How Much Water to Drink
...An Individualized Approach
How Much Water to Drink This is one of those questions that everybody has an opinion about. Even the authorities are in disagreement on how much water to drink daily. An added question, about which there is plenty of disagreement is, What counts towards your daily water requirement? Does coffee or soda count, for example? The answers you will read to these two questions are sometimes diametrically opposed. Let me offer two very different approaches taken to this question.
The Formula Approach
You are doubtless aware of the standard advice given that a person should drink eight 8 ounce glasses of pure water a day. This is usually given as a minimum and it is usually stated that beverages such as coffee and caffeinated drinks are diuretic, i.e. cause you to urinate, and thus do not count toward your 8 glasses a day.The other formula recognizes the difference in weight and size of people. To determine how much water to drink you take your body weight in pounds, divide that in half and that is the number of ounces of water you should be drinking daily. For example, say you weigh 160 pounds. Half of this is 80 or you need 80 ounces of water a day. That translates into ten eight ounce glasses of water a day. The problem with the formula approach is that it basically claims that one size fits all! Even the second formula which does account for differences in size and weight still applies the same formula to everyone. It doesn't take into account the many other factors that affect dehydration. It's because of this that I offer a second approach which I call the personalized approach.
The Personalized Approach
Let's look at the question of how much water to drink from a different angle. Let me first illustrate. I once spent a week in Mali, West Africa, visiting my daughter who was working with the Peace Corps. It was the hot season of the year. I literally felt as though I was thirsty from dawn to dusk and was constantly drinking water but rarely urinating all day. You see here another factor, that of climate and humidity that affects dehydration and shows that the amount of water the body needs varies according to other factors. Here are some of the factors to consider in personalizing your answer to the question of how much water to drink daily. - Understand how the body normally works. This will give you perspective. The average person loses between two and three liters of water a day through sweat and urine and normal disposal of waste. It's this loss of water that must be replaced daily.
- Monitor your body's need for water. There are two simple ways of doing this. First, thirst is your body's way of saying "I need some water refill!" It says there is some dehydration, but not serious yet. Nothing that can't be corrected by a good drink. The second gage of dehydration is the frequency of urinating and the color or your urine. If you find that you are urinating very infrequently or if you find that your urine is bright yellow, you can conclude that you are dehydrated and need to drink more.
- How much have your been exerting yourself. Perhaps you are doing strenuous physical exercise for an extended period of time. You can be sure you'll need to rehydrate more than normal.
- Similarly, but not exactly the same, is the factor of sweat. Some people just sweat more than others and will need to drink more accordingly.
- Take into account the climate. If it is hot and humid, you are bound to need to drink more water.
- Are you losing water by additional means besides the normal ways of sweat and urine? Vomiting and diarrhea can cause severe dehydration in a brief time if they persist. Other factors affecting loss of body fluids are having a high fever or being at a high elevation.
It's much easier to live life by a formula, but this doesn't often fit with reality. There are many factors which vary from person to person. There are also factors which vary for the same person from day to day or even from hour to hour. The simple ways of monitoring your fluid level I mentioned above can be complimented by other symptoms which I discuss under the topic of Water Dehydration...What is it? which can tell you the degree of dehydration your are experiencing.
How Best to Rehydrate?
When you are thirsty and then drink water, you are re-hydrating. This is the most common way of re-hydrating. What about the question of other beverages? Fruit juices are good for you and mostly water. What about coffee or soda? Actually caffeine is a diuretic (causes you to urinate) but so is water! The added amount of water loss through such beverages is almost negligible. Most of it counts towards your water needs. The one disadvantage is that some of these other beverages add calories as well! Do you need those extra calories? You'll have to answer that for yourself. For extreme cases of dehydration, there are other measures you need to know about. One might need fluids added directly into their veins through intravenous solution. There is a simple liquid solution that has saved the lives of millions of infants in the Third World. I tell you about it under the subject of diarrhea and dehydration For more information on how much water to drink read up further on the whole process of dehydration and how to recognize it.
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