Table of Contents
What is hydration?
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, hydration is “the process of making your body absorb water or other liquid”.
Experts tell us we need to drink 8 glasses/cups of water per day. Let’s see what water does for our bodies.
Benefits of hydration
- Transports and distributes nutrients and oxygen throughout the body
- Controls temperature
- Lubricates our joints and protects our tissues and organs.
- Helps flush out waste products from the kidneys and liver.
- Moisturizes the skin and external tissues of the body
- Prevents constipation.
- Maintains the volume of blood
- Improves the functioning of the endocrine glands that provide certain essential hormones.
- Improves liver function, thus increasing the percentage of fat used for energy.
Along with moisturizing, water allows movement of body parts and substances along with temperature regulation, and hence is crucial for our bodies to function well.
How much water should I drink?
Do we really need to drink 8 cups in a day to be well hydrated? The recommended amount according to National Association of Sports Medicine (NASM), is 2.7 L (91 oz.) for women, and 3.7 L (125 oz.) for men. Higher intake is recommended in warm temperatures, and during exercise. Another recommendation is to divide your body weight in pounds in half, and drink that much water in a day. So for example, if you weigh 150 lb, you would drink 75 oz. A cup is 8 oz, so that would mean about 9.4 cups. If you weigh yourself in kg, multiply that weight by 2.2 in order to get your weight in pounds.
So, realistically speaking, how do you drink so much water in a day? This of course varies between individuals, but one way is to drink a couple of cups first thing on waking, and then at least have a cup every 1.5-2 hours.
The above recommendations do not take into account exercising, or being in a hot environment, so if you are in either of these situations, you should be drinking a lot more.
Caution:
Overdoing water consumption can lead to hyponatremia or water intoxication. If you are exercising in hot conditions and need to drink a lot of water, include some electrolytes or a drink like Gatorade.
My journey:
Since my weight is 166 lb (yes, I’m working on it!), I should be drinking 83 ounces, that is, over 2.5 times my 32 oz bottle. I found that I was pretty close to drinking that much water daily, but this helped me to be intentional about it. If I can, so can you.
Let me know in the comments how you are doing with your water consumption.
Check out my post on Tips on how to exercise safely.
Source: NASM Essentials of Personal Training, Nutrition and Supplementation
“Journey to Health with Priya” provides general educational information on various topics on this website as a public service, which should not be construed as professional medical advice.