Water intake, Does Tea count and Coffee???

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  • firstsip
    firstsip Posts: 8,399 Member
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    I'm sure someone has already said this, but tea (for many people) and coffee are diuretics, which means they flush the body of water. Thus, you need water-water to replenish your body.

    And to anyone who says differently, I could give countless examples of the times I've hit the head after drinking tea or coffee.

    Ooooh, okay, so the liquid that comes from me when I urinate isn't from water-water?
  • secretlobster
    secretlobster Posts: 3,566 Member
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    Ooooh, okay, so the liquid that comes from me when I urinate isn't from water-water?

    What if I drink a cup of water and then eat a handful of espresso beans
  • firstsip
    firstsip Posts: 8,399 Member
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    Ooooh, okay, so the liquid that comes from me when I urinate isn't from water-water?

    What if I drink a cup of water and then eat a handful of espresso beans

    It depends. Are they chocolate covered? And are you sharing?
  • sullus
    sullus Posts: 2,839 Member
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    Its not just 8 glasses of water, its 8 glasses of any liquid.

    So yes coffee and tea do count. Although I do not encourage you to replace coffee and tea for your water, unless you mean green tea :-)

    Actually it's the equivalent of 8 glasses of water. you can get your water from solids too.
  • spiregrain
    spiregrain Posts: 254 Member
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    I think the main thing is that you shouldn't log something like an Odwalla smoothie or a milkshake or a frappuccino as water ONLY, because you should be adding the calories. But the frappuccino has like a cup of water in it at least, so from there on out it's whatever you feel like is good and working for you to help you meet your goals. But as the person with the 78 calorie tea points out, you wanna be checking your nutrition labels, even when the food basically never has calories.

    This is totally speculative, but I think the thing with tea and coffee, too, is when I drink a coffee I might drink a 20 ounce coffee in half an hour or so. Which, if I drank 20 ounces of water in that time, would cause the same issues. But people have a tendency to drink water more slowly, because it isn't the hot and delicious elixir of life, it is the cold-to-room-temperature and flavorless elixir of life.
  • SueInAz
    SueInAz Posts: 6,592 Member
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    Its not just 8 glasses of water, its 8 glasses of any liquid.

    So yes coffee and tea do count. Although I do not encourage you to replace coffee and tea for your water, unless you mean green tea :-)
    This!

    The whole 64 or more ounces of water a day thing which has gotten so blown out of proportion and quite frankly puzzles me, includes ALL of the water that is a part of the foods you eat everyday. You don't need to drink 64 ounces of water, let alone more, unless you are doing a lot of exercising and sweating profusely. If you exercise, you should be drinking back what you lose, of course.

    I always tell people that if you eat the coffee beans and then drink the water, doesn't the water count?
  • gamespriteicon
    gamespriteicon Posts: 66 Member
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    I count it and count the sugar I add too. Really don't think my body is going to freak out because I replaced 1-2 cups of water with hot tea. I made it myself so I know exactly what went into it (water not milk). The few times I drink coffee I only count it if I use the instant kind (land o lakes), I make it myself. I log the 1 cup of water and the coffee using bar code scanner. If I buy coffee from the store I will only count it as coffee since I have no idea if they used water (how much) or milk.

    Either way at the end of the day my body will tell me if I am dehydrated, forcing me to drink water during/after my workout and before bed. I just listen to it to tell me, sometimes I could have had 8 full glasses of water plain water no tea or coffee and I am still thirsty like I was lost in the Sahara. Those end up being the days my MFP water glass spills over.

    I don't log a sandwich, I log the bread, cheese, turkey, and ham; separately. This is how I see tea and coffee if I make them myself. I also log the milk I use for oatmeal and if i use water it's water if I use a cup or more a cup or less can not log MPF does not have options for half a cup.
  • SueInAz
    SueInAz Posts: 6,592 Member
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    Brewed coffee has calories. This I discovered today... even if you drink it black! Kirkland coffee has 5 calories per 8 ounces. So in my book coffee is now a food. Anything that is a liquid and has zero calories is counted as water.
    So couldn't you add the coffee to your food diary for the calories and still up your water intake ticker? It's what I do when I drink a beverage that has a couple of calories.
  • secretlobster
    secretlobster Posts: 3,566 Member
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    "Chemically" water is exactly the same as coffee, in that coffee is water plus coffee. Is "water" on the list of ingredients? Then it's water. It's just water plus something else. The liquid "coffee" is a mixture of water and coffee beans, it doesn't become a new chemical compound during the brewing process. This is high school chemistry.

