Hydration Station
Drink 8 glasses of water a day they say. Where the heck did that come from anyways? I’ll let you in on a little secret - there is nothing magical about 8 glasses a day so you can probably toss that one aside! Truth be told, the amount of water we need depends on a lot of different factors: our diet, our activity level, our environment, our overall health - and the list goes on. At the end of the day, what is probably true, is that most of us don’t always get as much as we should of the liquid gold. Some suggest that if you wait until you are thirsty, you are already depleted and so need to play catch up. Others suggest you should wait until you are thirsty because your body will let you know what it needs - probably the ideal lies somewhere between the two.
Consider when other chemicals/levels in the body are a bit off: We don’t usually get “symptoms” of a sub optimal level until it gets to a problematic or critical zone. We don’t get symptoms of scurvy when our vitamin C levels dip below optimal, we only get that when the level is too low for too long. We could also think about food. We don’t start shaking and fainting as soon as our blood sugar dips to slightly sub-optimal, that happens when things are getting a bit more dicey and our attention is demanded. We often eat at certain times during the day - hungry or not, and our “feeding schedule” changes from one person to the next. We all train our body to know what sort of schedule we “normally” eat on, so when we drop the ball, it starts hinting at us that we’re hungry. That’s often because it is expecting food at those times and when it doesn’t get it, it wonders what the heck is going on? It was banking on getting replenished when it usually does and had planned accordingly! This can happen with water as well, your body learns your patterns and behaviours and perhaps ends up often functioning “ok” with less water, but that does not equate to functioning optimally. So what to do, what to do? Everyone is different and we need to respect that, but here’s a few tips and tricks to help you stay on track at the hydration station.
Use your own body’s feedback: You get instant feedback anytime you visit the loo - in fact it’s easily colour coded and all! So don’t be shy and check out the colour of your pee. If it’s light yellow or almost clear - you’re in the clear. If it’s dark yellow - you’ve got work to do my friend - get sipping!
Drink consistently throughout the day. Chugging a bunch of water once or twice a day is not super effective, it’s like dumping water over dry soil - it runs off and doesn’t have as much of a chance to get absorbed and used compared to watering patiently and consistently. If you find whenever you increase your water, you just pee a whole bunch more, try sipping regularly throughout the day rather than a deluge - and give your body time to adjust to your new watering schedule.
To keep yourself on track throughout the day, drink from a water bottle and have it with you wherever you go- it’s easier to “measure” and if you notice it’s still full and it’s already lunch time, you know you need to get going.
Have a water challenge. I was the worst at getting enough water, so to keep myself on track I had to make it a game of sorts. I set a first goal for myself of having 2 large water bottles so I had the “2 -bottle challenge” with some friends. After each of us finished our second bottle, we had to take a picture holding it upside down and send it to the rest of the gang. Nothing like a little friendly peer pressure to keep you on track! I have to say, it got easier to get the two bottles down and it wasn’t long before we were exceeding that - rather than just squeaking the second bottle down by 11:59pm!
If you think you’re drinking a lot of water and still feel symptoms of dehydration (muscle cramping, headaches, stiffness etc), you may need to mix a little bit of electrolytes in. We need other molecules like salt or sugar around to help suck the water across the cells in order to absorb it. Most people have enough of that going on in their system from their diet, but with intense exercise in the heat for example, our electrolytes can become depleted. Mix in a bit of a sports drink, flavoured water, lemon water or add a bit of sea salt to the water. It doesn’t take much so if you’re drinking a sports drink, you could dilute it a lot, or have more water before and after it. Make sure you aren’t thwarting your efforts by drinking sugary drinks - those aren’t too good for you, are well beyond the amount you “need”, and aren’t as effective at hydrating you.
Finally, if you feel like you’re drinking enough water and you still don’t feel well, or you’re thirsty all the time, it’s time to stop in at the doc’s office to get some individual advice and perhaps have a couple tests to be sure your kidneys (our body’s filters) are functioning on par.
Happy Hydrating Everyone - now go get your bottle challenge going!