How much water do you need to drink every day?
There are a few things we can’t ignore to keep our health and live life to the fullest. These are: diet, rest and exercise.
No matter how well you eat, if you don’t sleep and are not physically active, problems arise. Likewise, if you exercise a lot, and with poor diet and insufficient rest, your body won’t do that.
Most of us know the importance of a good diet. It’s just as important to bring in the right amount of water, directly or indirectly. There are countless good sides of taking water. Water is the basic building ingredient of all of us.
Why Is Water Important
Approximately 60-70% of the human body is made up of water. The exact value depends on the age and proportion of muscle according to fat tissue (because muscles contain more water than fat).
Although water does not contain calories and nutrients, it is necessary for life. We can survive for weeks without food, but without water for days.
The organism does not retain excess water as it does with fats, so it is necessary to drink or consume the appropriate amount of water daily in order to maintain good health.
It’s hard to bring in too much water, because more water means more going to the toilet, and the color of your urine becomes colorlessly transparent.
Nevertheless, you should not overdo the water in this way and try to keep your urine color pale yellow like lemonade.
However, if you drink too little water, the body begins to dehydrate, and the first symptom is thirst. Visiting the toilet will certainly thin out and your urine color will turn dark yellow or even brown.
When you drink water or take it in with your diet, you hydrate. If you don’t get enough water, your body will suffer, and this condition is called dehydration.
Water is the main ingredient in our body, so every cell, tissue and organ. It plays an incredibly important role in almost all bodily functions such as:
- Temperature regulation
- Transfer of oxygen and nutrients
- It is a component of many biochemical reactions
- It’s used to cleanse- detoxify the body through urine and feces
- Lubricates joints
- Has a role in digestion
- Has a role in burning fats
- It’s a basic ingredient in bodily fluids like saliva and tears
- Provides shape and stability to cells, etc.
Drinking and taking in enough water will help your skin’s health. A sufficient amount of water makes the skin hydrated, so people who don’t ingest it enough have a problem with dry skin.
Daily water needs
Water is a basic food and is necessary for life. Good health also depends on how much water we drink every day. Human water needs depend on a variety of factors: health, activity, submission and seasons.
The universal formula for how much water to drink a day does not exist, but some optimal water intake can easily be set for everyone.
In general, adults should consume 2 to 3l of water every day. That’s about 7-8 glasses a day.
This assessment does not include a person’s specific medical conditions, exercise habits and place of residence (say, high altitude or in tropical regions).
Daily activities can increase daily water needs, for example, hard physical work during a warm part of the year can increase this assessment several times.
How do you know that’s enough? All you need to do is look at the color of the urine that should be pale yellow or transparent. If you drink less than you lose, the color is dark yellow.
In addition to drinking water, we can bring it in through the food we eat. Many fruits and vegetables have a high water content, which is why we eat it in greater quantities in fresh condition.
Water, of course, is also found in juices, soft drinks, tea and coffee.
See also: Ginger Tea Health Benefits
Pay attention, caffeine and alcohol are diuretics!
When drinking coffee, know that caffeine dehydrates the body because it acts as a diuretic. Alcohol is an even worse diuretic.
Beverages containing caffeine (coffee, tea, carbonated soft drinks) give the body water, but also extract it from the body, so they dehydrates the body. Headache is one of the first symptoms of dehydration.
Fruit juices are fine when it comes to hydration, but they contain a lot of calories, so take care of this as well. For proper hydration, let the base of your fluid intake still be clean, natural water.
See Also: How Many Calories Should I Eat To Lose Weight
Water and diet
Because our body has such water content, a smaller or higher intake can have an impact on body mass.
People who are on restrictive diets with low carbohydrates quickly lose water (because carbohydrates bind water well), so people then think they’ve lost weight when in fact they’ve lost water quickly.
Rapid weight loss is, therefore, another term for dehydration. Water reduces appetite. Don’t underestimate the importance of this. If you drink less, you’re more likely to eat more.
See Also: Water Fasting For Weight Loss
How much water do we even lose?
We all constantly lose water through the process of breathing, sweating, urinating and through the stool (feces). Given that, it’s imperative that we make up for that lost water.
By sweating and breathing, we lose about a liter of water a day, while urinating and stool lose slightly more, about a liter and a half. How much water we lose, that’s what we have to make up for.
These two and a half liter need to be ingested through food and fluids so we don’t get dehydrated.
The water in brought in by food is only half a liter a day, which is about 20% of daily needs. The other two liter should be ingested through all the liquids we drink during the day.
When should we drink more water?
Not every season is the same in terms of the need to drink water. Summer warm and humid weather significantly affects sweating and increases our water needs. By sweating we lose electrolytes, so it’s a good idea to make up for them by drinking.
Half an hour of medium-intensity physical activity (fast walking, jogging, cycling) increases the need for water by half a liter.
High altitudes over 2500 m also affect water loss by breathing and urinating, and even then the needs are greater. Physical activity, a disease or condition can also increase water needs.
Water needs in some diseases (accompanied by high temperatures) and conditions (pregnancy, breastfeeding) also increase daily water needs, by as much as half a litre more than average.
It’s a basic rule to drink water when we’re thirsty, but sometimes it’s not a good idea. As we get older, it’s harder to notice that we’re dehydrated, so it’s better to drink when we’re not very thirsty.
