Back to Basics Mini-Series: Hydration Hacks to Kickstart Your Year

Fed up with being told to make big promises on January 1st that barely make it past the first week? Same here. That’s why we’re flipping the script with a no-fuss, no-fluff Back to Basics Mini-Series to set you up for success this January—starting with hydration. 

Forget grand resolutions and complicated plans. We’re keeping it simple, practical, and (dare we say) fun! In this first episode, we’re diving into the often-overlooked hero of health: hydration. Learn how to find a hydration routine that works for your lifestyle, what actually counts toward your daily intake (no, it’s not just water!), and how staying hydrated can set the stage for better energy, cravings, sleep, and more.

So grab your tumbler, mug, or trusty water bottle, and let’s kick off the year refreshed, recharged, and ready to thrive—one sip at a time.


References

Download Dr. Rentea’s FREE Resource: Power Picks for Metabolic Health

My recommended timer: AVINIA digital timer


Audio Stamps

00:30 - Dr. Rentea’s "Back to Basics" mini-series for January will offer simple strategies for fat loss, blood sugar control, better sleep, and improved fitness.

02:10 - Building habits slowly, using Atomic Habits principles like small improvements and pairing habits, leads to lasting change.

04:00 - Simple routines and core habits like walking, hydration, and nutrition drive sustainable success.

08:07 - Learn which fluids count toward hydration and problems caused by excessive caffeine consumption.

10:30 - Dr. Rentea shares her baseline for daily hydration, helping you start with a manageable goal to support fat loss and prevent mistaking thirst for hunger.

12:09 - We hear tips for finding a hydration routine that works for you and how to adjust it if something isn’t working.


Quotes

“The biggest mistake I see people make is that they change too many things at once.”

“You always want to come back to the most basic, most simple way to get something done.”

“If you spent this year hammering down your hydration habit for a few months, then hammering down the protein habit, then hammering down the fiber habit, you're no longer shocked by any scenario.”

“Every ounce of hydration counts. The protein drink you have, count those ounces. The coffee that you have, count those. If you have a Diet Coke, count those.”

“It does

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

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Transcript

0:28

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast today. I thought it would be really fun if we kick off this new year's with a back to basic series. So over the month of January, what I thought is let's not get complicated. Let's not talk about things that are too hard to accomplish and weigh in the weeds. Let's bring it all together. All the way back to one on one basics that you need when you're working on intentional fat loss, if you're working on blood sugar management so your urges and cravings are not through the roof, if you're working on decreasing your hunger levels, maybe even improving your sleep, if you're wanting to maybe be fitter. Fit and you're working on increasing your time that you're running or speed, things like that. Honestly, what is always the case, it's back to basics. So I think back to the book Atomic Habits, I think we talk about it pretty much every episode, So again, we will always link in the show notes. If you have not checked it out yet, we always have the link to all of this. What's really fun is I finally created a resource that has all these recommendations in one place. If you go to rentiaclinic. com and you click on resources right at the top of the page, we have sort of my, my top picks for metabolic health. There's books that I recommend, protein powders, supplements, supplements, tracking apps, water tracking apps. Like there's so many different things that I think are useful tools that I use with my patients and coaching clients and we have it all in one free resource. That's a good opportunity to get that. Also if you want to be updated the different things that we're doing from a podcast standpoint, from a different programs that we're offering, stuff like that, that's a really good way to. sort of get into our universe. We'll have the link to that in the show notes, or again, you can go to rentierclinic. com and click on resources. It's right at the top of the page. Okay. So in Atomic Habits, he talks about this, this Olympic cycling team. I can't remember what country they were from. Was it the US? I can't remember. And he talks about how they were just horrendous as far as where they were placement wise. And a new coach gets in and this coach wants to, you know, So this cycling coach just starts to look at one thing after another that they can improve. So first they changed the tires on the bike and then they changed the pillows that they slept on when they were going to competitions and competing. And they kept changing one thing after another. And this team went on to win just repeated again and again and again. And the reason I bring this up is that. People, the biggest mistake that I see people make is that they change too many things at once. Especially when it's the beginning of the year and you're listening to this. I like to kind of go against the grain. I don't want you to have to hear another episode where there's some big New Year's resolution that you're setting. I think I looked at the statistics the other day and, 8 percent of people, 8 percent will only have kept that goal by the end of the year. And I think it was six out of 10 people are actually setting a New Year's resolution. So my goal for you is more that we think about what are habits that we want to put in place and that we slowly work on those. And this is really with atomic habits where you look at, okay, how can I. Stack habits together, meaning something that I'm already doing. Can I put something else with it? So I remember it. So for example, I was talking to a patient the other day and if they're doing the walk every day, can we right away after do the strength training just to kind of pair the two together because context switching is really hard. So if you're in the middle of a busy work day, you're not suddenly going to go then and lift weights. That's very hard for most people. If we can start to. And it's called habit stacking. These are things that psychologically help us to actually start to bring these habits into our life. And the other thing that I always recommend is you always want to come back to the most basic, the most simple way to get something done. I want to give an example from my own life, and then we're going to I'm going to talk more about, we're going to talk about water today. Okay. We're going to talk about hydration and stay with me because you know, none of us have this down. We'll get it for a minute and then we kind of lax on it and then we have to kind of work on it again. So within my business, I have a lot of different things, right? So I have my clinic and then I have different coaching programs that I do in a small group, things like that. And there's actually a lot of aspects between all these programs, things that, that webinars that I need to prepare. groups that I'm doing, questions that I'm answering, podcasts that I'm making. There's a lot that's going on. And you know, what's interesting is things can get out of hand very quickly as far as how much is needed from me. And I don't have enough time, like period. We are the, the greatest resource that the two greatest resources that we have in life. It's our time and it's our health. That's, those are the two things I think. So if you think about it, what, what do people usually value the most if we're in good health and we're around people that we love and we're doing things that we love with the time that we have, but those are usually the two things. So I really have to watch out to always continually come back to, can I optimize this in a better way? It's not about being more productive, how can I get more done, it's, how can I simplify this? What means the most? What's the most impact that this person needs? What's going to get them the result that they need? It's actually not 50 modules. It's actually 5, 10 minute modules that are very strategically thought of where I keep trying to refine down what's actually in them so that they can get the most information the quickest. This is one of the biggest differences with my clinic, we're going into year 3 now, is that in the beginning I had the, I mean I liked it all and we still have a lot of it, but it was a really long process. Foundations course that people could go through and that still exists. But what I realized is I wanted to much quicker when someone came into the clinic, say, Hey, just watch these, four or five videos. They're all under 10 minutes. Watch this first. And that will tell you pretty much all the things I think you're going to encounter in the answers to them. And you will have that crash course, that blueprint. I want you to start there and then you're going to have this huge, you're going to be well ahead of the curve and then we're going to keep troubleshooting and working through things. But I wanted it to be really efficient. Notice it was actually the opposite of what I started with, which was so much information I had. I distilled it down. That comes with mastery is that you, you, you make