how much water should you drink in a day?
 

I went to a Naturapath and she said I should be drinking 3 litres of water a day and the tea I drink does not count. That not counting if you do any riding then it should be more.
She says it is good for ones digestion. Also she wants me to drink some water with a little bit of apple cider vinegar as this gets yur digestive system a boost.

A guy from work told me he heard a doctor say on a health show that would be too much water as it could stress your kidneys and even cause them to eventually to fail.

I find dirnking that much water not so easy. Not a good idea if you have to get in the car and go anywhere far.

thanks

I believe the 8 glasses of water a day guideline is still encouraged. If you think of a glass as one cup (250 ml), then that's 2 litres a day. But I believe that counts beverages other than plain water.

I have a lot of trouble drinking plain water, so I use Crystal Light (or Nestea Light, or other similar brands) singles in my bottle of water. They give my water flavor without adding calories.

Just drink enough that your urine is clear (meaning you're hydrated.)

"8 glasses of fluid" would be a good rule, because tea should be counted just like a glass of water.

I talked to a couple of doctors about this, and they say each person is different and the 8 glasses a day is pretty generic and only a guide line. They suggest that you pay attention to the color of your urine. It should be light to clear. If it is darker, then you need more fluids. Only one said to stay away from caffeine drinks, the others said it really doesn't matter, just watch the urine color.

I can usually tell, but checking the urine color is always as good double check.

You can have too much water, but you would be drinking a lot more than just 3 litres of water.

Best to aim for urine that is a "light straw" in color (rather than clear). Needing to pee every 4 hours or so is also a good indicator of adequate hydration. Water intoxication is a potential hazard for endurance athletes who consume too much water.

Let me just fix that for you ...

Water intoxication is a potential hazard for endurance athletes who consume too much water, and don't consume enough electrolytes.

You can get away with A LOT of water ... provided you're consuming an adequate amount of electrolytes.

The "drink lots of water" idea doesn't have a lot of scientific support. As you probably notice, after a certain point, the water is just running right through you.

If your urine is a reasonable color (more clear than dark) and your weight isn't down, you're fine during the day. I find that it's important to drink a glass or so right when I get up, and if I do that I don't really need a lot of extra.

Around exercise, weigh yourself before and after. If your weight is constant, you're taking in enough water. If your weight goes down, you need to drink more, or use a hydration drink instead of plain water (it's absorbed more quickly).

If your weight goes up, you are drinking too much and you don't have enough sodium. That's not a great state to be in, as hyponatremia is dangerous.

I think a big variance is where you live. I am up in the high dessert, where we routinely see single digit humidity. I drink quite a bit of water. But, more importantly, I listen to my body. I can just tell if I need a glass of water or if not: there's not much guess work - except for morning maybe.

Not counting a cup or two of coffee and a nightly beer, I drink nothing but water. Some quick tracking shows a fairly consistent 100-120 ounces of water consumed daily. I pee maybe every 3-4 hours and it's staw at the lightest. So I'm drinking what works for my body in this environment.

I am a believer in ACV (apple cider vinegar) also. Make sure it's organic and not filtered. And forgot adding it to water: I take a shot of it (.5-1 ounce), quickly followed by a glass of nice cool water. Gets it over with quickly, as opposed to drinking 16-24 ounces of nasty vinegar water. Blech!

100 oz

I try to drink around 5-6 cups a day and usually a gatorade. I feel hydrated I suppose.

Dr. Joe Pizzorno, the co-founder of Bastyr University and a naturopath, almost killed my wife. He's an idiot and so are most of that ilk. Science. Medicine is supposed to be about science. If there's no evidence of efficacy, then it's faith-based healing. Better to go to an outright religious zealot than a phony.

That is a classic example of a clash of faiths. "Science" IS our current faith. Sure look out for idiots but if your a believer in science then its your duty to question doctors as to what the scientific evidence is to support any therapy that they are suggesting rather than just having faith that 'of course it exists'.

Regards, Anthony

As to water consumption I consume at least 3 litres of water a day although that's ALL I drink. Just water. Now I don't drink tap water. We can debate the merits or faults of tap water forever but honestly it tastes awful and its hard to drink. Pure filtered water is EASY to drink and I have no problems drinking 3 litres of it a day.

Raw apple cider vinegar is good for your digestion although straight up its pretty hard to take. My recommendation would be to take just a little diluted in a glass of filtered water just before a meal. Start off slowly with ACV because it is strong stuff.

Regards, Anthony

Ugg I hate the “clear urine” comments. The opposite of clear is cloudy, the opposite of coloured is colourless. You can have dark-yellow clear urine, and colorless cloudy urine… remember this for when you have to describe symptoms to your doctor.

Urine should always be clear and slightly coloured. Cloudy urine signifies infection or chemical precipitation; totally colourless urine means you have drank so much water that you have essentially washed away all your B-vitamins and probably a lot of electrolytes.

Furthermore, you can be fully hydrated and still have strongly yellow coloured urine if you have recently taken or eaten a lot of B-vitamins (meat, multivitamins, energy drinks, etc).

The scale, restroom visit frequency, and of course thirst, are the best ways to monitor hydration. You should drink enough that you have to pee about once every 3 hours and enough during exercise so you don’t lose more than 1-2 lbs of water weight.

To the OP, you certainly can drink so much water that you damage your kidneys (proteinuria). Here in Canada we had an outbreak of e-coli in Walkertons water supply. After the outbreak people began drinking so much bottled water that kidney problems started surfacing. They launched a campaign saying only drink 8 glasses and pretty much everyone’s kidney function returned to normal.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum