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Before you read on, think to yourself ‘how much water in Oz do you consume on a daily basis?

Beaufort Health and Fitness: Thirsty…?

Why is it important?

However certain factors come into play when you live in a warmer climate or live a more active lifestyle.  Hydration is huge in everything we do. Water regulates more than just fat cells, water also is key to our biological functions, such as maintaining our core temperature, transporting nutrients to certain cells, extracting waste products and keeping balanced PH levels.

How Much…?

We’ve all been told by the doc that the daily recommended intake of water is (8) 8 oz glasses of water to sustain daily life. But we obviously recommend quite a bit more, according to new studies men should take in at least or around 130 oz of water while women coming in just shy of 100 oz.

Where does it go and how do we get it back?

We lose water in a few different ways: Sweat, Urination and Insensible or continuous water loss evaporation.

We retain water through the consuming  of food and beverages and the metabolic process’ (oxidation of protein). Humans as a population generally take in close to 20% of fluid(water) through foods (primarily fruits and vegetables), while the other 80% is consumed from drinks (including caffeinated).

How will it affect me?

Dehydration is directly related to performance, not just physically but mentally too. Physically, just the slightest drop in hydration levels can throw an athlete’s performance off immensely. Studies show in STRENGTH can drop by 2%, Power by 3% and Endurance by 10% which may not seem like a lot to you… However that’s just the slightest drop. Mentally, dehydration has cognitive effects, affecting response time, coordination short term memory, attention and focus.  

Lack of hydration has also been directly related to the brain’s activity of sensing painful stimuli.

Beating the Heat

Living in the south, temps are always going to be higher, but in the summer its not rare to see a few days back to back that we don’t see below 90. As you may know the body’s natural way of staying cool is through evaporation of sweat/perspiration.Maintaining ideal hydration levels  require you to increase your fluid consumption, and replenish the sodium and potassium to replace electrolytes lost in the sweat

Directly related to fat-loss

Water helps with fat loss in a few different ways for instance; water can help with the satiety, or the feeling of fullness, water aids in the digestion process and is recommended as a pre-meal drink. It can also reduce the overall calorie consumption when replacing a high calorie beverage.

References:

1. Clark MA, Lucett SC. (2010). NASM’s Essentials of Sports Performance Training. Baltimore, MD: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
2. National Research Council. (2005). Dietary Reference Intakes for Water, Potassium, Sodium, Chloride, and Sulfate. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
3. Insel PM, Ross D, McMahon K, et al. (2011). Nutrition (4th edition). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
4. Jeukendrup A, Gleeson M. (2010). Sport Nutrition: An Introduction to Energy Production and Performance (2nd Edition). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
5. Gonzalez-Alonso J, Mora-Rodriguez R, Below PR, Coyle EF. (1997). Dehydration markedly impairs cardiovascular function in hyperthermic endurance athletes during exercise. Journal of Applied Physiology, 82(4), 1229-1236.
6. Ogino Y, Kakeda T, Nakamura K, Saito S. (2013). Dehydration enhances pain-evoked activation in the human brain compared with rehydration. Anesthesia and Analgesia. Advanced online publication. doi:10.1213/ANE.0b013e3182a9b028.
7. Kenefick RW, Hazzard MP, Mahood NV, Castellani JW. (2004). Thirst sensations and AVP responses at rest and during exercise-cold exposure. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 36, 1528-1534.
8. O’Brien C. (2003, December). Hydration in cold environments. RTO HFM Specialists’ Meeting on “Maintaining Hydration: Issues, Guidelines, and Delivery.” The RTO Human Factors and Medicine Panel (HFM) Specialists’ Meeting. NATO Science and Technology Organization, Boston, MA. RTO-MP-HFM-086, 9.1-9.8.
9. Dennis EA, Dengo AL, Comber DL, Flack KD, Savla J, Davy KP, Davy BM. (2010). Water consumption increases weight loss during a hypocaloric diet intervention in middle-aged and older adults. Obesity, 18(2), 300-7.
10. Boschmann, M. (2003) Water-induced thermogenesis. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 12(88), 6015-6019.

Ian Hart is a Body-Mind Transformation expert, the creator of EarthFIT Training Systems, co-creator of BACK PAIN RELIEF4LIFE, and founder of BEAUFORTPERSONALTRAINING.COM and MYBACKPAINCOACH.COM. Ian and his team help people get into optimal shape in the safest, fastest and most effective way possible, using cutting edge science.