Myths about hydration
http://lifehacker.com/5309517/mythbusting-four-myths-about-staying-hydrated-debunked/gallery/
I love this one.
Myth 1 – you should be drinking 8 glasses of water a day.
I’ve had a number of people tell me this one – it’s been shown (check snopes or the article) that unless you’re talking about easily-dehydrated elderly, you’re probably doing your wallet and your kidneys a disservice with 8 glasses of water a day.
Myth 2 – Caffeinated drinks don’t count.
You actually retain at least half the fluid from caffeinated drinks – the only drinks that leave you with a net loss are alcoholic.
Myth 3 – “Being thirsty” is too late
Some people tell you that you should drink before you feel thirsty, maintaining a regular fluid level at all times.
However, most doctors say you should rely on the one thirst indicator that is most reliable – your mouth.
Myth 4 – you need a sports drink to replace the electrolytes and other minerals lost in sweating
For most outdoor exercise, water is just fine – watered down fruit juice is similarly helpful.
On that note, personally I do find that a sports drink helps me to feel restored after a workout or heavy exertion, but only if it was sustained over an hour or more.
I like to have a couple of sports drinks around in case I get sick to my stomach. After drinking a lot of them during the prep for my colonoscopy, I found that they’re better than ginger ale for making me feel better.
Not that I’m puking that often, really, but it’s good for emergencies.
I’m glad you posted this! I did not know most of this information. YAY LEARNING!
Yes.
All are correct. Going to Burning Man taught me everything I’ll ever need to know about watching my own internal gauges for dehydration. You literally don’t sweat because the air is so dry, it’s wicked away immediately from skin and clothing.
That said, sports drinks are horrible for electrolytes. Yeah, the “-ades” will do the job, but with a lot of calories and sodium. You need some sodium, but they use that as a main ingredient. NUUN is one product I’ve only recently known about, and as a tablet it works wonderfully. Camelbak puts out a very similar tablet product (I’ve heard rumors they’re the same product, just rebranded, not sure if this is true) and there’s always my fave, Gookinade (though they changed the name recently, I still call it by the old one). They used to sell Gook at REI, but no more, so it’s online for that one.
Sodium is the main thing you need…
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/767624-overview
To a point, yes, but the simpler stuff and mainstream drinks are packed with way too much. Gatorade regular formula has 110mg per 8oz of water. A typical bottle is 32oz, though they do have the smaller ones. That’s 440mg of Sodium. The ENDURANCE powder, which is closer to what the below company puts out, has 200mg per 8oz. Now, Potassium, is 90mg.
Vitalyte (the new name for Gookinade) is 68mg per 8oz and 92mg of Potassium. Plus, the taste is ridiculously better, without that cough syrup/mouthwash flavor. It’s more like a slightly flavored water. Personally, I’d rather have less salt in my diet when possible. I eat enough as it is.
NUUN on the other hand has around 180mg per 8oz (though serving size is one tab and it dissolves in 16oz of water), so I shot myself in the foot with that example.
110mg per 8oz water is still less than the “normal” mix of salt to water in saline solution, and you lose significant salt in sweat.
*shrug* If you are worried about salt intake, you should cut it where you don’t need it (in food) and not where you do (in your nutrient replenishment phase).
Frankly, vitalyte doesn’t have enough sodium to offset the burn rate through exercise. Perhaps it is ducky for sitting in heat.
I mix my sports drinks with water after a workout. About 60 water to 40 Gatorade, but then switch to pure water after that.
I wish I could read the article. It’s aborted itself twice.
It used to be that I hardly drank water at all, ever. I drank milk and juice and diet pop, but not water. That changed a little bit over the years, and really changed when I started Weight Watchers. I try to drink at least one bottle a day now.
WW has recently said various other drinks count towards your daily water intake…but I can’t remember what specifically. Non-caffinated and low sugar drinks, probably.
Myth 1: The simplest measure of your water consumption is your urine. You should urinate light yellow or clear. If you are urinating dark yellow, you are not getting enough water.
The myth within the myth: You mention doing your kidneys a disservice, however, it is FAR better for your body to err on the side of over-hydration than dehydration. Dehydration is being investigated as contributory to Alzheimer’s, slow metabolism, weight gain, joint pain, and a host of other issues. Conversely, you (even with hyponatremia) would have to intake a fairly sizable amount of fluid. If you are getting headaches, dizziness, or bloating from your water consumption, you are overconsuming.
Myth 4: This is rather dangerous advice, actually. The one time that you risk water intoxication (outside of water drinking contests, that is) is when you consume water with a deficit of sodium in your system, or hyponatremia. When the electrolyte balance is wrong, you run the risk of water intoxication, brain swelling, and a bunch of other stuff. There’s a reason the hospital gives you saline rather than pure water in your IV… pure water could kill you, or at least make you sick. In the military, we often added salt tablets to our potable water, but in recent years, they have been using sports drink-type solutions instead as it is a more effective balance of the minerals that help make water nourishing for your body and not dangerous.
Remember, water doesn’t become dangerous until it overloads your body’s electrolytes.
Really good educational stuff, here.
http://nutrition.about.com/library/blwatercalculator.htm
That calculator is based on the 8 glasses a day myth.
