Water Consumption - How much is too much?

susanelizabeth1988

Hey all,

I completely cut out Soda's around 6 months ago, and have replaced my craving for fizziness with sparkling water. I am drinking anywhere between 2.5lt-4lt a day (sometimes more!). Is this too much? I keep reading conflicting information online. I've noticed that I get dizziness and woozy on occasion, and have ended up bingeing on carbs and sugars to compensate and doing less excercise, completely undoing all my hard work last year. I am now 175lb and 5"4.

What do you guys drink, and how much is too much?

Zichu

I don't drink sparkling water, sorry. I used to, but I just prefer good old fashioned tap water

Anyway, I drink about 7 to 8 pints a day which is 4 to 4.5 litres a day. I know some say you should only drink like half of that or less than half of that, but I get thirsty lol.

I've never had any problems with drinking this much water at all. I say that if your urine is a darker yellow, you aren't drinking enough often enough, but if it's a lot more clearer, than stick to how ever much you are drinking. If your urine is completely clear, you are definitely drinking too much liquids.

avafrisbee

you still pee right? You are not going to die of water intoxication if you allow yourself to pee when you have to. You also get rid of water by sweating and breathing. Trust your body. If you drink more water than your body thinks you need you will:

1)have to pee
2)sweat more
3)throw it up
4)diarrhea

*edit: if you you are loosing a lot of water either because you are working hard, sick or whatever, you might want to think about adding a little salt or an electrolyte drink.

DocMarr

A woman died in the UK in 2008 from drinking 4 litres of water in under 2 hours. The news report is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/7779079.stm

So be careful how quickly you drink it.

As to sparkling versus still water: Having read up a bit about it, there doesn't seem to be much nutritional difference between them. Sometimes sparkling mineral water can have a lot of sodium, but not always. Check your bottle. I don't like sparkling water much because it bloats me.

I agree with other posters that go by the colour of your urine. If it is almost colourless then you are drinking too much.

PS If you are regularly getting dizzy and woozy then you may be having problems with low blood pressure or some other medical problem. I'd suggest going to your doctor to get it checked out.

ItsCasey

Overconsumption of water can cause hyponatremia (basically, your sodium levels become diluted because of the excess water, and the cells in your body start to swell), but it typically comes from drinking too much within a short time period. If you drink water steadily throughout the day, it's difficult to drink "too much." If you think the water is causing you to binge, cut back and see if it helps.

pucenavel

187.553829027 oz. per day

Any more than that and you will immediately drop dead