[quote]provy07 wrote:
Dude! How can you drink that much water? I always heard 8/8 oz bottles of water. That is 64 oz. Your drinking 3 50 oz? You waterholic!
[/quote]
First off, the 8-10 cups of water recommendation is truly outdated and is definitely a minimum anyone should consume for normal bodily functions.
As for me, it’s easy. I have a 50oz bottle at work and a 50oz bottle at home along with a 32oz mug.
I drink my 50oz bottle all day during work. I drink at least two, and usually three in an 8-hour shift, plus any additional water from making some Grow! shakes.
I also drink from my mug during my workout, at dinner and between meals and bed.
It becomes a habit quite easily. Besides, I don’t drink anything else (no milk, juice, coffee, soda, etc.). So all my meals and throughout the day, I just drink water. Sometimes at home, I’ll mix up a gallon of Crystal Light (diluted) and occassionally have that to add some “flavor” to my water.
If I’m out, I bring a large bottle of water or a Biotest/HOT-ROX Nalgene bottle with me.
I feel horrible if I don’t get enough water (minimum of 50-75 ounces).
[quote]Need4Speed wrote:
Chris (NZ) wrote:
I?m sticking to my opinion on this one.
I have never seen ANY medical facts to back up the myth that you need 8 glasses of water plus a day. This ranks up there with ?you can only digest 30 grams of protein per hour?.
I have seen studies showing that drinking too much water is bad for you and can even lead to death if you drink ridiculous amounts.
I believe if you go to your doctor and push him or her on why you need 8 glasses or more a day they will admit they don?t know.
There’s all sorts of data showing the negative impact of dehydration. So the first goal is to not get dehydrated. Sometimes allowing yourself to get dehydrated is a lot easier than you think.
Beyond that, the benefits of getting more water are more anecdotal, but it’s not exactly mythical in proportions. There are a bunch of ways that more water can help, including flushing toxins out of your system faster, giving you healthier skin, preventing kidney stones, etc. I mean heck, we’re like 98% water, right? So you’d think it might be important.
But do what works for you. If you don’t want to drink water, then don’t.[/quote]
But N4S, the argument is not about dehydration, but the amount of water required per day.
Dehydration is obviously bad, just like eating no protein whatsoever in diet. However, the “optimal” amount of water or protein required hasn’t been accurately studied nor determined.
I try for at least 4 liters per day. Most days I make it without much effort. I can certainly feel a difference if I haven’t been getting enough water or if I have had several cocktails the night before. Also, my skin is much clearer than when I didn’t pay any attention to water intake. Strangers and casual acquaintances have commented on my skin because of this.
“You must be eating better and drinking more water - your skin looks fresher.” – Personal trainer at my gym this morning
“You want water? I can tell you drink a lot of water, you’ve got such a pretty complexion.” – Cashier at a restaurant I frequent
Of course, senselessly random people complimenting the same thing happens to everyone and one shouldn’t construe it to mean anything in particular.
If you’re already playing games with drinking and bathroom breaks, add in some fun variety. Every other time I go to the bathroom I come back to my cube and do 50 calf raises with the balls of my feet on the castors of my chair (gets a good stretch that way). The other half of the time, I do 50 “desk pushups”. Basically, planting my feet as far from the edge of the desk as I can and doing a ‘pushup’ type movement. Neither is tough but doing them each 3-5 times a day adds up and helps keep me from feeling sluggish throughout the day.
[quote]sjoconn wrote:
Hyponutremia is very rare. It usually occurs in endurance athletes and soldiers. It takes more than just drinking lots of water…but also a lack of food to replace the electrolytes.[/quote]
Well, all I did is jog five miles and lift weights for an hour on a 95 degree day after eating a light breakfast. It could happen to anyone, though I do sweat more than most people.
[quote]I took a class were we induced hyponutremia (water intoxication) in each other. After fasting overnite, we took in 1 liter of water every 1/2 hour for 4 hours (either by IV or drinking) while people became sick, no one died and everyone felt better almost immediately after eating.
Sean[/quote]
That’s only two gallons of water or so in four hours. Anyway, this seems like a terrible idea, even under controlled conditions. What class was this where the instructor and school have no fear of lawsuits?
[quote]larryb wrote:
Well, all I did is jog five miles and lift weights for an hour on a 95 degree day after eating a light breakfast. It could happen to anyone, though I do sweat more than most people.[/quote]
Yes it can happen to anyone. But dehydration is still much more common.