    When people say "only water counts as water" they are wrong in terms of chemistry, unless you're going to be drinking plant fertiliser, but they have a point if they are advising you to drink water without unnecessary additions.

    If all you care about is fluid, than any mixture that contains H20 (coffee, tea, juice, soda) counts.
  • gddrdld
    gddrdld Posts: 464 Member
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    if it is herbal tea (no caffeine) you can count it as water, but any beverage that has any little bit of a caffeine would not count!

    Some of my favorite herbal teas are from Yogi!

    This is absolutely ridiculous...Just sayin. What are you using as the definition of the word "count" here? If you swallow liquid, it's water that goes into your body...YES, it adds water to your body, therefore it "counts" and it hydrates your body. Caffiene (especially a small amount) is not a strong enough diuretic to cause you to lose more water than you consume.
  • Brunner26_2
    Brunner26_2 Posts: 1,152
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    Its not just 8 glasses of water, its 8 glasses of any liquid.

    So yes coffee and tea do count. Although I do not encourage you to replace coffee and tea for your water, unless you mean green tea :-)

    Even vodka? :drinker:
  • TucksterC
    TucksterC Posts: 7
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    Caffeinated beverages such as soda, coffee and tea also are water sources, although pure water is the best hydration option.
  • Yaya1976
    Yaya1976 Posts: 357 Member
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    I don't count my coffee as water, but technically if you drink it black and don't add anything to it, it comes up as ZERO calories, so why shouldn't you be able to add it as water? Also, if you add those little packets of flavorings to your water, I believe they're only like 5 calories each. Why can't you add that as just water, but then just add the 5 calories by itself?
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
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    Brewed coffee has calories. This I discovered today... even if you drink it black! Kirkland coffee has 5 calories per 8 ounces. So in my book coffee is now a food. Anything that is a liquid and has zero calories is counted as water.
    So couldn't you add the coffee to your food diary for the calories and still up your water intake ticker? It's what I do when I drink a beverage that has a couple of calories.
    WHAT??? You can log things in TWO PLACES??? Surely you jest!
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
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    ROFL!!! :As I understand it, coffee is a dehydrator. Tea, not so much....but thinking about drinking the cup of hot water and then sucking the little tea bag... Over the top!! You are so funny!

    The thing that makes coffee "dehydrate" (which it doesn't actually do) is caffeine. Some teas have more caffeine than coffee.
  • jesspi68
    jesspi68 Posts: 292
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    Think about this logically: Adding tea (or any flavoring) to water does not change the water into anything else.

    Many people choose not to count those things, but their bodies still recognize the water.

    And LMAO at classifying tea as "garbage."

    but if i just eat the tea bag and then drink the water then I can count it
  • drmerc
    drmerc Posts: 2,603 Member
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    If I chew up some coffee beans and swallow them then drink a glass of water

    Does it count?
  • lesnwhisper
    lesnwhisper Posts: 20
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    if my water is straight out of the tap, unfiltered and not distilled...
    do the particles and minerals in it "bind" so that my stomach doesn't know it's water? because if that's the case I'm so screwed.

    I'm going to back to my tea.
  • ASPhantom
    ASPhantom Posts: 637 Member
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    If you want to get really technical, Chemistry wise, water can only equal water. Tea has over 2,000 chemical compounds in it. So, by adding tea to your water, you are changing the chemical make-up of the water thus making it no longer water but tea.

    So, tea is NOT water.

    Note: (added) MFP doesn't ask for "liquids", it asks for "Water".
  • madworld1
    madworld1 Posts: 524
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    If you want to get really technical, Chemistry wise, water can only equal water. Tea has over 2,000 chemical compounds in it. So, by adding tea to your water, you are changing the chemical make-up of the water thus making it no longer water but tea.

    So, tea is NOT water.

    Thank you. Couldn't have said it better.

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