19 sweeping the globe, it is crucial to stay healthy now more than ever. While drinking water alone will not prevent or cure the virus, hydration is good for overall health and helps the body in several ways. Water Wellness gets to the heart of hydration and it teaches you everything you need to know about water and the benefits of proper hydration. The amount of water you should drink every day and how best to stay hydrated are topics often filled with false claims or misinformation. However, this book drills into the details, offers practical tips and solutions, and debunks the myths!

Introduction.

The book has been written by the creators of the WaterMinder app, an app which enables you to track your daily water intake. This instantly made me trust what I was reading, and it gave the book much more credibility in my eyes. Being written by hydration experts, it gave me the confidence that I was reading expert advice and real life facts, encouraging me (even more) to take this information on board. The contents of the book are set out so clearly, so no matter what information you need, it is incredibly easy to find. The real beauty of the style of the book is that I didn’t really need to read it in a certain order (even though I did!) You can simply find exactly what you want to know, and flip to the right page. Easy peasy.

Straight away, the book showed a good balance of facts and information, as well as answers to common questions people may have about hydration and dehydration. There was even mention of some delicious infused recipes which I couldn’t wait to get to! I was very impressed by the amount of beautiful, popping imagery in the book too, which really added to my reading experience. It made it much more pleasant to read than simply scanning through reams and reams of text. The author of the book has mostly focused on hydration and dehydration in the introduction which was very informative, and he also uses easy to digest information to get his points across, making it easy for readers of a range of levels to take in this information.

I’d heard that drinking too much water is bad for you, but what I read in this book about overhydration was concerning – this information was good to know! We don’t usually think that there will be a negative impact of drinking lots of water, and it’s something that we don’t tend to worry about. However, I found out that the effect of this can be serious. I thought it was great that the author covered these topics in the book, as well as all the benefits and fun recipes. I felt like I’d definitely learnt a lot already! As we moved onto why you should stay hydrated, I found myself being given yet another lesson about the effects of good hydration on the brain, which was just as interesting – I felt like I was having a science lesson! I really think all the educational parts of this book make it what it is, and is something we can all take on board and learn from.

“The average person should be consuming around 2 – 2.5 liters of water per day.”

The author doesn’t just concentrate on the effect too much, too little or just enough water has on an adult’s body, but also on a child’s body too. As well as adults, drinking water can help children suffering from obesity to lose or control their weight. Water also has the same benefits for a child as an adult, which is why it is crucially important to ensure your child drinks enough water to be healthier, more alert and mentally stimulated. The amount of detail the book goes into about so many different topics is wonderful – I never thought I’d be so enthralled and engaged by reading this type of book, but I constantly found it super interesting! I was confident there would only be more good to come.

The middle.

The lessons keep on coming as we get deeper into the book, with plenty more facts, studies and surprising information to feed my curiosity. Hydration Myths Debunked was so interesting to read, and some of these myths were things I’d grown up to believe were the truth, such as drinking 8 glasses of water per day and the coffee dehydration myth. It was useful reading the truth behind these myths which will help readers make more educated decisions when hydrating themselves. The book also gives great advice for fitness fanatics, pregnant mothers and those who enjoy a drink or two! For those who exercise regularly, there is useful information on how to drink enough, pace yourself and get the most out of your session in a healthy way.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the book for me was a little mathematics! (Take me back to my school days and I would NOT have said the same thing about the subject…) Because the amount of water we need to drink per day varies from person to person, the author has included a clever way of working out the amount of water you should be drinking each day. (Check out page 71 of the book, it’s a fun task!) It’s safe to say that even though I’m pretty good with my water intake, I’m still not getting the amount I need, which I’m going to do my best to correct from now on. I loved how the book had a little interactivity included – it gives it something a little bit different from other books of similar styles.

As we move on a little, we’re educated on the many different types of water, including what they are and their benefits. I was shocked to see how many different types there were, and it blew my mind even more that each of these had different properties. The book also placed some focus on dehydrating foods – junk food, especially those with large amounts of salt and sugar definitely make us feel more thirsty, but it never occurred to me that this was because they are extremely dehydrating! Soup is understandably the most hydrating food, some soups being around 92% water. I learnt that some of the most hydrating foods include cucumber, salad greens, grapefruit and watermelon, so I’m definitely going to get some of these on my shopping list from now on!

“Your body typically requires more water to digest processed foods than it does fresh ones.”

I can really see how the author has taken all the information he’s learnt over the years and created a helpful book not just to share his knowledge, but to put into perspective the real life effects water (and a lack of it) can have such a huge impact on a person’s health. I for one was incredibly grateful and it’s made me so much more aware of my own health. After reading this book, I made a promise to myself to look after my body more, drink more water than I am currently doing and encourage others to not only read this book, but to take it all in and digest the information. Years down the line, I think I’ll be very glad I did!

Conclusion.

The ending of the book was, by far, my favourite for obvious reasons – recipe time! After being so curious about how delicious water infused drinks could be, I was very pleasantly surprised. There are SO many recipes in the back of this book that the author could have created his own recipe book! They all looked like delicious cocktails, so I was more than happy to give them a try… 🙂 Such a great addition to an already solidly informative book and I think this really complements what the author has set out to achieve. There are recipes here for all taste preferences, but I think the berry, the passion fruit and lime or the strawberry and orange infused recipes sounded just right for me. I think they’d really go well with a hot summer, which we’ll hopefully be having very soon!

A huge thank you to author Kriss Smolka, and Alyssa Longo from Farrow Communications for the copy of this book – its words will stick with me for some time! You can pre-order Water Wellness through this link and it will be available late-summer. Be sure to follow Kriss over on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn or visit the Water Wellness website for more information close to release.

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