WATER: EVERYONE KNOWS YOU SHOULD, BUT WHY AND HOW MUCH?
75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. So if you are not actively trying to drink more water you probably are dehydrated, and your health could improve in the ways listed below.Reasons Why to stay hydrated:
1.) Weight management: Water has no calories or sugar…nearly everything else we drink from pop, juice, milk, etc. has both calories and often a lot of sugar. Often when we feel hungry, we are really just thirsty. Drinking a lot of water reduces appetite and can increase metabolism.
2.) Increasing nutrients to the body: When we are adequately hydrated, nutrients breakdown and digest easier and are brought across the intestine and into the cells much easier than when we are dehydrated.
3.) Detoxification: Good hydration helps the cells rid themselves of waste products bringing them back into the blood to be filtered by the kidneys that also need a lot of water to adequately filter. Then our bodies can flush out these waste products through the urine and sweat.
4.) Cushions the joints: Drinking a lot of water lubricates all the tissues, but the cartilage in our joints in particular have less friction in them if we are well hydrated. As a chiropractor I have seen that joint wear is one of the most noticeable irritations of the aging process, so you young folks, stay hydrated all your life and it will help reduce this thing we all suffer from as we get older. Also, other tissues besides just the joint cartilage have better elasticity.
5.) Higher functioning body: Good hydration improves energy, endurance and strength to improved concentration, alertness and memory.
So how much water should you be drinking? Like most questions, that depends. It depends on the following questions:
- How much do you weigh?
- How old are you?
- Are you a male or female?
- How active are you?
- How hot is your environment?
- How much water is in the food you eat? (compare saltine crackers to watermelon)
There are multiple online water intake calculators. I used one at gigacalculator.com under “health” and “water intake calculator”. It took into account my age, gender, weight, height and exercise frequency. I was told to drink 83 oz or 10 cups a day.
Another calculator at workoutguru.fit that took into consideration that it was summer or winter gave me 17 cups for summer and 15 cups for winter. I had to convert liters to cups on this one. At “goodcalculators.com” it had inputs for just weight and minutes per day exercise, but how does it know how hard I am working out? At least it let me get more specific about my actual time working out. It told me 16 cups a day. So that is quite a broad range of recommendations. I suggest running your numbers through a couple of these calculators and get a feel for the range. Then get a jug with that much water in it and see how well you can do drinking it gone, but in small doses over the day.
If you are curious about your hydration at any given moment, come to my office ready to provide a urine sample and I can test the specific gravity of your urine for no charge. The specific gravity gives you a glimpse into how diluted your urine is and is an indication of your hydration level.