I keep a 16 oz. water bottle at my desk and in my car. I also have a separate shaker bottle with a 24 oz. capacity that I use for making hot green tea using loose tea leaves in a tea ball. Finally, I keep a regular size coffee cup at my desk. I pour in whatever mix of water and green tea I feel like at the moment. The tea is hot, and the water is cold, so depending on whether I’m freezing from the A/C or warm from a lunch break walk, I can regulate the temperatures of my drinks. As soon as the coffee cup is empty, I pour more water or tea into it, and I fill my larger bottles about twice per work day for a total of 10 cups while I’m at the office.

I usually get my 16+ cups of water and green tea in by doing the following:

- 1 cup as soon as I wake up to get me ready to workout
- 2-3 cups during my AM workout
- 3 cups with breakfast
- 1 cup on the drive to work
- 1 cup water with 11 am snack
- 1 cup green tea + 2 cups water with lunch
- 1 cup green tea + 1 cup water with 3:30 pm snack
- 1 cup green tea + 2 cups water with dinner
- 2 cups water with 9:30 pm snack

Yes, I COULD just drink out of the bottles directly, but I find that it’s psychologically helpful to use the smaller cup because it’s a lot easier to chug down the contents of a 10 oz. mug 2-3 times during a meal than it is to face the daunting task of finishing a big 24-30 oz. container. Ever notice how much thirstier you seem to be at a restaurant when you only get a small water glass than when you get a huge bladder-buster 32 oz. mega-cup? You probably need multiple refills of that 8-12 oz. glass during your meal, but rarely drink more than half of that 32 oz. cup, right?

The human brain is not always very logical.