Why would it possibly not “count”? If I drink a liter of water and then, later in the day, eat a packet of Crystal Light, does that undo the original act of drinking the water? What’s the difference?
I don’t like water. I drink a lot of store-brand diet soda, which isn’t a very big expense (under 40 cents per liter). There’s never any shortage of people waiting to tell me I need to drink water instead, though. Why? There’s no evidence that drinking small amounts of aspartame is unsafe. I really think it offends people’s moral sensibilities that I avoid the act of drinking plain water by sweetening it. It’s seen as cheating, perhaps because it’s “unnatural,” and people struggle to find some reason I shouldn’t get away with it. I can’t think of any other reason so many people would be bothered by my aversion to water, and bothered in the particular way that they seem to be, which doesn’t seem driven by a concern for my health.
Water’s pretty much been my default beverage of choice since I was a kid. I love water, especially in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning. I probably drink about six to eight 12 oz glasses of it a day. After a workout, though, I prefer a little sugar in my water for some simple carbs to aid recovery, so I’ll take a scoop of dextrose, douse it with some Real Lemon, and make a quick lemonade.
I don’t like plain water. It makes me feel slightly sick and I feel like maybe it hits my metal fillings because no matter what brand it’s always slightly metallic.
The only way to make it drinkable is to add a splash of Da Vinci sugar free syrup. Raspberry or any other fruit flavor. Just a splash though; barely enough to change the color. That I could drink all day.
I have trouble imagining someone hating water if they weren’t making the mistake of drinking distilled water or your ickier tap waters. 90% of what I drink is water or milk. I only drink bottled spring water, though. We don’t drink the well water because they hit an iron vein drilling the well - the water tastes like blood or pennies. yum.
I find all water pretty horrible. I wouldn’t say it’s undrinkable, and if I’m very thirsty and it’s the only good option I’ll drink it, but it always tastes bad.
I also hate wine, so I definitely would not do well at any party Jesus was at.
In a week, filtered (Brita) water makes up almost 100% of everything I drink. Some Sundays I’ll crack open a caffeine-free Diet Pepsi, but the rest of the time, just water. Oh, sorry, apart from the cup of OJ I have every morning. The older I get, the less tolerance I have for really sweet things, so my soft drink consumption has pretty much vanished.
The tap water here is great, but I still filter it because it takes away the chlorine smell, and I like it cold from the fridge. It’s cheap, healthy, and if I’m drinking it while driving I’m not going to get distracted by a spill because it’s hot or it will stain.
This was me until I quit drinking beer. Now, it’s coffee and water.
I prefer cold water, either from a bottle in the fridge or over ice, but I’ll drink it tepid. If I’m really thirsty I don’t even care if it’s hot - sometimes I’ll be in the car, and the only thing to drink is a piece of a bottle from the day before - I’ll drink it in a heartbeat. That’s a kind of a weird sensation, drinking hot water.
I’ve never had better water than that sweet sweet liquid that flowed from my Oakland tap.
I used to think I hated the taste of water. I’d go through all sorts of work with filters and bottles and mixes. Then I decided I was just being high-maintenance and difficult, and that wasn’t the kind of person I wanted to be. So I poured myself a nice tall cup from the tap. It sucked. But I kept doing it.
Now I can’t get enough of the stuff. I have to drink distilled around here (though I do let it “cure” a few days) and I even suck that stuff down like crazy. Cold, hot, whatever. Water is the most singularly perfect beverage.
When I was younger I hardly ever drank water. I had either soft drink or juice with every meal.
One year I bought a couple of glass bottles to pre-chill my tap water because my New Year’s resolution was to drink a glass a day. Now it’s pretty much all I drink. It turned out that when I drank juice or soft drink it usually wasn’t the taste I was after so much as the coldness and thirst-quenchingness of it. So chilled water just became my default beverage. Which also worked out to be cheaper and much more convenient for me - Melbourne has good tap water and drinking juice or soft drink means an extra couple of kilos to carry home from grocery shopping. Now I only buy drinks if we’re having guests or if my husband mentions that he’d like some Coke.
