KiefersCorner

Waters positive effects on the human body can be quick and dramatic, just a 4% drop in body fluids will cause a 30% loss of energy.

     Do you consume enough water?

Water sustains all life and makes all living things grow yet most people take it completely for granted and live in a dehydrated state and don’t even know it.

So here are the facts about water:

Water is cheap to drink and contains no calories. That alone should be enough to make it something that you would drink continuously every day.

The average human body is made up of roughly 70% water, and a loss of 20% will result in a painful death.

Water is crucial to a healthy body and if you don’t ingest enough it can have dramatic effects on your looks, and overall health.

Water is the most important nutrient you should have in your diet, without it all your good eating goes to waste. Water is the only way essential nutrients can be delivered through out your body.

Lean muscle is composed up of 72% water while fat is only 25% water; this is why anyone who is into fitness that either works at a very physical job or performs intense exercise must be careful of their water loss if they want to hold onto that hard earned muscle.

Without adequate water muscle building protein and energy producing carbohydrates will never be metabolized. Just minor dehydration upsets the delicate balance of electrolytes and their transfer causing noticeable weakness.

If you frequently mildly dehydrate yourself you also run the risk of health problems like constipation, kidney stones or kidney failure.

Signs of mild dehydration are dry mouth or lips, fatigue, dizziness, headache, difficult concentrating, and loss of energy.

The minerals sodium, magnesium, calcium, and potassium are essential for conducting electrical currents from the brain to your nervous system and to your muscles, and water is the delivery system.

Water is also essential for your body to digest food and remove all waste from your body while simultaneously regulating your body temperature.

In order for your kidneys to remove toxic waste from your body you should urinate at least 1 quart a day.

The average adult person will loose three quarts of water daily through excretion and perspiration.

When your body’s water supply gets a little low it goes into survival mode and will compensate by stopping the cooling process and hold onto every once of water left. All body functions will start to suffer and heat exhaustion becomes a possibility.

This is why you need to be drinking water before you become thirsty to eliminate this from happening. Not after you become thirsty!

If you are looking to loose fat, water is the key ingredient to metabolize stored fat.

Contrary to what most people believe you actually need to consume more water to have a leaner body and loose body fat. Not Less!

Just think about it, if your body is composed of almost 70% water doesn’t it make sense to feed it water?

Water is also is a natural appetite suppressor; this is why they tell you to drink a glass of water 10 minutes before eating and a glass with the meal if you want to loose weight.

If you are going to do an intense workout drink a sufficient amount of water before, during, and after this activity to keep your body cool and energetic.

Now you may be asking how much water should you consume a day?

Well this is one of those answers that each and every person has to figure out on their own do to a number of factors.

Now most people have heard of the 8 glasses of water a day rule, unfortunately this is just a blanket statement and has no real bearing on what you personally should consume.

Just like how many calories you need to consume goes by weight, so should your water intake. Take your body weight and divide by 2 and that’s how many ounces you should consume.

Here is an example- if you weigh 150 pounds divided by 2 = 75, so consume approximately 75 ounces a day.

Here are some of the other factors that you need to consider that also play a major role in water consumption.

1. Your environment plays a major role in your water consumption. Is it hot and humid where you live?
2. If you exercise you need to consider the intensity and duration?
3. Do you work or exercise outside?
4. Are you pregnant or breast-feeding?
5. Are you suffering from fever, diarrhea, or vomiting?

All these things require you to consume more water than in normal conditions due to sweat, dehydration, and excretion.

1. What foods do you eat in your diet?
2. Do you take medications?
3. Do you have a medical condition?

These things will cause you to consume less water due to they will add or disrupt the natural loss of water in your body.

Here is a list of healthy foods with the highest amount of natural water content:

Lettuce 96%

Zucchini 96%

Tomato 93%

Watermelon 92%

Spinach 92%

Strawberries 92%

Grapefruit 91%

Cantaloupe 90%

Apples 84%

Carrots 84%

Blueberries 84%

Potatoes 79%

Green peas 76%

Bananas 74%

Even though you can get roughly 20% of your daily water intake from the foods you eat and there is water in almost anything you can drink. Your body will not benefit from all things made with water since they might be mixed with other chemicals making it hard for your body to digest.

This is one reason 100% organic foods are the best to eat, no pesticides, herbicides or chemicals. If you want to know what organic foods you should buy read the benefits of organic foods.

Your body will only absorb about 70% of a glass of pure water, so anything that isn’t grown naturally or is man made will have a very small effect on your water intake.

For example a tomato is 93% water, and your body will absorb the majority of that water.

But a soda is also primarily water but your body will only absorb about 6% of that water due to the chemicals and preservatives its laced with making it to hard for your body to digest it.

Soda simply offers no nutritional value and creates more problems than it’s worth. Read how soda impacts your health if you want to know more?

80% of your water intake has to come from another source other then food; the best source is obviously water.

If you don’t like drinking plain water just add a slice of fruit like lemon, lime, or orange and squeeze it into the glass and drop the slice into the glass.

Another option is herbal teas; they are healthy and mainly water. If you want to know more about teas read- The health benefits of drinking tea

If you drink enough water you shouldn’t feel thirsty and produce at least 1.5 liters a day of slightly yellow or colorless urine daily. Or urinate every 3 to 4 hours a day.

Don’t get to upset if your urine color varies, your diet (things you eat) will play a major role in the color at times.

Please be advised that it is possible to drink to much water creating a condition called hyponatremia or water intoxication. This happens when your kidneys are unable to excrete the excess water diluting the electrolyte content of your blood resulting in low sodium levels.

This condition can lead some serious health problems or death!

If you are wondering how much water is too much?

This usually happens when a dehydrated person drinks to much water (a gallon or more) in a short period of time without taking in any electrolytes, especially sodium.

If you want to know more about sodium here is a link to the mayo clinic.

When I know im going to be working outside all day in the Florida summer heat where the temperature averages in the 90’s I eat pretzels with salt. I have found this works great when im sweating a lot to keep my sodium levels up.

I also constantly sip water throughout the day to make sure dehydration doesn’t set in.

Now not all water is created equal, the quality that comes from your faucet varies greatly depending on your local water source. And most bottled water is nothing more than tap water in toxic bottles.

If you want to know more about the water you drink read this- is your drinking water toxic?

So i leave you with two questions.

Have you ever thought about how much water you drink daily?

Have you, or do you know of someone that has been effected by the lack of water?

Tags: dehydration, drinking water, electrolytes, water facts

This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 1:37 am and is filed under Mens Health, Nutrition, Womens Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.