Most people are too busy with their work schedules and meetings to remember to have a bottle of water as they work. PHOTO | ILLUSTRATION IMAGE
What you need to know:
Technology has made it easier for people to keep track of their daily water intake apart from the constant reminders and memos people set on their mobile phones to take water hourly.
Water plays a great role in our body’s functions, making approximately 60 per cent of a person’s weight. Not only does drinking water give you healthier skin, it also helps improve one’s metabolism and weight loss.
Most people are too busy with their work schedules and meetings to remember to have a bottle of water as they work. They only remember to stay hydrated as they work out or when they are served a glass of water during a business meeting.
The easiest way to find out whether or not your body is getting enough water is to look at the colour of your urine. The darker the colour, the more likely you are to be dehydrated.
Technology has made it easier for people to keep track of their daily water intake apart from the constant reminders and memos people set on their mobile phones to take water hourly.
Several applications are now available for free on either Android, Windows and Apple phones to help you with this health cause. If you are using an iPhone, there are several applications available that can be downloaded for free, including Daily Water and Waterlogged.
Daily Water: is available on the Apple App Store and allows an individual to set targets of how much water they need to drink for the day and helps track it. Every time you drink a glass, you tap on the eight glasses displayed that one should ideally take in a day.
The app allows you to plan a water drinking schedule complete with sound alerts that remind you to drink a glass at the appointed time. The beauty is that it is compatible with the Apple smart watch so you do not have to keep looking at your mobile phone as the reminders will be displayed on the wrist.
Waterlogged: allows you to track your daily water intake, and analyses your consumption over a period of time whether a week, month or even a year. The application has ways for you to schedule water consumption and allows you to customise your own water bottle size by taking photos of the bottle and uploading it.
It also provides information on the importance of drinking water as well as the quantity one should consume depending on their body weight. Even if you drink half a bottle at a time, the application will do the math for you in the end to show how much water you have drank and how much more you may need to drink.
Drink Water: Users of Windows phones can also download the application Drink Water in order to track their consumption. To use it, you need to key in your current weight and the environmental conditions of where you live for it to determine just how much water you need to consume daily. The application, however, provides a graph of your water intake for only seven days.
Android phone users are the most privileged as there are several free applications that can be downloaded from the Google Play Store to help with quenching their thirst.
With the Drink Water Android application, for instance, an individual needs only to key in the time they wake up and go to bed and the application will automatically schedule when the person should drink water. It will also create alerts to help you keep to your regime.
While they share a similar name with the application available for Windows, the apps were developed by two different companies.
This application also calculates how much water you need to drink depending on your weight and automatically resets the glasses of water consumed at midnight. Interestingly, it also comes with the sound of water pouring into a cup that a person can use to set the reminders.
Waterbalance: is a more personalised applications as it determines the water requirement depending on a person’s weight, height, age and their way of life. It provides statistics of water intake as well as facts about general health and the importance of water for the body. The application is social in that you can connect with your friends and also remind them to take water as well.