Yes it is only 2 gallons in 4 hours, but it is much more than the 1 or so gallons a day that inspired this worry in this thread. It also required fasting (so the body is already nutrient depleted to some extent) for this experiment to work. The class was run by several doctors and a crash cart was on hand. The class is geared mostly towards trauma medicine, but also concentrates on a few medical situations that may be encountered. The class is offered to trauma specialist from the FBI, DEA, and military Special Operations personnel.
[quote]sjoconn wrote:
Yes it can happen to anyone. But dehydration is still much more common.[/quote]
When not related to illness, even extreme dehydration is probably less dangerous though. See The Physician and Sportsmedicine: Seizure After Exercise in the Heat . Also, dehydration usually comes with thirst, so it is much easier to identify. When you have hyponatremia, you are much less likely to know what is happening, so it’s important to be aware of it. When it happened to me, I had no idea what it was. Fortunately, someone handed me a Coke, otherwise I might have tried drinking more water.
[quote]larryb wrote:
sjoconn wrote:
Yes it can happen to anyone. But dehydration is still much more common.
When not related to illness, even extreme dehydration is probably less dangerous though. See The Physician and Sportsmedicine: Seizure After Exercise in the Heat . Also, dehydration usually comes with thirst, so it is much easier to identify. When you have hyponatremia, you are much less likely to know what is happening, so it’s important to be aware of it. When it happened to me, I had no idea what it was. Fortunately, someone handed me a Coke, otherwise I might have tried drinking more water.[/quote]
I was not meaning to make light of your experience. And maybe people should be more aware of hyponutremia. I was only trying to point out that of the 2 extremes, dehydration is more prevelent (and therefore more dangerous)among the average person than hyponatremia.
In the article you linked it stated as one case study “The condition was caused by a fluid intake that was, at the very least, 6.5 L in excess of requirement during 9 hours of moderate military exercises.” This is far in excess of what most people will drink during a typical day at work or at the gym. The article also never clearifies what the “requirement” for 9 hours of moderate military exercise is. Whatever it is, 6.5 liters in addition to the requirement is a lot.I realize this was probably an extreme case.
As has been wisely stated; there really are “better things to worry about.”
My opinion was not trying to make people think they were going to die from drinking water, or suffer rare medical conditions. I agree that there are better things to worry about than dieing from water ingestion.
My point was that if you are not dehydrated then drinking water is pointless. More than that it strips out nutrients and adds nothing.
Most recommendations I have seen are for 2 litres of water a day.
People get up to 1 litre of water a day just from food. If you have protein shakes, there?s more water, if you drink tea, or soda or juice, there?s more water.
I drink protein shakes mixed in 500 mls of water (half a litre) each. 4 shakes a day is another 2 litres of water. I also drink a sports drink with electrolytes while at the gym, and a glucose drink afterwards.
In all I am probably taking 4 litres of water a day, without drinking water. Why would I need to drink water on top of this?
For most people with a good diet, extra water is unnecessary except on extreme high sweat days, and even then electrolytes are probably more important than straight water.
Just drink a bunch of water, it’s good for you. Considering how much your body is made up of water.
40oz a day is nothing. I started at that actually - now I drink OVER 1 Gallon of ice water a day.
I get less headaches. I last longer in everything I do. Im never dehydrated. I also lose weight from it.
Toss the fruity drinks and leave nothing but water to drink. If you MUST have something, give a twist of lime. If you wanna be a real sissy about it, toss in one of them Crystal Light “On The Go” things.
Well this thread is 4 pages long, but for some reason I feel compelled to throw my $.02 on top of the 8 or so dollars we’ve got in change here.
I’ve understood from various health sources (local trainers, Men’s Health, couple of different health texts I have around the house) that drinking half your weight in ounces a day is a safe bet. It sounds high for a 200 lb guy, but if you down about 12 ounces every meal, you’ll get most of it out of the way. Judging from the vast posts I see here, I would imagine most (if not, all) of the guys posting here are on meal plans where they eat frequently, 4-8 times daily.
Six Meals x 12 oz = 72 oz of water
Add in 28 more during a workout and you’ve just hydrated a 200 pound dude.
[quote]T-Islander wrote:
Stop being a huge pussy about it.[/quote]
Exactly. Nobody is saying you need to pour gallons of water down your gullett. If drinking multiple gallons of water in a few hours is something you fear, then don’t do it! But that doesn’t mean 8-12 glasses of water per day might be too little.
It’s very difficult to drink so much water to become physically ill. It’s easy to drink too little water and impair your gains, sabotage your workout, and generally detract from your peak abilities.
So what’s optimal? It’s certainly more than a few glasses of water, and it’s probably a lot less than multiple gallons per hour. But I think it’s better to err on the high side than the one side.
Once again, it’s much harder to get too much water than too little.