Suggestions on drinking enough water!?

girlinahat

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

girlinahat wrote: »

matilda0198 wrote: »

I met with a nutritionist and she told me to be drinking half my weight plus and additional 20 ounces in water every day...I NEVER drink water so I started buying the 'MIO' water enhancers at the store. You can find different brands but for the most part theyre zero calories and have extra B vitamins. I love them, I feel like Im drinking kool aid all day

your nutritionist is an idiot.

drink if thirsty. you get plenty of liquid from food. coffee and tea count. There is no measurable figure of how much a person needs.

Not everyone drinks tea or coffee. I disagree that the nutritionist is an idiot, whilst I would say that pretty much any fluid will suffice, there are plenty of people who are under-hydrated because they don't realise how important it is to hydrate yourself properly and then wonder why they have headaches on warmer days, feel terrible after exercise or have issues with constipation.

The half your weight in ounces is a good place to start (and not too different from the NHS guidance of 6-8 glasses per day) for those who aren't aware of how much they should be drinking.

it doesn't matter if you do or do not drink tea or coffee - the point is you can drink whatever fluid you like and it will to a certain extent hydrate you. Even beer.

The six to eight glasses suggestion came from a misconstrued sentence in a scientific paper. Which missed the vital second part of the message which was that most people get enough fluid from food as well. It's an arbitrary figure, like the 10,000 steps a day thing, or the 'you are never more than 10 metres from a rat' idea.

monitor your pee. Pale straw colour is the aim. The NUMBER of ounces or glasses will actually change depending on the conditions of the environment or your activity level, so some days you will need more, which is why the 6-8 glass mantra could be a terrible idea. Think of it like eating your exercise calories back. The nutritionist is an idiot.

AnvilHead

Any particular number of ounces/glasses/milliliters/whatever is an arbitrary and inadequate recommendation. Not only do hydration needs vary between people, they even vary for the same person under different conditions.

Take two different hypothetical days of a person's life:

1) A Wednesday when you sit at your desk at work all day in a climate-controlled office, then go home and watch TV on the couch for a few hours before going to bed.

2) A hot summer Saturday where you go for a 5-mile run in the morning, then come home and do 4 hours of strenuous yardwork in the sun.

Your hydration needs will not be the same on both of those days.

tinkerbellang83

girlinahat wrote: »

tinkerbellang83 wrote: »

girlinahat wrote: »

matilda0198 wrote: »

I met with a nutritionist and she told me to be drinking half my weight plus and additional 20 ounces in water every day...I NEVER drink water so I started buying the 'MIO' water enhancers at the store. You can find different brands but for the most part theyre zero calories and have extra B vitamins. I love them, I feel like Im drinking kool aid all day

your nutritionist is an idiot.

drink if thirsty. you get plenty of liquid from food. coffee and tea count. There is no measurable figure of how much a person needs.

Not everyone drinks tea or coffee. I disagree that the nutritionist is an idiot, whilst I would say that pretty much any fluid will suffice, there are plenty of people who are under-hydrated because they don't realise how important it is to hydrate yourself properly and then wonder why they have headaches on warmer days, feel terrible after exercise or have issues with constipation.

The half your weight in ounces is a good place to start (and not too different from the NHS guidance of 6-8 glasses per day) for those who aren't aware of how much they should be drinking.

it doesn't matter if you do or do not drink tea or coffee - the point is you can drink whatever fluid you like and it will to a certain extent hydrate you. Even beer.

The six to eight glasses suggestion came from a misconstrued sentence in a scientific paper. Which missed the vital second part of the message which was that most people get enough fluid from food as well. It's an arbitrary figure, like the 10,000 steps a day thing, or the 'you are never more than 10 metres from a rat' idea.

monitor your pee. Pale straw colour is the aim. The NUMBER of ounces or glasses will actually change depending on the conditions of the environment or your activity level, so some days you will need more, which is why the 6-8 glass mantra could be a terrible idea. Think of it like eating your exercise calories back. The nutritionist is an idiot.

My point being is the advice "drink when you are thirsty" is just as useless to some people as the "only eat when you are hungry" advice, not everyone can do listening to their body (guess why most of us are here), because they haven't for so long.

If someone who was unsure of how much water they need for optimum hydration started with 6-8 glasses or the half body weight method and then monitored their pee, they would at least have an idea of how much to adjust it to going forward if it's the wrong colour, rather than just trying to guess and hoping for the best until some hours later when they go to the bathroom.

The same goes for exercise calories, many people start with 50% and then adjust when they can see if the results in relation to their expected weight loss rate.

tomteboda

I have a condition secondary to my lupus, called sjogren's disease, that causes my body to produce insufficient hyaluronic acid. As a consequence, my tears are unproductive and also insufficient, and I have a chronically dry mouth.

I couldn't even tell you what real thirst should feel like, but I know I can't drink constantly. I also know that pain water tastes absolutely terrible to me. The minerals are overwhelming. I do a much, much better job getting sufficient hydration if what I drink is neither bitter (coffee, tea) or has noticeable mineral content (tap and bottled water).