Water

I am trying desperately to increase my water intake and I have found the solution! Flavor infused water. Don't get me wrong I like plain water. I could drink it out of the tap, I'm not picky. I just have a hard time actually grabbing a cup filling it and drinking it. So I decided to make infused water to motivate me to drink. I got the idea to make naturally infused water on a recent trip to Trader Joe's. By their sample station they had a big hug filled with orange and strawberry slices. I, of course, sampled it. It had a light orange flavor with a hint of strawberry aftertaste. So I ran back over to the fruit and grabbed an orange, I had just gotten strawberries from the farmer's market. The secret to making it look pretty when making fruit infused water is ice! Loads and loads of ice. In hindsight, I would have filled the whole container with ice.

Step one: Cut up orange and strawberries. At this point I realized I didn't have enough orange so I cut up a lemon as well.

Step two: Put a layer of ice in your container depending on the height of your container. I put about two inches because I used a big container. 

Step three: Add a layer of sliced strawberries around the outside of the container creating a circle with the slices flat against the glass, to make it pretty.  :)

Step four: Add more ice behind the layer of strawberries, just about an inch of ice. 

Step five: Add a layer of oranges or lemons in the same manner as step three, to make it pretty. I alternated lemons and oranges to give a little extra visual appeal. 

Step six: Add more ice to the top of the orange or lemon slices.

Step seven: Repeat steps 3-6 if you want to. I stopped here. 

Step eight: Fill the rest of the container with ice and then fill in with water. 

Step nine: Drink and enjoy!

I think the number one motivating factor to drink it all, for me, is to drink it all before the fruit goes bad. It's working! I drank half of the container which I believe is almost 2 gallons!