Drinking Water is Just a Part of Hydration

You Can Actually Dehydrate Yourself by Drinking More Water

Everyone knows that drinking 8 glasses of water a day is recommended. It’s like a law or something… but is it a good idea? 

After all, a lot of laws are bad ideas. 

Are you “hydrated” by drinking 8 glasses (64 ounces, or two quarts, or 1/2 gallon)? What does it really mean to be hydrated? Do you know? 

The first point worth making here is that the first 40 years of my life, nobody told us to drink water as if you live in the desert or run a marathon every day. Drinking when you’re not thirsty just seems odd and counterintuitive — your grandma probably wouldn’t recommend it, and our grandparents were mostly smarter about nutrition than we are. 

If we all still ate like they did 100 years ago — meat, potatoes, soups and stews, vegetables — we absolutely would not be going through an epidemic of diabetes and overweight kids today. They did not overthink anything, while we overthink a lot of things.

In any case, somehow, we survived. Were we mildly dehydrated some of the time? Possibly. But we ate better, for the most part, and because hydration is about nutrition too, more than just drinking more water, it’s hard to say for sure. 

Being hydrated means having the right balance of electrolytes to keep enough water in your cells where your body needs it. Keeping your blood volume normal so you don’t feel faint from low blood pressure. Etc.

What are electrolytes, anyway? Electrolytes are essential minerals like potassium and sodium that facilitate passing water into and out of your cells.

Yes, sodium. It’s an essential mineral, so be careful with recommendations to avoid or restrict it. In fact, many experts identify the “problem” with sodium as too little potassium. 

Drinking 1/2 gallon of water a day might be a good idea depending on several other factors, but here’s the part they don’t tell you — you need those electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium, etc) too. 

Too much water without electrolytes can actually dehydrate you by flushing electrolytes from your cells.

Dehydrated can also mean decreased blood volume which lowers blood pressure and can cause you to pass out. It also deprives your internal organs of the vital water and minerals they need to work right. Etc.

Low sodium in the blood is called hyponatremia and in severe cases it can actually be fatal.

And when discussing hydration it’s important to note that if you’re like most people, you drink too much soda pop, diet soda, coffee, tea, fruit juice, energy drinks, alcohol, or other liquids that act as diuretics and actually dehydrate your body unless you counter them with water and electrolytes. It’s not that you cannot have any of those things, but consuming each one requires consuming more water with electrolytes — are you doing that? 

Water is good for you, but like anything else, too much is actually bad for you. Your goal should be hydration — balanced and sufficient electrolytes — not just water. 

Tricking Your Brain into Falling Asleep

Jim  Donovan explains

Rhythm as a way to calm yourself to sleep works — I discovered something similar many years ago.

He gives instruction on how he does it, and anyone who fights with sleep should try it.

But the key learning here is anything that helps you get out of your head and fall into any kind of peaceful, focused, rhytmic state will probably work.

That's what it's all about, turning off your brain and feeling the natural rhythm of your physical body and especially your breathing. 

I will explain my method in a future post.

Don’t Ignore Potassium

 

The amount and balance of minerals in your body is very important for your health in many ways —and part of hydration too.

Potassium a Critical Mineral (aka “Electrolyte”)

Eating and One Simple Way to Do Less of It

Years and years of trial and error have demonstrated for me the best ways to control my weight and eat for better health and nutrition.

So recently while reading Maggie’s Farm I posted my brief summary of what I have learned (with minor edits from original):

Any method of eating for weight loss and better health and nutrition can work but it always amounts to eating less in a week (daily consumption can vary and is not that important) along with seriously limiting terrible nutritional garbage. 

Finding the right system that fits your personality preferences and energy needs is the key. Personally I like two systems: 1) eat disciplined M-F and eat what you like on weekends and 2) eat disciplined for any 2 of 3 (or 3 of 4 etc) daily meals. “Disciplined” means small portions (more like snacks) but the type of food can vary depending on energy needs during the day. Both are easy to adapt to mentally since they fit other daily/weekly patterns we already live and they both accomplish a big reduction in weekly food intake just like fasting for 18 hours a day, which is another system that can work for some people (not me).

The highlighted and italicized portions are the most important pieces to internalize. 

Most people use “what” they eat to accomplish the goal of reducing calories. These are two different things, and there are other — possibly better and definitely simpler — ways to reduce calories, or food intake. The “what” is still important obviously but that is primarily about health and nutrition, not weight loss (even though you can still lose weight with that dietary change)

And at least for me, reducing food intake as a weekly (rather than daily) goal is far simpler and easier to stick with, because it allows me to enjoy a few treats of my choosing each week — but just a few — that keep me from going insane without impacting the long term goal too much. It’s more practical and sustainable. 

And it works. It has to, if you make meaningful reductions weekly, say 20-40%. For each of us, there is some level of weekly food intake below which we will lose weight, regardless of other factors. 

Finding that level can be tricky — that’s why the two simple systems above remove a lot of the guesswork by dividing the days and weeks into chunks of time where we do different things based on time of day or day of week. You’re already doing that, right? Of course you are, because everyone does. 

This reduces food intake — calories — by dividing up your time into chunks we will call “highly disciplined” and “some treats allowed”. 

Make the “highly disciplined” chunk around 75-80% of your week, either M-F or 2-of-3 (or 3-of-4) daily meals. During this time, limit meals severely, say 300 - 400 calories, and limit carbs severely too.

The “some treats allowed” chunk allows somewhat more calories and more carbs, maybe 500 - 1000 calories depending on exercise and energy needs and to feel satiated. Remember this is only about 20-25% of your waking life, so live a little. It’s okay. 

It works and is a hell of a lot easier than counting calories, and more practical and sustainable. 

The other piece of the equation here of course is what to eat. The what is primarily (not completely though) about energy and health, not so much about losing weight. Another topic for another day. 

Pictured at right: evil evil carbs in our own pantry. Watch these like a hawk.

I am not a nutritionist, I’m just a guy who tries things to see what works best — so this is not advice. I’m not telling you what you should do, just detailing what I have had success with, based on my own personal preferences, and therefore it’s logical to assume it might work for others too. 

If what you’ve tried before hasn’t worked, it just means you haven’t found the right system for you yet.