Just Water Challenge

As you might be aware from the blog I wrote at the beginning of last year, Water Aid is one of the charities that I had chosen to support in 2019 and have actually chosen to carry on supporting in 2020.  And, of course, part of the support involves receiving emails from them about their activities and the any additional things you can do to help out.  So when I got an email from them about taking the Just Water Challenge in January I thought why not, seems like a good way to start the year.  Start as you mean to go on and all that.

The challenge is to drink absolutely nothing but water for the whole month of January.  Obviously drinking only water is really good for your body in many, many ways, but this challenge is also about helping those in the world who have to travel long distances to collect dirty water which contains worms and other parasites in it.  The money raised by this challenge will go towards ensuring that fewer and fewer people each year have to face these very real challenges just to get a drink of water.  If you want to get a real look at how this affects someone directly then Water Aid have put together a blog about a grandmother called Juliette who lives in Madagascar.

I had already done Dryathalon for Cancer Research, where you drink no alcohol, a couple of years back and had actually found it pretty easy to do.  This seemed like it would be quite a bit more challenging and, therefore, warrant the request I'm making of people to hand over their money when sponsoring me.  If I'm honest water is already the main fluid that I drink on a day to day basis and it's not often that I drink much else.  The other drinks that I do tend to have is the dreaded Coca Cola (as you already know), chai and matcha lattes if a café does them (it would be rude not to), and tea.  But the truth of the matter is that I don't drink the lattes or the tea that often.  In fact, I have been known to go for days without having a single drop of tea.  However, it is still something I keep around, after all I am a Brit and who knows when the urge might strike.  The one positive for me is that this challenge is a much better incentive to give up Coke then just my health,  Lets face it, it rarely is a strong enough reason to do any thing.

So on New Year's Eve whilst everyone else was having alcohol I was enjoying two last cups of tea before the month of not having any at all started.  I didn't bother with the Coca Cola as I had already decided and started getting off that drink.

And, how's it going so far you might ask?  Actually a lot better than I was expecting.  At the beginning of the challenge I was still having the urge to drink Coca Cola, but this has now gone completely.  I still think 'that would be nice' if I see one in a shop but it's pretty easy for me now to just walk by and not think about it again.  Probably the weirdest moment was on the first day.  After not having tea for a good few days I suddenly had a strong urge to have a nice cup of tea.  I just ignored it though and carried on with my glass of water.  Since then I have wanted a cup of teas pretty regularly but I've found that a mug of hot water with fruit in it (after some experimentation raspberries and strawberries work particularly well) has been enough to hit that craving on the head.

And now I have just under two weeks left to go and I think I'm going to get through it.  I have come this far after all.  It'll be interesting to see, as the end comes into sight, if any of the cravings come back.  And it'll be interesting to see what I go back to once the challenge is completely over?  Or will I just carry on only drink water with a bit of fruit in it now and then?    

If you would like to support me (and I would really appreciate it if you do) and the great work that Water Aid does then you can go to my Just Giving page and donate by going to https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/George-s-Just-Water-Challenge.  It would be amazing if you could.