SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

Tom discusses how increasing his water intake dramatically improved his health—particularly eliminating his debilitating back pain. Although hydration might seem unrelated to business, Tom argues that feeling physically well is essential to productivity and entrepreneurial success.
________________________________________
Key Takeaways:
• Personal Health Experience:
o Tom suffered from lower back pain and sciatica after decades of working while seated.
o Despite trying better posture, new chairs, and exercises, the pain persisted.
o Within one day of increasing his water intake (averaging ~101 oz/day), the pain vanished—and hasn’t returned in 20 days.
• Spinal Health Insight:
o Spinal discs rehydrate during sleep, but this process fails if you’re dehydrated.
o Consistent daily hydration is necessary—drinking a lot of water right before bed doesn’t work.
• Additional Benefits of Hydration (as cited from Healthline):
o Improves brain function, memory, and energy levels.
o Reduces headaches (47% of chronic headache sufferers reported improvement).
o Helps prevent kidney stones and constipation.
o Aids in weight loss by making you feel fuller and possibly boosting metabolism.
o Improves skin clarity and moisture.
o May reduce symptoms of hangovers (Tom can’t vouch—he’s allergic to alcohol).
________________________________________
Practical Hydration Tips from Tom:
• Tracking Intake:
o He uses a 22 oz water bottle (refilled several times) rather than a bulky jug.
o Uses “Ranger beads” (like paracord counters) to track how many bottles he’s consumed.
o Recommends small mental tricks to build consistency.
• Celtic Salt Tip:
o Adds a pinch of Celtic salt before drinking water to help cellular absorption.
o Carries a small container in his car for convenience.
________________________________________
Final Thoughts:
• Tom emphasizes he is not offering medical advice, only sharing personal experience.
• He encourages listeners to research the benefits of hydration themselves.
• Hydration, he says, is a cheap and safe self-help tool with no real downside.
________________________________________
Other Mentions:
• His mentor program: greatinternetmarketingtraining.com
• His accredited digital marketing school: IMTCVA.org
• Episode 1007 was about Google’s automated ad system (Performance Max).
• Free automation e-book available: screwthecommute.com/automatefree

===

Episode 1008 - Hydration
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1008 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about something a little bit, you might say, it's off topic of business, Tom. No it isn't. All right. We're going to talk about hydration. It's done wonders for me. And as little as 20 days up in my hydration. Uh, got rid of my back pain. Uh, which is what I'm kind of talking about today, but there's so many other benefits of being hydrated. And that's what we're going to talk about. And, you know, you can't do your business if you're hurting all the time. All right. Hope you didn't miss episode 1007. That was on Google ad system. This is an automated system that I kind of warn you about it, but it could be valuable to you if you pay attention to it. All right. Pick up a copy of our automation e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and version three is out. And if you have version two, get rid of it and take version three. Go to screwthecommute.com/automatefree and then for back episodes, anytime you want to get to a back episodes, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash, then the episode number. Google Max was 1007. And you also might, if you're interested in these training videos or excuse me, training episodes, then if you go screwthecommute.com/training, then that's all straight training.

[00:01:58] It's not interviews. And we have another 500 interviews that you can listen to on the homepage. Okay, now I gotta give a disclaimer here. I Tom Antion am not giving medical advice on this episode. I would be the last person you'd want to get medical advice from, that's for sure. Okay, let's talk about dehydration and why I'm thinking about it. Well, I've been 31 years now online, and most of it's sitting in front of a computer or multiple screens. I have as many as four screens in my one office, and I used to sit in an easy chair with a laptop for years, and it finally started to take its toll. I had low back pain and sciatica. And you do not want this. You know, I've been a moose my whole life with. No, no, none of that kind of stuff. And. And now it's, uh. It hit me. And so they did an MRI, and they gave me exercises and pain pills, and I'm practicing better posture. And I got a different chair, and I pick up things off the ground in a different way. So, yeah, I've done a lot of different things to help out this situation. And all of it had some effect and was good things that I should be doing, except the pain pills. I do not like to take any kind of pills other than supplements, but as I started having this pain, I started learning more about your back.

