The Importance of Staying Hydrated During Your Workouts

 

Drinking water for health. There are several ways to make your liquids more appealing.

Sixty-five percent of the body weight is water. Your blood is made up of about 90% water. Your muscles are about 70% water. Even your bones are 20% water. Water keeps the moisture in the body, transporting oxygen to blood, and helps carry nutrients through blood. Without adequate water, nothing in your body could function properly.

Water is quite simply the most important nutrient in your body.

Dehydration is a serious problem and in graded according to signs and symptoms that reflect the amount of fluid that is lost.

As dehydration increases, signs and symptoms develop. Theses signs include:

  • thirst,
  • sunken eyes,
  • absence of tears when crying,
  • restless or irritable behaviour  

Once dehydration reaches early or mild dehydration there become more obvious signs, such as flushed face, dry or warm skin, urine is strong smelling and dark yellow, dizziness, weakness, and headaches. Then if dehydration grows to moderate or severe the warning signs include: low blood pressure, fainting, convulsions, bloated stomach, fast, weak pulse, skin's loss of firmness, and heart failure.

How do you treat dehydration? If a person is mildly dehydrated, they need to drink enough liquids to replace the fluids that have been lost. Also you need to replace the electrolytes (salts) that have been lost. Drinking sips of water slowly as well as eating a typical Western diet, which is high in salt, will replace the salts that have been lost.

Realizing how critical it is to stay hydrated at all times, here are some ideas to spice up regular liquids to help keep hydrated:

  • *Add a splash of fruit juice for color or flavor
  • *Make juice cubes (fill an ice cube tray with juice)
  • *Freeze strawberries in water
  • *Add a slice of lemon or orange
  • *Wean off regular juice or punch by diluting the drinks till its half and half
  • *Fluid rich snacks such as gelatin or freezer pops
  • *Serve fruits and veggies that are full of water like lettuce, watermelon, broccoli, and grapefruit
  • *Smoothies using fresh fruit, milk and ice cubes
  • *Broth based soups are great to re-hydrate people when they are ill

Make sure there are always plenty of liquid, especially the hotter the weather gets and the more energy that is being used. If you have children always encourage them to drink plenty of water as well as other fluids.

Not only do you need plenty of water for good health, you also need water to lose fat.

Here’s why…

One of the important functions of your kidneys is to eliminate toxic waste products from your body through your urine. When you are dehydrated, the body’s instinctive reaction is to hold on to whatever water it does have in order to survive.

When this water retention occurs, the waste products in the body aren’t flushed out, and build up in your system. At this point, the liver will try to help out with the overload.

The problem is when the liver helps out during fluid retention, it can’t do its own jobs as efficiently, one of which is burning stored fat for energy. The result is that your body may not burn body fat as efficiently as normal.

Many people avoid drinking a lot of water because they think it will make them retain fluid and become bloated. In reality, the opposite is true. When you are dehydrated, your body senses the lack of water and holds on to all the water that is currently in the body. When you consume adequate amounts of water, your body senses that you are no longer dehydrated and then your kidneys flush the water out of your system like they normally do. This results in less water retention.

How much should you drink?

Typically an average person needs to drink six to eight pint glasses of fluid per day! You should make it a habit to drink water all day long.

Your level of thirst is not a good indicator of your level of hydration. By the time your body registers the sensation of thirst, you are already somewhat dehydrated! Therefore you should continue drinking water throughout the day, even when you’re not thirsty. The secret is not to let yourself get dehydrated in the first place. If in doubt, drink more, not less.

What about other drinks?

As long as you are drinking plenty of water, it’s fine to enjoy non-calorific beverages such as diet-coke, tea and any low-calorie drink. Coffee is also fine in moderation (one or two cups a day). But be careful what you put in it! Regular black coffee with a splash of skimmed or semi-skimmed milk with no sugar is what we are talking about here.

Keep in mind, however that caffeine is a diuretic and large amounts of any diuretic can make you dehydrated.