I have three New Year’s resolutions I’ve been trying to follow this month, two for my health and one that steps up our household reuse habits: get more sleep, don’t buy any more disposable food storage bags (expand our other options), and drink more water. Originally I was only planning on one resolution, the sleep one, but then our reusable storage bags started getting used up and my husband started reusing too many disposable sandwich bags (note: they don’t hold up well in reuse, aren’t for freezing and are hard to clean and dry), so that prompted me to add the bag resolution (stay tuned for a post about that in the future), and then I started participating in the “It’s Time Texas Community Challenge”, which prompted the third New Year’s resolution. The “ITT Challenge” is a state-wide event in which cities, schools, workplaces and individuals participate to improve their health and compete to see who can complete the most healthy activities in about two months’ time, logging into a free app and recording activities each day as they’re completed, such as eating a healthy breakfast, going on a walk…and drinking water. I knew it would motivate me and it has—as I found myself in 18th place on my workplace rankings list (out of 100 coworkers) soon after I started, it spurred me to do what I can to see that number rise, and that has included keeping a reusable water bottle with me throughout the day, something I haven’t done very consistently in the past.
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It’s not been for lack of trying. The number of reusable water bottles that have come and gone around my household over the past 20+ years is ridiculous—let’s see, there was the metal, fancy Swiss-made one I got at Target called a SIGG…as I recall, the neck was too narrow to fill easily and I couldn’t see inside or even get inside to clean it well, and even though I bought some of the SIGG dissolving cleaning tablets, I didn’t like the idea of not being able to really “see” what I was drinking out of. Then there was a succession of plastic, translucent CamelBaks® and CamelBak® knock-offs– nice and wide for easy filling, but…they had removable valves and an opaque straw attached to the lid that were hard to clean, and buying the replacement valves and straws was an added cost. My kids and husband used those bottles a lot, but not me.
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I think our next ones were solid-colored lightweight metal bottles that were taller and narrower than the SIGG, with a wider neck. Easy to see inside to clean, but they’d get too cold to hold and too much condensation would collect on the outside. And, more importantly, to me, I had finally come to the conclusion that I was not fond of the taste, or smell, when drinking out of metal. Then there were some wide-mouthed, hard plastic Nalgene® bottles that somehow made their way into our house (too wide for me to hold comfortably), and insulated YETIs® and YETI® wanna-bees, too, bought by our then-teenaged kids as well as received by a few of us as gifts (these were large tumblers, too big and bulky for me to easily lug around all day to try to drink water, and again—metal inside), and then came a soft plastic Brita® water bottle with a tiny, built-in water filter inside that our oldest had in college (I liked it ok, but somehow that bottle got lost). There is also a fancy-looking, tall-necked metal bottle (wrapped in a “faux marble” vinyl sleeve) called a S’well® that has made its way into our bottle fray over the past decade, and a couple S’well® knock-offs (again, water in those didn’t pass my taste test but the vinyl sleeve definitely solved the metal bottle problem of condensation/being too cold to hold), and then came two 16 oz. clear glass bkr® bottles encased in pastel-colored, soft rubber removable covers, brought to our house a year ago after one of our daughters moved from her apartment to another state and had limited packing space. The bkrs® seemed very easy to clean (I mean, c’mon, it’s just a clear glass bottle), and wouldn’t get condensation on the outside thanks to the covers, but, with a narrow opening on top, similar to my old SIGG, they didn’t seem like they’d be the easiest to fill, and they seemed a little heavy to put in a tote bag, so… they stayed on the shelf, out of sight, out of mind.
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And, last but not least, there are the infusion water bottles I first wrote about in Spring 2021 when this blog started. A great way to use cast-off fruit, herbs, etc. for sure, and great to keep in a home fridge, but not the best option for taking to an office and drinking from all day. They’re not the easiest to refill and the water is used up quicker than other bottles since the infusion tube/basket takes up room inside.
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Sadly, the only portable water I’ve drunk much over the years is the kind you buy in disposable plastic bottles, and I did NOT want to feed a daily water habit that way.
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So, yes, I began the “It’s Time Texas Community Challenge” and my “drink more water” resolution with several portable, reusable water containers to choose from, just sitting there taking up shelf space, but none that I really wanted to use. After filling an empty ceramic coffee cup at work with water from the COVID-safe, “bottle filler drinking fountain” a few times, I decided it was time to break down and acquire yet another water bottle—but first I decided to give our old bottles more thought. Of all the ones my family had collected (that had not been lost or given to Goodwill), were there any that came close to being a usable choice for me? Well, yeah, the fairly recent bkr® ones seemed pretty good, but remember I also thought they’d be hard to fill and transport…and then it hit me: those bottles come with a cap that’s designed with a built-in carry ring! I wouldn’t have to lug the bottle in a tote bag, I could just carry it by its handle! And maybe, since the bkr®checked off most of my other boxes, maybe I could learn to “fill it without spilling it.” But wait—the daughter who originally bought those bottles had been home for the holidays—did she take them back with her? A quick check in the kitchen revealed that one was still left. Score!!!!!
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And so, I’ve been carrying a bkr® water bottle with an aquamarine-colored rubber cover to work for the past three weeks. It’s EASY to carry by that lid handle and hasn’t been too hard to fill. And the water tastes good in glass and I really enjoy drinking out of “narrow-necked glass”, it reminds me of drinking out of “pop bottles” from the cooler at a long ago summer camp. And I’m writing all this not to sell bkr® water bottles (as I state in the “Welcome” post, this is not a monetized blog) but I’m sharing my experience in the hopes that, if you can’t quite get in the healthy habit of drinking more water, it may be that you haven’t found the right bottle yet, and that if I can finally do this, you can, too.
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Now if I could just get in the habit of pausing more often to take water breaks, and remember to take that bottle with me to more places than the office…
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What is your go-to portable water container? How have you successfully made drinking water throughout the day a habit? Has your household gone through a lot of different water bottles, too? Would love to know others’ experiences. Please leave a comment below! I know that many of those past water bottles I tried have been improved over the years so would love to know if you’ve had experience with any of those, too.