Coach’s Corner – How do you Hydrate?

Our bodies are made up of mostly water but we tend to neglect this most vital ingredient. Why is water so important what does it help us with and how much should you be drinking?!?!

 

An average man’s body weight is made up of 57% water!! That is a lot of water, and being that we have so much water in our bodies it is important to make sure the we are getting enough.

The lack of water can cause issues from tiredness, constipation, to plain old tiredness.

There are several ways to calculate how much water you should be drinking and one of them is to drink half of your body weight in oz. So if you weight 160 lbs you should be drinking 80 oz.

What about drinking to much water and water intoxication? What intoxication is the dilution of sodium in the body but is usually only seen in infants under six and sometimes athletes when they are sweating a lot. An adult with healthy kidneys can process up to 15 liters of water a day! So as long as you are drinking you water throughout the day and not all at one time you should be fine.

Food can also help or hinder you attempt to stay hydrated fruits and veggies like watermelon, squashes, apples, etc… can help you get the water you need through it is harder to determine how much water you are actually getting for our foods, on the upside many of these foods will provide you with nutrients that you need. On the downside foods with high sodium or diuretics can cause the need for more water and while in the right amounts can help the body function better, in large amounts it will cause the body to start retaining water.

So wither you are staying hydrated from drinking or from eating make sure that you stay hydrated to get the benefits of:
Better Body Temperature Regulation
Increased Body Lubrication
Improved weight maintenance
Toxin Removal
Physical Efficiency