Experts
offer a range of answers to this question, from “Drink only when thirsty,” to “Drink
enough to replace the fluids you lose through breathing, perspiration, and
elimination,” to “Drink the amount I recommend.” For example,
the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine recommends that women drink about 2.2 liters (nine 8-ounce glasses) of
water a day, and men about 3 liters (thirteen
8-ounce glasses).
Here
are my own guidelines, based on years of observation of myself, my patients,
and people in gyms; on talking to doctors I respect; and on research. (One
liter equals 1.06 quarts; so for all practical purposes, liters and quarts are
interchangeable. If you’re measuring in liters, you’ll drink a very small
amount more, which can only help.)
- Men less than 200 pounds: 2.5 quarts per day
- Men more than 200 pounds: 3 quarts per day
- Male athletes more than 200 pounds: at least 3.5 quarts per day
- Women less than 150 pounds: 2 quarts per day
- Women more than 150 pounds: 2.5 quarts per day
- Women athletes more than 150 pounds: 3 quarts per day
These
amounts will make you well hydrated without your running any risk of drinking too
much water, which can be a problem, too. Remember, though, that the
preceding numbers are approximations. The amount of water you need changes from
day to day based on how much you perspire, the water content of your food, the
amount of alcohol you drink (alcohol is dehydrating), and your activity level
(if you’re exercising when it’s hot out, you need more water). But the minimum
amounts of water anyone should drink are as follows:
- Men of any age, in any condition: 2 quarts a day
- Women of any age, in any condition: 1.5 quarts a day
Many
of my patients balk at this prescription. A common complaint is, “I’m not used
to drinking this much water—I’m gagging on it!” An even bigger one is, “I have
to get up at 4 A.M. to urinate!” And I respond, “So do I, but I do it anyway.”
People ask me why my skin looks so good and why I’m so healthy. The main reason
is that I drink enough water, and peeing is a very small price to pay for that.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s no price at all. What price would you set on
being healthy and pain free? Is it really such an
imposition on your life to urinate a few extra times a day, considering the benefits? I call hydration and the other two
key practices that this article recommends “lifestyle
changes” because they do involve a certain level of
adjustment. As I say to my patients, “Get used to it.”
If you’re like most people, you’re dehydrated and don’t even know it. After a long period of chronic dehydration, the
body loses its ability to detect whether it’s
thirsty. So you need to deliberately drink more than you may feel you need. You’ll find that as your body grows
accustomed to taking in more water, your
water-detection mechanism kicks back into gear and your
desire for water actually increases. What may seem at the beginning like much too much to drink will become easy to
swallow after as little as two weeks. In fact,
it will feel normal and necessary. Expect your body to
request more water as it becomes more hydrated. When it starts
regulating water as it was intended to, you’re
truly well hydrated.
Getting
hydrated brings a couple of nice bonuses. A big one is the change in your face.
Your skin will look smoother and more youthful because of the water underneath.
When I put Rick on hydration, he was fifty-four. After three weeks, his wife
swore he looked ten years younger, and he did look fantastic. His skin was much
softer and smoother; some of his wrinkles had smoothed out. Another great side
effect of hydration for most people is an increased ability to lose weight.
Research has shown that bringing more water into the body cells actually
increases the rate of metabolism, thus helping burn calories.
Generally,
it takes about six weeks to become fully hydrated. But I don’t want to make you
wait that long to get to the stretches, so I’m only asking you to do ten days
of preparation. As you embark on your stretch program, you’ll continue to
hydrate, so by the end of six weeks of stretching, you’ll have been drinking
water for about eight weeks and should be fully
hydrated.
To enhance
the benefits of hydration, I suggest that you add trace minerals to your diet.
The body needs tiny amounts of a variety of minerals, including chromium,
vanadium, manganese, iron, copper, and zinc, to function properly. These
minerals are the spark plugs of water, facilitating its chemical reactions. An
excellent way to get these minerals is to use Celtic or Himalayan salt in your
food instead of regular table salt. These types of salt retain naturally
present minerals that have been refined out of table salt, which contains
excessive sodium. The sodium content of Celtic and Himalayan salt (available in
health food stores or online) is lower than that of table salt, so it’s more
suitable for people with high blood pressure.
Important: if you have high
blood pressure, consult a complementaryintegrative medical doctor about using
any form of salt.
A note for
athletes: there’s been a lot of publicity about a condition called hyponatremia.
News stories have focused on runners who developed it after distance runs, when
sweating combined with drinking large amounts of water diluted the amount of
sodium in their blood. Symptoms include nausea, confusion, cramps, weakness,
and in severe cases, coma or even death. Hyponatremia usually occurs when
someone has exercised intensively for more than sixty minutes while consuming
more than 1.5 quarts of water per hour.
Most
people don’t have to worry about hyponatremia at all, and athletes can easily
avoid it by drinking 2 ounces every fifteen minutes while exercising and then
drinking more when they finish their workout. Don’t let concerns about
overconsuming water interfere with following my extremely beneficial hydration
program.
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