it less what's there, actually. So it's more effective. I want you to start to think through what is it that actually moves the needle for me. When you think about it, it's usually only a few things. I talk about this all the time for me. It's hydration. Protein and fiber intake and movement. Now that sounds super extensive, but for me, it's as simple as, I take my walk every morning. Literally, I say come hell or high water, I take that walk. The only reason I'm not going to walk is if I'm having a bronchitis flare where I can't breathe, or there's mucus coming up to the point where I couldn't do a slow walk. So there's very little reasons I'm not going to get that walk in. And literally a kid can be sick in bed next to me. I'll pace back and forth two, three steps. I don't care. There is no obstacle. I need no equipment. We can be at a hotel. I can walk back and forth up and down the floor. I've got no shame anymore. I'm gonna get that walk in. If I get that walk, and then I get hydration, just some water that day, get that protein drink in, front load my protein during the day, get that egg in in the morning, do those things, I'm pretty much golden the rest of the day. The rest of the day is going to happen great. So what we're doing in this series, Back to Basics, we're really breaking it down to when I do these simple things, I get the best results. You can always get more complicated as you become a master of it. If you spent the next year, so I always say, the next year. You spent this year hammering down your hydration habit for a few months, then hammering down the protein habit, then hammering down the fiber habit. You, you, you hammer these things down. You're no longer shocked by any scenario. So today, the main focus is going to be on hydration. Now, I always want to say water intake, but I want to use the term hydration more broadly because here's the deal. Anything counts. anything, even if it has caffeine in it. Now, this is different than what I used to teach. So alert, this has changed if you follow me for a long time. I used to say, look, if it has caffeine in it, that doesn't count. And so for every caffeinated beverage, I want you to have two to balance it out. I saw a study, And that's no longer true. So, it's a very small amount of dehydration. What I mean is extra fluid that's going out when you have a caffeinated beverage compared to not. Now, what I do know though is that if you're having a ton of caffeinated things, caffeine is sort of an appetite suppressant and kind of not only appetite, but also hydration. I find that if you're sitting there and having a venti, meaning a, a 20 plus ounce coffee, your desire to want other things is very low. And so what I find is that when people are doing a lot of caffeinated beverages, number one, they're getting worse heartburn, they're getting gastritis, meaning they're getting stomach pain, there's a bunch of, you know, they're, they're increased anxiety and palpitations. And, and by the way, I'm just here to share that as you're getting older, your body's not as happy with caffeine anymore. So I can't tell you how often in the past when I did primary care, so many patients when they're older, we'll get AFib or arrhythmias, meaning the heart doing different beats and rhythms compared to what it should be doing. Honestly, one of the easiest culprits to get rid of is caffeine intake. And I know that it's not fun, trust me, I get it. I want my caffeine too. And that was such a thing that really had to change in the past when I had to get rid of that. I have let go of saying, hey, that that doesn't count and you have to double up the hydration. Just be aware if you're having an 8 ounce coffee and then you have no desire the rest of the morning until 1, 2, 3 to have any liquids. That's where the problem comes in. Okay, so every Every ounce of hydration counts. The protein drink you have, count those ounces. The coffee that you have, count those. If you have a diet Coke, count those. If you have a soup, that's hydration too. If you're someone that actually has a very whole based food diet, meaning nutrition that you're following, you're actually probably getting a lot of great hydration and just as is. All of that counts. I want you to add all of that up. Typically. Again, nothing on here is medical advice. This is just in general, typically for the average person, I want at least 64 ounces, if not more. Now you can do fun calculations, right? So I really like, the app water llama. Again, if you get that resource, the top 10 kind of categories, all the things I recommend, we have the link to that app. We'll leave the link in the show notes. If you want to get that, Dr. Antia's Metabolic Power Picks, but if you go on Water Llama, you're gonna put, you know, your weight and all that, and they're gonna give you a number that they recommend. But a lot of you, you're not anywhere near that to begin with. So let's start in the realm of reality. Can we start with 64 ounces? Again, assuming that you don't have a heart failure and you have a fluid restriction. Assuming that you don't have kidney disease, liver disease, or some type of a condition where you have a fluid restriction, meaning the doctor has told you don't have over XYZ amount of hydration per day. So please listen to your doctor, right? This is general information. But most people need to increase their hydration and hydration matters because when you're sitting there, let's say intentionally losing fat, you actually need to get rid of all these things in the body. And hydration is a way that is going to help to Speed that process, not speed it. That's the wrong term. It's going to help to move that process along. It's going to help you also to not get confused if you are hungry instead of dehydrated. So for example, a lot of people, if you're dehydrated, your body wants something and sometimes the signaling kind of gets messed up. So you think, oh, I'm going to sit here and eat something, but you really don't realize you just. So, a good baseline, I always feel like if we, if you felt like you're quote unquote off track, which I hate that term, because in health, remember, it's a little pendulum that's swinging back and forth. There's no perfection here. If you had to think, hey, I kind of want to get back on track. I want to do this thing again. Sometimes that's We don't need to start with the hardest thing, which is I need all the best protein options in the house and all the fibers and everyone else needs to stop buying this stuff in the house. And you're looking at all the problems. Let's start focusing on the solutions. Can you get your hydration in today? Just today, just today. What does today look like? So when you're trying to get your hydration in, We need to look every day at what that day looks like. Some of you have split schedules. So some days you're in the office, some days you're working virtually. Okay, the days you're working virtually, probably you got that. I mean, some of you, you know, I need to put a picture in the show notes when we do this. I have three Stanley's next to me right