Water intake

aalcazar27

hello! I am A 5'4" 225 lb 33 year old female trying to figure out 2 things.....

1. What is "water weight"
2. How much water should I be drinking

maidentl

Water weight is just that, water you're retaining or dropping. You should drink water when you're thirsty. Other beverages and foods also help to keep you hydrated.

SueInAz

When people talk about "water weight" it's the water in your body. Each of us carries a certain amount of water within us. It's in our blood, our muscles, our fat, etc. The amount of water varies from day to day. Things like sweating, eating too little or too much sodium, strenuous exercise, hormonal changes, etc. can cause the level of water in our bodies to fluctuate from day to day and hour to hour.

The guideline is to consume 64 ounces of water per day. I say "consume" rather than "drink" because that water can be plain water, or water found in any drinks or foods. You don't actually have to drink 64 ounces of plain water each day. If you live somewhere hot and dry, you'd want to increase that, of course. Also, if you exercise, you should drink extra water to replace what you lose through sweat. Frankly, if you're thirsty, drink. If you aren't thirsty, there's no reason to force yourself to drink a bunch of water. You'll just be running to the bathroom all day and there's no benefit to your weight loss goal to do that (except maybe the extra steps you'd be getting!)

LRWSSuccess

Water weight is additional weight you hold through your body holding on to water. It can be related to hormonal swings during your monthly cycle and can also be related to your diet (I believe sodium and caffeine are two big contributors). Note that reducing the amount you drink will not help you reduce water retention.

There are many schools of thought about how much water you should drink. The most popular seems to be 8 glasses a day (although no one says how large the glasses are). I measure by volume and drink 72-96 fl oz (2.25-3 litres) each day of purposeful water consumption - this doesn't include other fluids which would also contribute to your total. It sounds like a lot at first but if you drink steadily during the day you can get to that without much effort at all.

I use a Camelback bottle which has a bite and suck straw and for some reason I found it really helps me drink a lot more water than I used to.

amyr271

I have used quite a few 'fitness calculators' for this and as 5ft 1 female who weighs 136 pounds I usually get 2.1 litres a day recommended