H2WOOOOOAHH

Oh man, I'm so corny...but you love it. Otherwise, you wouldn't keep coming back to read my blog. Thank you by the way!

Okay, so let's talk the Best You Challenge. Remember, every month we will complete a 21 Day challenge in order to continue striving for that best version of ourselves. This month, we did a Morning Routine Challenge.

The process

Tomorrow is the last day of our Morning Routine challenge where we chose three actions that would help us have better morning and ultimately, a more productive day. We wrote our three actions down and placed them next to our beds. Than we set our alarm clocks and for the last twenty days have been hustling early in the morning so that our days would be that much brighter.

My goals

1. To mediate

2. To read

3. To write

I started off calling this my #PowerHour, but soon after the challenge started, I realized my power hour would be more of a #power90. I started reading the Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, a 12 week guide to tapping into your creative self on a deeper and spiritual level. This book calls for me to do three pages of journaling a day. 3 pages may not seem like a lot, but it ended up being harder than I thought. I'm finding it's getting easier as I'm on week 4, but still time consuming.

Final Thoughts

I've honestly felt a lot more creative and energetic when I started driving in the morning. Usually it takes a couple of rides to wake up, but now I'm awake and ready to handle whatever my passengers throw at me.

I have found myself a lot more tired at night, which is good though, because I'm going to bed full and feeling like I've conquered the world.

I will definitely keep this going even after I finish The Artists Way. However, I'd like to add on two more actions:

1. 30 minutes of working out

2. Breakfast

I'll keep you all updated on the progress of this!

Final Thoughts from the Phorbe Community

Unfortunately, there were no Phorbe Queens willing to take on our Morning Routine Challenge. But I have faith for June's challenge we will at least get 1. We're still a very new community of up and coming queens...and some of us are tad bit shy. Don't worry...we'll get to that place where we all feel more comfortable with each other!

June's Best You Challenge

June marks the beginning of Summer and with Summer comes more heat and with more heat comes more Sun. It's so important to stay hydrated every day of your life, but even more so during the summer. We can't have that hot sun suck the life out of you, your skin, or your complexion. So for June's Best You challenge we are committing to drinking plenty of water every day!

How much water you ask?

Half of our body weight in ounces. Yep, you heard me right! Take however much you weigh, divide that in half, and drink that number of ounces every day.

How do you join?

Because there are only 30 days in June, this challenge will begin on June 10th. Remember, each challenge will run for 21 days because that's exactly how long it takes for most people to either form a good habit or break a bad habit.

On June 10th, I will post a photo of the challenge (see above). If you're ready to reach a better you by drinking water every day, than comment "I'm in" on that post. You can also comment I'm in on this blog post below.

After you join, calculate how much water you need to drink every day. Print out the flyer above and post it on your refrigerator. Don't forget to write in your goal ounces at the bottom. Then drink!

Every few days, I'll post again asking all Queens to check in for accountability. Make sure to look out for those check ins, because you could end up winning a free giveaway!

That's a lot of water Queen Maree, do you have any Tips?

Why, I'm so glad you asked! Peep my tips to help make this easier below!

1. Choose the right water

So by now you know my adorable Big Brother Big Sister Little Aaliyah.

Well, she's obsessed with this youtuber Roy, who runs the Guava Juice channel. Well Roy, recently did an experiment to test out the most popular waters out there to see if they were safe enough to drink. Some water companies put a lot of chemicals in their water that ups the acidic levels. The more acidic water is the more you shouldn't drink it. Peep his video below:

I'm happy to report that my favorite water, Fiji water, made the cut! Woohoo!!!

2. Add a little Flavor Flave

Have you ever gone to the spa and had a nice refreshing glass of water with floating fruit in it? Well they say that "Infused" water is a natural Gatorade and actually does wonders for your health. I started doing this because I don't like to drink water. I like the kick and taste of Mt. Dew more. But I need to drink water if I want to flush out all of that sugar. I'm also in the middle of my weight loss journey and drinking water is the easiest thing to do to loose weight. I found an article on Queen Tamera Mowry Mousley's (half of Sister Sister) blog that gave me a great mint recipe. I later found on Tia Mowry Hardicts Facebook page that starting your day with lemon water is a great way to jump start your metabolism for the day and loose weight. Now, every morning I have water with lemon and apple cider vinegar. If I'm home in the afternoon, I might add some strawberries, lemon, and basil to my water. And I finish the night off with a refreshing glass of straight lemon water.

There are so many different recipes to try that are all super delicious. Pintrest is great for this. Either way, experiment and find a recipe that has your water tasting so great that you won't even believe your drinking water!

3. Set Reminders

This one is easy, set a few alarms on your phone with the title "Drink Water" to remind you throughout the day to keep drinking water.

There's also dozens of free apps for both Iphone and Android that allow you to track your water intake daily and send you little reminders to drink more water.

4.Trick yoself before you wreck yoself

When I was still working as an Adminstrative Assistant, I had a 1 liter. Fiji bottle that I would just refill every day. On the side I had wrote, with a sharpie, all of the best girl groups from worst (starting at the top) to greatest, Destiny's Child, on the bottom. I split up Destiny's child into all of it's five members great (Farrah) to greatest (Queen Bey) at the very bottom. This way, if I wanted to end the day off as Beyonce, I needed to finish the whole liter.

I've seen this trick in many different variations. Choose which works best for you and run with it!

5. 1 Glass Here, and 1 Glass There, Here a Glass, There a Glass, Everywhere we Have a Glass

An easy way to knock out your water intake for the day is to form a habit of drinking one glass when you wake up, one with each meal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and one glass before you go to bed.

BONUS: Recycle! Recycle! Recycle!

Should you not have access to clean tap water or a water cooler at work and have to purchase water bottles, don't forget to recycle. A great incentive to help you remember to recycle is to save your water bottles in a trash bag and when that bag is full, sale them to a nearby recycling center. You won't get much, but securing the bag has never been easier.

I hope you all will embark on this journey with me. It's a struggle to drink my water every day. Hopefully with you Queens going at it with me, it'll get easier.

It's a great day to conquer the world. So go forth and slay!

-Queen Maree

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MAY 30, 2018