[00:03:38] And in this case, I learned that during the day, of course, you're walking around and your disc or the pads in between your discs get smashed Mashed together, closer together because of your weight. And you're standing vertically. And then supposedly at nighttime, they're supposed to rehydrate and expand back to keep your discs from rubbing together and pinching your nerves and all this stuff. Well, when you're dehydrated, that doesn't happen. And so they just keep getting smashed and smashed and smashed. Okay, so that's not good. So I thought, okay, you know, I've always heard hydration is good for you. And I don't really have any mental fog or lack of energy by any means, but but there's all these benefits that I'll get to in a minute, but I want to tell you about what I did with hydration on June 9th, which was 20 days ago from the time I'm recording this. I started keeping track of my water intake. I'm going to show you the the tips and tricks I'm using like mental things to to make sure I get it done a little later. And that amount of time. I've had 2026 oz of water in 20 days, which averaged one 101.3 oz per day. Now that doesn't count some milk that I had and the water you get out of food.

[00:05:15] But it's it's kind of a ridiculous thing to try to track that stuff. But this ounces of water you can track. Exactly. And since then, I have had no pain whatsoever in my back. Now I still practice better posture and a better chair that I'm sitting in, and I'm still careful picking stuff up, but it was a crap shoot before that. On if I twist a certain way I'd be walking like an old geezer the rest of the day, and then I'd have to go lay down and and rest and Stand and cry like a baby. And the worst of this I was screaming like a baby. It was so, so bad. So. Nothing. None. No pain whatsoever. All right. So besides back pain, you might say. Well, I don't have any back pain. Well, you know, I don't know how long you've been sitting in front of this computer or, you know, your weight and you know your exercise level. I don't know any of that stuff. And again, I'm not giving any medical advice, but there's a whole bunch of benefits to hydration besides that thing. I'm telling you, with the the discs being able to be rehydrated while you sleep. If you try to drink all the water at night before you go to bed, you'll be going to the bathroom all night and you still won't get rehydrated.

[00:06:37] You have to do this on a consistent basis. Okay, so let's talk about some of the benefits of hydration. Now some of the studies I'm going to talk about here I got from a company called Healthline. And the reason I'm not, as I'm always skeptical about medical studies because they're financed by people wanting to sell you supplements and drugs and everything else. So the reason I'm not as skeptical of these studies is because they're just telling you to drink more water. Okay. So unless the water companies are behind it, I don't know. So anyway, this is from Healthline, but you can type in to Google the benefits of hydration. And there are hundreds and hundreds of places that talk about this kind of stuff. So and there are no particular order but drinking water to the proper levels for your size and weight. And there's, you know, there's I don't want to tell you how much, but I'm drinking close to a gallon a day and I don't have a super high workout level. Like, if I was like when I used to be in football, I mean, that's one gallon wouldn't have been enough. But anyway, even as little as a -2% of your your water weight in your body, it reduced your ability to control your temperature, your body, it reduced the motivation that you have and increased your fatigue just as little as 2%.

[00:08:08] Then a lot of people talk about your brain function because there's so much water up there. Water on the brain, I guess, right. Your brain function and energy levels. So they say as little as 1.6%. Dehydration of your cells can mess up with your memory. Plus, it's known to contribute to anxiety and fatigue. So that's brain function and energy levels. Another study they did, 47% of the people that had chronic Headaches, said there was a great improvement in it when they drank a lot of water. 47%. It's supposed to help with if you have constipation problems. Now this next one. Kidney stones. I've had them twice and they are not fun, let me tell you. Oh my goodness, they are not fun at all. So water is supposed to help help with that too. And I don't know how that's going to go because it's been a long time since I had them. So hopefully they didn't grow back and they're waiting to get me again. Now, this is one thing I have zero experience with and that is hangovers. See, alcohol dehydrates you. It's liquid, but it's it's a dehydrating thing. And supposedly drinking a lot of water will help with hangovers. Now, I can't vouch for that because I'm allergic to alcohol. Hi. And this is, you know, if I ever get stopped and they want to say, well, you look a little glassy eyed.

