The Top 6 Ways to Hydrate Better You Need to Try ASAP

Every fitness professional out there tells you to drink water, water, and more water. Including the ones in this article.

But after a summer boot-camp session on a scorching sunny pier, your hydration stores may be drained into a pool of sweat around your Nikes.

We asked two of New York's top personal trainers—Will Torres, owner of Willspace, and Joel Harper, celebrity trainer to clients like Dr. Oz—for their tips on how to give your hydration levels a boost for those 95-degree-days.

Get out your water bottle. Here's what they had to say... —Lisa Elaine Held

 

 

JOEL HARPER, Celebrity trainer

1. Drink chia seeds. Literally. Harper recommends trying a chia drink at breakfast or for an afternoon snack.

The chia seeds that float around inside absorb 9 to 12 times their weight in water, which helps with prolonged hydration.

Plus, they're "packed with omega-3s for endurance, your heart, and brain," says Harper.

 

2. Soup up your water with supplements. You can supplement your water with electrolytes, antioxidants, and vitamins easily—and naturally.

Harper loves Vega Sport plant-based powders. (They're created by vegan Ironman triathlete Brendan Brazier.) The Electrolyte Hydrator is packed with all essential electrolytes and bonus vitamins and antioxidants.

He also likes Pure Inventions antioxidant drops, which you can squeeze directly into your water glass.

 

 

 

3. Consider enhanced water.

Harper recommends Propel Zero. It's a powder or enhanced bottled water, which he says is "very refreshing." (Plus, Cindy Crawford drinks it, so there's that.)

And while Gatorade is generally sugary and artificial (yuck), Harper recommends its newer G2 formulations, created for endurance athletes, which have more natural-leaning ingredients, few calories, tons of electrolytes, and vitamins.

Just don't make it your daily drink of choice. Harper says to drink it "only during and after an intense workout."

 

WILL TORRES, owner of Willspace

4. Avoid dehydrating.

Coffee, tea, and energy drinks sap your hydration away, since caffeine is a diuretic and will cause your body to release water.

"An air conditioned environment can also be dehydrating," Torres says.

Use that as an excuse to take an out-of-office mid-day walk. For, um, a bottle of water.

 

 

5. Crack open a coconut. The benefits of coconut water have been called into question recently, but it's still a great source of electrolytes. Just don't chug liters without checking the label (and stick to the freshest source available). "Like most bottled drinks, be careful of the sugar," Torres cautions.

 

6. Did we mention sip water? We know that you know you should drink water, but just in case you're hooked on or tempted by icy sodas or other sugar- or sugar-substitute beverages in the heat... "Water should be your first choice when it comes to staying hydrated," says Torres. "You should sip water every 15-20 minutes throughout the day."

 

Here's why you can't work out in the heat as well as others. And is eight glasses of water a day a hydration hoax?