How to register drinks?

jowe1204 wrote: »

Thanks a lot, but if I drink 4 bottles of beer, does it count the liquid then or should I drink another 2 liters of water to reach my targets? And how about a pot of tea?

I am really thrilled about MFP, but I don’t understand that

There's no specific amount of water that's required. Include fluids (water, other beverages, soups' or fruits' liquid component, whatever) in your day, sufficient to keep your urine a pale straw color (not dark or brown).

The more recent research suggests that beverages like coffee or tea are hydrating (i.e., any increase in urinary frequency from drinking them, in a person with a normal, healthy system, doesn't wipe out the hydration benefits of that liquid).

Alcoholic beverages' H2O content would also be hydrating. (Think about it: If scotch and soda isn't hydrating to the extent of the soda, but soda alone is . . . ? Would drinking the scotch neat, then having the water 10 minutes later magically make the water hydrating again . . . ?) That said, when I drink alcoholic beverages, I like to drink a bit more water over the same general time period, as I feel better later (and it helps me not gulp the alcohol, if thirsty).

Really, you can relax about water. Drink when thirsty, watch your average urine color, adjust if necessary. If you have poor thirst signaling (I do) it's fine to set yourself a personal goal/schedule to ensure you drink enough (there are even apps that will remind you, I've been told).

But there's not any specific universally required water goal: There's a big difference in hydration needs between a bricklayer carrying bricks all day in a sunny desert climate, and training for triathlons in spare time, vs. an office worker sitting at a desk all day in a climate-controlled room, and watching TV in spare time. We each need to hydrate according to our own body's needs.

if there are no calories, i dont log it (diet sodas, water, etc) I like food too much to drink my calories LOL

coffee creamer, coffee, full calorie sodas, alcohol, there are database entries for all of those, simply find the correct one and log it. my coffee creamer is the only calorie i drink on a regular basis, and its logged before anything else (because its not optional or changeable in my world LOL)

Ok, I didn’t read the other responses but here’s my TMI take, because I’m reading this into OP’s original question.

For years, I thought drinks of any kind didn’t count because you drink em in and pee em out. Not enough time inside to do any harm. Tit for tat, right? Yeah, I was dumb as a mud puppy, but lots of people believe wierd stuff.

Every drink you drink, counts. Offsetting with water, peeing a lot, ain’t gonna help. It will empty your bladder and aid your bowels, but has no magic calorie burning effect.

The only drinks that don’t count are water, most plain teas, plain coffees, zero calorie soft drinks and the like. Some of my simple flavored teas have 5 calories per cup, so you have to be careful.

I use a serving of fat free half and half (20cal) in each cup of tea. I don’t bother to log the tea, but I do weigh and log the half and half, so you’ll see what appears to be random half and half entries in my diary.

Four or five cups of tea in a day could easily add up to 100 calories for me, more if you’re a full cream drinker, which is fairly significant in most people’s daily allotment.

It’s a great question to ask and I’m glad you did because a lot of people want to ask, but like school, don’t want to raise their hand. If I’d raised mine more, maybe I wouldn’t be a mud puppy in some regards, lol. We just aren’t taught the most basic stuff about caring for our bodies in school. Think how helpful it would have been to. Sat down and told about CICO, that there is no magic supplement or diet fox, and (for current students) “99% of what you see on Instagram and Snapchat is photoshopped”. (Or whatever the current term du jour is.)

Another part logs both (coffee & water, but not teh water in teh coffee). This makes probably sense that the liquid in a coffee cannot be counted, as the hydration effect from the liquid is counterbalanced from its ingredients (if I got that right)
Could be also an interpretation.

I'm not quite sure what you are saying here - I dont log the coffee and water separately - if I have a cup of coffee it is just logged as coffee with milk, 1 cup, 20 calories (almost all the calories from the milk, of course)

Im not worried about hydration effect - I am not dehydrated and normal healthy people with access to fluids do not just get dehydrated in every day life.
so, since water amount - either in other drinks or by itself - makes no difference to my calorie count, I dont log it.

I do log all drinks, alcoholic or not, which have calories - ie wine, juice, milk, coffee with added ingredients like milk etc