Hydration

     With the summer months approaching and people getting ready to go outside to enjoy the weather I figured it would be a good idea to talk about hydration.  Water is vital for everything we do, including cooling our bodies. 

     Our bodies are mainly water.  Our brain alone is 98% water.  Our brain sees to all of our vital functions.  A drop as little as two percent can affect every process in your body.  This leads to our hearts not performing at peak, our metabolisms dropping, our energy levels lowering, our mental acuity lowering, and sometimes an over all "sick" feeling.  Two percent!  That isn't much. 

     The question is how much should we drink.  If all you are doing is staying inside and being pretty sedentary then you may only need 64 ounces.  That is 8 - 8 ounce glasses of water a day.  But what if you are working out, out in the heat, swimming at the pool, or just going for a walk?  You need to be drinking A LOT more.  Sports drinks are all fine and help with electrolyte replenishment but they also contain a lot of sugar.  Diluting a sports drink 50 percent sport drink and 50 percent water is a better choice.  It provides more of a vessel for the electrolytes to travel through the body and replenish you. 

     Caffeine and alcohol are you enemies when it comes to staying hydrated.  For every caffeinated or alcoholic beverage you drink you have to drink 2 waters of the same size to replenish what you will lose.  Even then you need to drink a third water to try and stay a head of the game.  Don't let yourself get dehydrated because it can take hours or even days to rehydrate.

     Finally, how do you determine how hydrated you are?  One method is your urine color.  If your urine is clear to light yellow you are doing great.  However if it is darker in color you need to start pushing fluids.  If you haven't had to urinate for more than 2 hours.  You need to push water.  If you stop sweating, feel fatigued or start cramping, you need to get out of the heat and slowly start drinking water.  I will go into more with those symptoms in my next post.

Keep pushing play!

Sean Knowles
Independent Beachbody Coach
Leavenworth, KS