Although there are other existential things to worry about, hydration is high up there. We do it every day of our lives, and there are few activities for which we can say the same.
Half a gallon. Eight 8-ounce glasses. 1.9 litres. These are some of the numbers we found telling us how much water was wise.
But let’s take into account other things: Are you at a high altitude? Are you pregnant? Are you planning on drinking alcohol? Are you exercising? All of these questions can add another glass of water to the tally.
Yet, no two bodies are alike, so to find your baseline water happy place, look at the colour of your pee. It should be straw-coloured to transparent-yellow if you’re hydrated. It shouldn’t be totally clear all the time; this can be taxing for the kidneys. Dark yellow means that you need to up your hydration.
Once you know your baseline, add in some more water if you find yourself exercising or drinking alcohol. Both can inhibit your thirst mechanism. You lose fluid rapidly, but your brain can’t respond in time. Keep up, brain!
Now let’s get to the when. Especially if you aren’t feeling thirsty and it isn’t intuitive, this may be time to build water-drinking into your schedule. Hold yourself accountable.
Consider drinking water by itself. If it is always with meals, it may dilute your digestive juices, so try for 30 minutes before you nosh. We also highly recommend having a glass of water as soon as you get up. Add some festive fruit slices. After a week, it will seem natural. At one point, even coffee took some getting used to.
If you don’t want to disrupt your sleep, have your final glass of water before dinner, which may help you with those annoying bathroom breaks (and just as you were getting to the good part of the dream.).
What kind of water is best? We wrote a longer article about this that we recommend you delve into. Here are the 5 waters that our Bev Burgess says are tops:
- water filtrated water
- spring water (like, from a real spring, not from that lying water bottle)
- mineral water
- micron filtration
- ozonized water (which is used in place of chlorine to clean water).
It is recommended that we stay away from tap water and bottled water. Entirely. Just say no, kids.
Hope we “cleared” some things up (water pun). Your body is composed of a lot of water, so more than any beverage on the planet, water is the one that does a body good.
