A new habit I picked up recently is drinking warm lemon water before eating breakfast. I squeeze half a lemon into a small glass mason jar, fill half with warm water and the rest with room temperature water. If I can’t make warm water quick, I just use all room temperature water.
I’m not sure I notice any health benefits, but it is nice to drink. Drinking lemon juice is also a good way to get antioxidants from the Vitamin C, which can only come from food.
Some of the reported health benefits of drinking lemon water include:
- Acidity helps improve digestion
- Citric acid helps prevent kidney stones
- Helps with hydration
- Calcium and potassium in lemons help lower blood pressure
- Vitamin C in lemons helps improve skin appearance
- Helps balance pH which will help relieve chronic pain, improve bone health and protect against disease
- Helps with healthy aging based on a study conducted with mice, which found giving them lemon increased their lifespan.
- Helps improve heart health
Apparently adding olive oil to lemon water will increase the health benefits even more. Some benefits of olive oil include improving heart health. I’ve just started doing this with a small amount of olive and am working my way up to a tablespoon. I’m not sure I like it as well as plain lemon water, but if it helps, it’s worth a try. Just make sure to use a good quality olive oil as mentioned in this previous post. Also, keep an eye on your cholesterol levels as too much olive oil could cause an increase.
Challenge:
Give drinking lemon water a try. Squeeze half a lemon into a glass cup. Fill the rest with warm or room temperature water. Drink it first thing in the morning before eating.
TO up it a notch, try adding a little bit of good quality extra virgin olive oil and work up to 1 tablespoon.
Resources:
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/benefits-of-lemon-water
https://www.livescience.com/lemon-water-benefits
https://draxe.com/nutrition/benefits-of-lemon-water/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6403313/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5452232/
https://www.livestrong.com/article/475782-the-healing-benefits-of-olive-oil-lemon/