now. Well, actually, I lie. Two of these are, what's the brand? Anyway, they're metal tumblers is the point. Two are filled with water and one is my protein coffee. Okay, so it's all by me, and for me, I've just trained myself, I have about 30 minute follow up, 30 minute follow up appointments, and I make sure at least between every single one that I'm drinking a bunch. Look at what your day looks like and then I want you to strategize. Do I need to bring a big gallon thing with me to work? Is there somewhere at work that I can get it? Do I need to set alarm reminders on my phone? Do I need to get a little timer thing? I'm really a fan of these, these timers that you can keep on the desk where you can kind of dial it to 30 minutes, 45 minutes, whatever it is you're doing. And you could, maybe it just, it alarms and it lets you know, hey, it's time to drink. Do we need to keep it in the car? Do we need to keep it in your bag? What do we need to do to up this for you? Do we need to flavor it? Some people, that's the only way they're getting more in. I don't care. Do we need to make it coconut water? However, you need to get this hydration in and we start to see, does it need to be little sips? Can we do more like, 10 ounces at a time and 20 ounces at a time. I have a friend, she knocks down 20 ounces in the morning, I would die. I would feel waterlogged. I can't do all that much at once. It just doesn't feel good for me. I want you to look at how can I get the hydration in? Am I getting the hydration in? And really hammer home this before you do the next thing, you will feel better. You will get further along your journey and it doesn't need to be painful. If it keeps falling off, it means that the system isn't right for you. So I want you then to mix it up what you're doing. I want you to find other things that you can incorporate in there. So when I'm talking to people, I'll give an example. So one of my patients, they're working, they were working from home and they even have the drinks next to them, but they're forgetting. So that's when we said, Hey, can you get this little timer, I'll see if I can find one on Amazon that's similar to what I got. Of course, the one I got years ago here was, it was like a Instagram ad. And it was something like, even, you know, the CEO uses this and, and I'll tell you why I like the ones on the desk that you use where you kind of just turn the dial and you use it. I find if I use my phone, I immediately get sucked into social media or Facebook. Checking my email or checking something else. And remember, I feel like we should do a whole episode on productivity. Well, let me know, let me know in the fan mail, if you want to hear about this. Or let me, or tag me on social, if you want to hear about it. But when we're talking about, when we say productivity, I hate that term. Cause it implies you have to do more and more. What I mean by that is we need to decrease distractions. And so to me. I like a timer that exists on its own so that we don't get sucked into a phone. Any opportunity where I can put my phone down and not check it, I'm going to take advantage of it. So if you need a reminder like that, this patient had it next to them, worked remotely, didn't even have meetings or anything where they're physically sitting there talking to someone. But they would just forget because they would get so engrossed in their work, which is normal. By the way, that is normal for us as a human to be focused on something and not be thinking every two minutes that we're getting in water. So what we tried as a goal, we said, Hey, can we Set this alarm for every hour, okay, you know, you get a sip of water, maybe that's when you take a five minute walk, and then again you work, and there's a lot of evidence behind that too, that none of us are necessarily working amazingly for hours and hours on end. Usually we work best with a 45 minute period, a little bit of a break, and then kind of coming back to it, but that's a whole other conversation. So the main thing I want to get to here is, do you have a practice in hydrating consistently? Do we need to change the hydration practice, does it not involve electrolytes and we want to start to bring those in? Is it something where you find, I'm up all night peeing. Okay let's scale back how much hydration you're doing at night. Can we focus it more in the morning? If you're someone that's traveling a lot, let's work on that. So what are times that could work better? Is it when you arrive at that location? Is it, could we actually hydrate during the plane and say, you know what? I'm just going to go to the bathroom. Yes. I'm going to go to the bathroom on the plane. We need to think through different strategies and just troubleshoot the easy things. And really figure out what needs to work for me to get this done. And every time I try to complicate it, think, no, what's the easiest version? What's the easiest version here? How can I pare it back? How can I make sure that this happens today? And then I'll worry about the next day when it comes. Because every day is going to look different. I talk to so many patients per day and their life, just like mine, no two days are the same. And that's beautiful, right? None of us want to live in a, in a horrible world where every day is Groundhog Day. And so that's beautiful. And yet it presents the human challenge of having to figure it out. So what I want you to focus on this week, this back to basics week, join me this month, each week, let's brush up on something this week being hydration. So let me know how your hydration goals are going. I think it would be amazing if you took a screenshot of this podcast, share with me on social, a picture of you hydrating or the biggest thing that impacted you this episode. I want to see your hydration system. Tell me about it. Tag me on Instagram stories or. whatever social media that you're on and I want to hear about it. I really want to know how you're doing on that. Again, if you want to check out this resource where I have sort of the top 10 areas with the books that I recommend, the protein powders, the people are always asking me about supplements and what programs for doing strength training, things like that. I put it all into one resource because people were always emailing me and I just wanted to have it in one place. We are going to keep updating this, which is really exciting. When we do update it, if you've gotten it in the past, we'll sort of periodically every so many months, re send it out just so that you can, can get that if you're on our email list. And so again, you can go to Rentia Clinic, R E N T E A, rentiaclinic. com. You click on resources and right at the top there, you can get the free resource book for Dr. Rentia's Power Picks for Metabolic Health. All right. I hope you have an amazing start to the year. Every year just flies by and we end up in a new one. And so we have to take advantage of. doing simple things because then we end up in a radically different place at the end of the year. I hope you have an amazing start to the year and we will talk soon.