[00:09:45] What are you drinking? You know, it's highly documented in all my medical records that I'm allergic to alcohol, so I'm never going to get a DUI. Uh. Let's see. Um. Weight loss. Now, this is another one I have personal experience with. I lost £50 one time. And only by increasing the water to up to the maximum levels. And, uh, supposedly, if you do it, like, an hour before you eat is the best. And so it makes you feel more full, you eat less calories. And then also supposedly it increases your metabolic rate so that you burn more calories. And then a lot of people say that it has increased the clear clearness of their skin. I don't really have trouble with acne a lot of young people might do, but supposedly their skin is much less or much better. Um, I don't know. Moister. I don't know because I don't have any skin problems. So I'm not sure what you call it, but it's very, very good in a lot of ways. I mean, the way I look at it because I'm Mr. Skeptical. Remember, I had a practical joke company. I could trick people into anything I wanted, right? And so they're doing it in massive scales with drugs and TV commercials. And there's 48 side effects to to something that good that comes from the medicine, you know, those kind of things.

[00:11:13] So I'm very skeptical. But in this case I just can't see a downside. Now there are people that are fanatics that you can drink too much water and like drown yourself. I don't I don't know what that's called, but I think most of us would have that problem. And then there's another faction that says that having a little bit of Celtic or Celtic salt helps the water get into the cells better again. Most people are saying it's only a pinch of salt where you don't. It doesn't taste like salt water, or you can just put it on your tongue before you have things. I'm I'm carrying a little, a little plastic thing full of, uh, Celtic salt in my car so that if I get stuck out and run out of water and have to go into 7-Eleven and buy a bottle of water or something, that I'll have a little bit of salt right there to help it out. There's no downside to that either. Just a little, little pinch of it. It's not like you're going to get arteriosclerosis from a pinch once in a while. So how do I do it? Now I'm going to put a picture in the show notes of the vessel that I carry with me all the time. Now, I bought a whole bunch of them.

[00:12:22] If you go into Walmart, you can find these laying on shelves all over the place. Discount coupon. I mean, with discount, I mean, there's this one beautiful 40 ounce thing I got. There's $6 on, you know, on clearance and they're 24 to $35 for these things. You know. So. So you can you can find these things cheap. But I ended up with a 12 or 22 ounce thing now. This is like the mental tricks I'm playing on myself. You may be different if you're carrying around a whole gallon jug with you, which some people do, and it's got gradations on how many ounces on the side, and some of them you can infuse with fruit and stuff down the middle of it. I don't like any of that stuff. And plus carrying a gallon thing around it won't fit in my car cup holder and it just seems daunting. Oh my god. So this little one I have is only 22oz. That's easy to go through 22oz. And then I go refill it. And then next one I'm working on 44oz. And I just keep track of that during the day. But sometimes I, I was forgetting. So I'm going to show you a picture of. I put a carabiner on this thing and hooked up what is called Ranger beads. Now, Ranger beads are when you're walking in. They're an old concept, but it's when you you're walking in the woods or something to keep track of how far you go.

[00:13:59] Every so many steps you pull a bead down. So. So you don't have to think about it all the time. And so I thought, that's perfect. I'll just use that for my water thing. So every time I finish one of these water things I pull my Ranger beads down. And, uh, I don't have to think about it anymore. As soon as I finish the next one, pull it down again. So? So that's how I do it. I like small amounts and then do a bunch of them rather than carrying around a jug. And plus I like the water a little bit. Cool. And so carrying around a giant jug, if it was insulated it would be really heavy to carry it. I mean, water is £8 per gallon plus the thing you'd be carrying around £10, I guess maybe you'd get a big bicep on one side of you. You're carrying it around. So anyway, uh, this has been, uh, so far. Uh, I don't like I said, I'm not giving you medical advice. I'm just telling you my experience is the less than one day after I started doing this, no back pain. And then prior to that, for months and months and months, it was every day something would trigger and and and then I'd be bent over and having to sit funny and, and I have to go up and lay down.

[00:15:16] So all of that is gone. That's just my experience, folks. So anyway, check it out. Just Google, you know, benefits of hydration and see if there's anything in there that could help you. But like I said, there's no downside to it. It's the cheapest way you can help yourself out. Okay, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Check out my mentor program at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com, and my school, IMTCVA.org, the only licensed dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the country, probably the world, and it's licensed to operate by the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's distance learning. And you can, uh, anywhere you can get an internet connection. You can take this school and save yourself a couple hundred grand by blowing, blowing money on a four year degree. Oh, I just saw the 2 million people. Uh, some of you are listening to this right now. You're going to get your wages garnished if you haven't been paying your student loans. I just saw that in the news today. So I wouldn't happen if you went to my school. Put it that way. All right. Catch you all in the next episode. See you later.