Distilled is my favorite. I dislike every type of “spring” bottled water I’ve tried. Tap water (especially in places like Vegas and Tucson, AZ where I grew up) is startlingly awful in taste. Distilled is the only bottled water I have found which I can be certain will taste like actual water no matter what brand I buy.
There is nothing quite as satisfying as swigging from a mug of ice water so cold it not only hurts your teeth, but actually starts making your throat ache as it goes down. I love water. I’m on a well right now that produces some of the best water I’ve ever had.
Maybe I’ve been lucky with my water sources over the years, because every bottled water I’ve tried tastes like pure ass.
I love water (tap or bottled still - I hate sparkling). But for the first couple of months of pregnancy, when I had all-day nausea, I couldn’t stand it. Even one sip made me feel sick as a dog. I had to switch to juice and herbal tea so I didn’t get dehydrated. So, even though I’m back to liking water, I can understand how someone could hate it.
Like others, beer, coffee, and water*, and sometimes iced tea and cold hibiscus tea (agua de jamaica).
Sparkling water.
Here in SE Michigan most of us are on the city of Detroit’s water system, and despite the political bantering around it, it’s a superb system with excellent water right out of the tap. I typically draw it from the fridge, which filters the chlorine, making good water even better.
Ah, yes, I annotated “sparkling water” above, because I’m not really a fan of plain water. Not that it doesn’t taste good (it does), and not that it’s not refreshing when one is hot or dehydrated, it’s just not my preference. I easily drink two liters of it in a day, as long as I’ve not been lazy and have some on hand. Oh, yeah, I make it myself. It’s super easy, and dirt cheap after the capital investment (which as a homebrewer, I’d already had).
I’ve been trying to figure it out. We never drank plain water when I was growing up, probably because my father didn’t like it. We drank generic Kool-Aid as our drink throughout the day, and a glass of milk with dinner. So, yes, I never got used to the taste of water or enjoyed it.
I know that one of the tricks I heard for weight loss :rolleyes: was to somehow wash away what you had eaten with a lot of water. :rolleyes::rolleyes: So I have made myself sick trying to force down a huge glass of ice water. BUT I don’t know if that made me associate being sick with water, or if it would have made me feel sick anyway.
But yes, Crystal Light and other non-water beverages still count as water intake, and I drink more fluids with Crystal Light than diet soda, so I feel Ok about it.
I went for years without drinking straight up water, just soft drinks, juice, beer and tea (which I know is 99.9% water). But in the last 5-6 years I made an effort to drink more water. For me it was more a matter of getting into the habit than it was a taste thing. Unless it has a lot of sulphur or a musty smell, I’m not picky about the source. We have a large Britta pitcher in the fridge at home and I get a big 20oz cup of water from the drinking fountain every morning while waiting for my work PC to boot up. I’m not super crazy about the taste although very cold water when I’m really thirsty is lovely.
I tried the Crystal Light and it tasted too chemical-like for me. Plus it made my tongue go numb. Could I have accidentally bought the rare Crystal Light Happy Fun Cocaine flavor?
Reading the other comments in this thread, these truly are times of miracle and wonder, when a majority (it seems) of people cannot abide plain water from the tap at ambient temperature. The amount of energy expended to chill, color, flavor and deliver palatable versions of this simple compund blows my tiny little mind. But hey, I’m just as bad as y’all. I’ve become somewhat ritualistic in what I drink from day to day. Age I guess.
In the morning, a cup of coffee, from whatever source. Usually one unsweetened ice tea later in in the day, alternating with one diet carbonated bevvie. The rest is water, not counting any alcoholic beverages I might treat myself to. Like most others who have posted, my water’s got to be cold. We’ve got Sparklett’s coolers at the office and I keep a Brita pitcher in the fridge at home.
A tip for those who don’t like plain tap water: try adding a few drops of citrus to it. It can make a world of difference.
Mostly drink water, about 2-3 liters a day. Sometimes iced, but I am fine with it lukewarm.
One Americano in the morning, black. 1-3 beers a week, 1 diet soda maybe once a week. Other then that just plain water. But we have good water here in the Seattle area.
