I have always been a supporter of drinking lots of water. I have never had any problem in drinking pints of the stuff every day. Sometimes I drink it plain, sometimes it’s flavoured and occasionally with a dash of squash thrown in. But the most important thing about water is just getting it into your body in the first place.

For anyone who does struggle with drinking water, here are a few of my tips to getting more into your every day routine. The first is to buy a sports cap bottle. It might sound a little odd, but not having to unscrew a lid, and just flicking up a cap and drinking out of it, saves time and is more convenient if you’re someone who is always on the go. You can also drink more this way than you would do if you were sipping from the top of an open bottle.

Something else that I always do, is to have a small glass of water half an hour before every meal. By doing this it kick starts your digestive system and gets it ready to receive the food you’re about to devour, this also helps to control appetite as well.

Most people will insist that the recommended daily amount of water you need to consume is eight glasses. But this doesn’t take into consideration warm weather, sweating if you exercise and other daily situations such as health and lifestyle. The actual amount of water you need to drink as an adult varies from eight to sixteen glasses a day. Some people struggle with this amount and many adults substitute water for things like tea and energy drinks. Although these hydrate you they don’t have the benefits that plain water does. My tip for you is to always keep water to hand, either in a bottle or a glass. If you’re on the go a lot always carry a bottle with you. Another tip is to drink one glass of water when you wake up in the morning that is before you eat anything or go about your daily routine. This helps to kick start the digestive system and can lower blood pressure too.

The benefits of drinking more water can be noticed within a couple of days. Your body is made of approximately 60% water, this helps transport nutrients in the body and regulate body temperature among other things. When you are made of so much liquid this means that dehydration is never far away if you don’t look after yourself. Being dehydrated can cause your skin to dry up and for your kidney function to decline in efficiency. These are just some of the reasons why you need to keep up those fluids. Your skin will look healthier and you’ll notice the difference in your concentration levels as well as your muscles. Drinking more water can help with muscle tiredness and it flushes out the toxins that cause illness and skin breakouts.

Robinson’s have been running promotions on both Twitter and Facebook to win their very cute glasses, I call mine my happy glass. Why is he happy? Because you’re drinking more water of course! Thank you again to Robinson’s for my wonderful glass.

I hope that you have enjoyed this blog post and I hope that perhaps I have inspired you (with the facts) to drink more water.

I don’t know about you, but I love to cook. Not every meal and not every single day, as I’m sure we all enjoy take out on occasion. But seriously, I do love cooking. I’ve never been a very good baker, which is something that I wanted to change.

My main inspiration in my cooking life has always been my Nan. When I was younger she taught me all about the kitchen, and got me started on some staple meals that I would remember for the rest of my life. I can cook a lasagne, a casserole or even a curry from memory, and I love experimenting with new flavours.

Once I had the meals of hers like these in my heart as well as my stomach, I knew I would cook them often and enjoy them. But the one thing I have always struggled with was baking, be it cakes or other savoury treats, most puddings just evaded my cooking talents.

Trial and error is one of the only ways to beat the baking I have found. I have baked countless cakes and puddings that haven’t ended up being edible, and after a certain number you almost don’t want to waste anymore of your time and money. For a good while I didn’t cook puddings, then I tried an apple crumble again (a different recipe) and I began to bake with chocolate again too.

I found a recipe for triple chocolate brownies recently. I think a good recipe can make all the difference, especially if you are a self-taught cook. When I cooked these particular brownies to my surprise it was a complete success! I haven’t put that down to me though. All I was doing was following the recipe step by step, and I based the cooking time solely on my oven and not on the recipes parameters. I was so pleased with the result that I plan to make some more, and that has never happened to me before with any other aspect of my baking.

So the finished result, needless to say I am just a little bit proud of them. Oh, and they didn’t last long, so I did something right! And I will definitely be making them again… Soon…

So what is the moral and the reason that I have written this blog post today? To say to all of you out there who say you can’t cook, I’m here to say you can!
I can now proudly say that I don’t bake well but I can bake something! And that leap is something we can all achieve, if we just try…