·Lunch – think of soup or have a glass of water before your meal, or perhaps a herbal tea.

·Mid afternoon – While you are preparing your evening meal, drink a glass of water and snack on some crunchy fresh vegetables.

·Evening – Sip a glass of water before your meal with a dash of your favourite fruit juice for flavour.

·After dinner – before bedtime drink your final glass of water and sleep well!

A few changes will happen when you start out with your water program. Obviously you may find that you need to ‘spend a penny’ more often. Why? Because you body isn’t used to being well hydrated.

There is absolutely is no doubt about it. When you start drinking enough water regularly, there are great benefits. You may notice your skin significantly improve and even tired muscles will thank you. Many people find their energy is increased and constipation and headaches are reduced, as well as hunger pains.

Now here’s really exciting part…many people notice a reduction in weight and centimetres, as their body’s water store become redundant and so decrease. If your diet has been one that did not provide you with adequate water, your body will have developed a pattern of storing water. It’s part of body’s in-built survival mechanism – to store up essential nutrients in short supply…just in case they aren’t available in future. So if you don’t drink enough water, you are ‘conditioning’ your body to store water. And water is bulk and unwanted centimetres.

It’s so simple...drink water! 6-8 large glasses a day.

How do you know if you are not getting enough water each day? This is a really important question because so many of us have deprived ourselves of water for years that we have become accustomed to doing without full amount of water our body requires and we don’t recognise symptoms of thirst.

·The most common symptom is headaches. A major function of water is to flush toxins from body. Your brain is 75% water, so even being slightly dehydrated can cause headaches.

·Poor concentration/fatigue. If you body can’t get rid of toxins it will struggle and you will feel less energetic as your body diverts energy to deal with toxins.

·Constipation. Your body will divert water to more essential functions and as a result your stools will be harder and more difficult to expel.

·Reduced urine output or dark urine. Did you know that up to 200 litres of water is passed through your kidneys daily? Without a fresh supply of water for kidneys to filter waste products out of blood, your urine will become darker.

·Furry tongue or bad breath. If you don’t have enough water passing through mouth to wash away food particles, bacteria can proliferate and result in that ‘furry’ feeling or bad breath.

·Skin. Your skin should feel elastic. When you pinch skin on back of your hand it should snap back instantly.

Final thoughts. Caffeinated drinks cause body to lose water. They are what’s known as diuretics as they cause your body to dehydrate. You will do your body an enormous favour by cutting back. For every cup of coffee you drink you will need to drink another TWO glasses of water to counter diuretic effect. Explore world of herbal teas instead, you may be pleasantly surprised!

Exercise Three: Keep a Journal of Your Daily Successes

Keep a record of all positive changes in thoughts you have about yourself. We all have triumphs and ‘failures’. You must record and remind yourself of positive changes because our human nature will replay negatives - sometimes blowing them out of proportion. It’s important to nurture and celebrate small steps you make every day.

Exercise Four: Go Easy On Yourself – You Are Beautiful Work In Progress

Don’t listen to criticism…not your own nor that of others! Remember you are designer of your self-esteem, do not hand this over to other people. You are way too important to give this away. Protect your role as creator of your own self-image and do not, take on board negative criticisms. We all make mistakes, and mistakes can be used to help us learn. Do not criticise yourself for being human and making a mistake. The only last mistake in one from which we never learn to grow.

Exercise Five: Forget About The Past

The only moment you can live is current one. You can’t live in future and you most certainly shouldn’t live in past….the challenge is to take charge of our thinking so that we think in same time zone in which we live!

For example we may be tempted to think about yesterday’s failures…”If only I hadn’t eaten second helpings”, “If only I didn’t reach for chocolate cookies”. If we concentrate on mistakes of yesterday this will our brains to replay our failures and reinforce them to us.

Yesterday is over, today is where you live….make sure that today you do NOT replay yesterday’s failures and make your resolve to change TODAY.

Exercise Six: Resolve to Change Today

Just as you shouldn’t live in past, you can’t live in future. You can only live or change today. The oldest cliché in world is perhaps one of greatest truisms of all…’tomorrow NEVER comes!’

There is no better time than now. So, no matter what excuses you may have to wait to take those healthy steps you know you should take, none of them are valid. Do it now, do it today. Resolve to make a different in your own life before you go to sleep tonight.

Exercise Seven: Write a Plan For your Life

This is your success plan. If you have not already done so it is time for you to create direction and purpose in your plans for yourself. Review your list of potentials and record next to each potential when you want to achieve this by.

Exercise Eight: Carry Affirmation Cards About Yourself

This is one of fastest tools for your success. You are what you think. Strengthen your self-image every day by reviewing your thoughts. One of easiest ways to do this is to carry affirmation cards in your wallet and review regularly. Affirmation cards are short bursts of words in business card that prompt and remind your self-image of your intentions. An example might be: I can achieve anything that I put my mind to. I will be satisfied with single helpings.

Try it, you have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Exercise Nine: Change Your Eating Habits

Now that you have set groundwork in place, you are now ready to change your physical habits. You are ready to add a balanced nutritious diet, healthy eating habits, regular exercise and relaxation.

By using these nine exercises daily to change your thinking habits, you will be strengthening your self esteem and unlocking your internal power to make a change in your life. Before you can change lifelong eating habits, you must first change life long thinking habits. We are what we think. We can’t be something other than what we believe we can be!

So, do yourself a favour, liberate your self-image and then, see how much more effective your healthy living plan becomes!