Wait?!? Ice Water is Bad For Me?

As a goal to meet the summer heat and get healthier, a few of us at Elite Storage in Lafayette, CO bade goodbye to our beloved vices of soft drinks and decided to switch to water. To make things interesting, we put a little wager on the line. Not that I’m competitive or anything in this type of thing, but I was determined to win. I knew that my diet soda habit was not healthy, but when my child started calling soda, “Mommy’s brown milk” as I’d load my favorite beverage out of the shopping buggy and onto the conveyer belt, I knew that I had a problem. The last time that this happened, I tried to look the cashier in the eye – yep, the one time that I didn’t do self-checkout, and my mind began racing with a desire to kick the habit, although at this point, it might have been better labeled an addiction.

Get the right supplies

OK, this might sound strange, but I knew that my one downfall would be having access to cold water. I just can’t stand stale, lukewarm water at all. I must have looked at a million stainless steel water bottles to find the one that would work for me. I activated the Google ads and every single time I turned on a device, I was seeing water bottles!

Finally, and thankfully, I bought one for $6 at a big-box store, thinking that I’d fill it with ice water and test it. It worked beautifully and kept my water cold, holding ice for over 24 hours, even in this heat. I recommend a 17-24 oz double walled stainless steel water bottle as they fit well in cup holders and are not too heavy when full.

My daily routine involves filling the water bottle with ice cubes and water at the end of each day and letting it chill overnight. When I awaken, I have cold water to drink and still some ice cubes. This stays cold all day and I love it!

One evening, when I was filling my bottle with crushed ice at a local gas station, I was firmly rebuked by a woman telling me that I was destroying my body and making myself fat (filters anyone?) by consuming ice water. Besides the obvious lack of social appropriateness, I wondered if there was anything to this claim, knowing that if I found something, I’d head right back to my soda.

Is cold water bad for your health/making you fat?

This appears to be a case of Western medicine vs. Eastern medicine. There is a branch of Indian medicine called Ayurvedic Medicine. They teach claim is that drinking cold water is a shock to the body and can throw your metabolism and digestion off. Sure, that might be the case, but there is no proven study that I could find – hang on whilst I sip my super cold ice water here – that supports this claim scientifically. It appears this woman, to appear the more educated threw out some fat shaming and mixed it with some fancy-has-to-be-right-because-it-comes-from-a-different-culture theories.

I did find that a doctor in the US claims that the ideal temperature to consuming water is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t know what temperature my water is, but I do know that I’ve kicked the habit and feel better drinking water. My soda even tastes kind of nasty now. Imagine!

As for the competition, I am pleased to report that it was a perfect tie and all of us here at our Lafayette, CO storage facility are soda free.