“Kidney specialists do agree on one thing, however: that the 8-by-8 rule is a gross overestimate of any required minimum. To replace daily losses of water, an average-sized adult with healthy kidneys sitting in a temperate climate needs no more than one liter of fluid, according to Jurgen Schnermann, a kidney physiologist at the National Institutes of Health.
One liter is the equivalent of about four 8-ounce glasses. According to most estimates, that’s roughly the amount of water most Americans get in solid food. In short, though doctors don’t recommend it, many of us could cover our bare-minimum daily water needs without drinking anything during the day. “
The site, by the way, suggests I drink 4.6 liters of water. In a temperate environment, low altitude, zero exercise.
Many studies have shown that you won’t lose weight or clear out toxins from your body unless you have enough water. It also says you can get water from food and most people would get a good portion of the required water from food.
I noticed I felt better and actually lose weight in the weeks where I drink the amount of water it recommends.
I find that kinda because the national parks website suggests bringing about that much water per person for the Half Dome hike, which is 17 miles, with very steep portions. I think I drank about 3 liters of water on it, plus about half a liter of Gatorade (which tasted like manna from heaven), and did not feel dehydrated at the end.
I’ve read that sports drinks are not necessary after moderate amounts of exercise (i.e. your typical 30 minute jog), but are very beneficial after large amounts of intense exercise (hiking 17 miles). And personally I love the taste of Gatorade after a long, hot, high-exertion day. Or with a hangover :)
I never even honestly tried the 8 glasses a day because I already pee more than average so I don’t feel like going to the bathroom every 15 minutes, thanks.
As a person known to imbibe on occasion. Often to excess. Gatorade is the only way to rehydrate without bloating. The sodium (and sugar) causes the liquid to absorb into the body quicker.
That said, I’ve been known to drink over a gallon of water/Gatorade on a recovery day. If I wake up with a salty taste in my mouth, I know it’s going to be a bad day.
And when I’m exercising for extended periods, I fill my bags with half strength Gatorade because it hydrates better and helps to keep me from cramping up.
I try to keep a tin of the powdered Gatorade mix in the cupboard in case of really hot days, lots of time outdoors, or, er, “rapid fluid loss from illness” to keep away from TMI territory. Otherwise I tend to leave sports drinks alone as I don’t normally exert myself nearly enough to justify the staggering number of extra calories in them.
Which reminds me that I’ve been out for a while and really should pick up a replacement.
— Steve finds that taking Gatorade frozen in those disposable water bottles to outdoor events is particularly refreshing and less prone to spillage/leakage than bringing a Thermos with the same volume.
Phil typically recommends taking my body weigh in lbs, cutting that in half (not a bad idea anyway!), and then drinking that in ounces. This doesn’t include anything that I drink while working out. This works out to just over 100oz a day, which is why I just refill my water bottle all day long.
Most days, when I follow this, I am on the “healthier” end of the color of urine scale.
If gatorade or something of that ilk tastes good, I know I damn well need it. I was taught the color of your pee standard by my doctor over in Dubai who spent the first Gulf War keeping soldiers hydrated. The way he said it was that your urine should look like gin or vodka. If it looks like beer, drink more water. I wish I could do his Scottish accent justice, because the way he said it was hilarious!
i’ve heard that you’re supposed to divide your weight in half, and drink that amount *in ounces* daily.
*does math*
let’s say i weigh 140. so that would be 70 oz of water daily. that’s greater than one of those 64 oz juice bottles. i dunno if i could do it. ZO MUCH VATER. shrug. perhaps this is based on the 8 cups a day theory too.
From WikiAnswers on importance of drinking water
“Q: What makes water the universal solvent?”
“A: Water itself is a non-ionic, polar molecule and it will dissolve most anything that is non-ionic and polar, like itself, and most ionic compounds can be dissolved as well. Let me break that down for our non-chemists. ;) Non-ionic means it has no charge and polar means that there is a charge difference within the molecule. The Oxygen in H2O is negatively charged and the two Hydrogen atoms are positively charged. Both charges are very weak, so this gives the molecule a very slight positive charge overall (this is not true water is a dipole and has both a positive and negative end, but the net charge is zero….). Essentially(not essentially it is neutral), it’s neutral. Normally acid or base solutions can disolve other solutions or compounds of a like ph, but water, being neutral, is attracted to, and therefore dissolves solutions or compounds of any ph. Thus, water can dissolve more substances than any other liquid.
This is why a human needs to drink as much water as he or she does. As we go through life eating and drinking (referring to things other than water) and inhaling and opening doors and putting on lotion, we absorb toxins into our body. Let’s face it, this world is not perfect. Once inside us the kidney must filter these poisons back out. That’s where water comes in. The water, being the solvent that it is, washes through the kidney and takes the toxins that it has removed out its the tissues. Without a solvent so universal the kidney would be unable to rid itself of the toxins, and it would poison itself to death. And if water were not structured just as it is, that’s exactly what would happen. In fact, if water were not structured just as it is, life as we know it would cease to exist. Water and it’s properties are very different from every other substance, and we owe our existance to it being so.”
And on a similar note, too much water can be very bad
“Water intoxication (also known as ‘hyper-hydration’ or water poisoning)”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
You people are crazy. I get my fluids from Scotch.