How Much Water is Enough?
This month, instead of drinking your green beer, let’s celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by hydrating our cells and learning about appropriate water intake!
The human body is about 70% water. Which arguably makes WATER the most important nutrient in the human body. Did you know you can go about 8 weeks without food, but only days without water? If the body’s water volume drops as little as 2%, it can cause fatigue. A drop of 10% can cause digestive problems, cardiovascular problems, immune and musculoskeletal problems.
Water is the most common nutritional deficiency in America. You would think this to be false because of the abundance of clean water in our country, but most people do not hydrate properly. The average American consistently fuels themselves with diuretic beverages and not enough quality sourced, pure water. Think for a second about the beverages you’ve consumed so far today. Did you know coffee, juice, soda, some herbal teas, and alcohol are all diuretic beverages? Diuretic beverages accelerate the process at which the kidneys process water, causing an increase in the total amount of water excreted. AKA- diuretics make you pee and are dehydrating to the body.
Since water cannot be stored in the human body, daily consumption is essential. As a byproduct of metabolic processes, the body produces about 8% of its daily needs. This means the remaining 92% must be consumed through the foods we eat and the beverages we drink.
If your cells aren’t hydrated properly, they cannot function properly.
Many people struggle with consuming the appropriate volume of water because as a result they have to pee frequently throughout the day. This generally means that there is an electrolyte imbalance that needs to be addressed while consuming your water.
Electrolytes are minerals that become capable of conducting electricity when dissolved in water. If there are not adequate electrolytes within the body, the water will not hydrate the cell. Instead, the water will pass through the body and be excreted as urine. So, what to do about it? Add a pinch of REAL Mineral Salt to your water. Many people will do this with every glass or bottle of water they consume. Just a pinch of sea salt in a large glass of water will help balance your electrolytes and is so minuscule that you barely taste it! It is important to use non-iodized sea salt or himalayan pink salt to ensure you are getting the true, natural mineral form.
Looking for a different solution, try the supplement Ultima. It is a favorite recommendation of ours for a few reasons…
No corn syrup- sweetened naturally with stevia.
No artificial colorings or flavors- bright colors come from real fruits + vegetables that taste + look great.
It contains all 6 electrolytes + support minerals: Potassium, Magnesium, Chloride, Calcium, Phosphorus, and Sodium
Each canister has 30-90 servings- it will last you a good, long time!
The flavor is GOOD, not overpowering and not too sweet
How much do I have to drink?
Take your bodyweight and divide it by two. This is the minimum number of ounces you should drink each day. Ex: a person weighing 150 lbs. should drink a minimum of 75 ounces of water each day.
You also need to account for the amount of diuretic beverages you consume throughout the day. As you learned earlier, diuretics cause dehydration. To make up for this, we need to be drinking even more water. For every cup (8 ounces) of diuretic beverage consumed, we need to drink 1.5 times that in water. Ex: if a person drinks 2 cups of coffee per day, they need to drink an extra 3 cups of water.
Here is a full example: Sally weights 145 lbs. Her minimum water consumption would be (145/2) 72.5 ounces. Since she also consumes 1 cup of coffee in the morning, she needs to add 1.5 more cups of water to her daily total. 1.5 cups = (8oz + 4oz) 12 ounces. Her total daily water consumption should be around 84.5 ounces of water.