5 Tips for Staying Hydrated

Humans can’t live without drinking water for more than 2-3 days. Have you asked yourself why is water so important? Well, let’s see: water is to be found in every part of our body. For example 50%- 60% of human body weight constituents water. In our muscle tissue and around brain we have approximately 75% water. In our kidneys we have approximately 80% water, little less in liver – 70%. There is even some water within our bones. Only place where water is not found in our body is in the fat tissue. Let’s look therefore how we can make sure that we supply our body with enough water for its optimal functioning.

1. Start and end each day with water intake

Do you know that overnight dehydration increases chances of a morning heart attack? During night sleep humans loose around 2 g of water per minute. If you multiply that with hours of sleep, you’ll see how much water is lost overnight. You may ask why so much? Because we dehydrate overnight three wise: 1. Trough body sweat, 2. Trough urination and 3. Trough breathing. Therefore, first thing when you get up in the morning – take two glasses of water. Also, don’t forget to supply your body with a glass of water before going to sleep.

2. Fruits and veggies – good source of water

It is good to know that around 20% of water intake can be supplied trough proper choice of food. Fruits and vegetables in this respect do double favor for health: provide you with water and necessary vitamins and minerals. Think for example of watermelon: its water content is over 90%.

 3. Fizzy drinks and coffee – to be careful with this source of water

Although since our childhood we've been slowly but surely addicted to different fizzy drinks, one has to be careful with intake of those, due to the long term effect on human health. One bottle of such drink will provide you with same amount of water as the plain bottle water of same size. But the problem is with other content found in fizzy drinks. Mostly we talk here about sugar: its content can pose few several health risks to humans: obesity, diabetes, heart diseases. Similar case is with coffee: drinking too much of it, can’t supply you with significant additional amount of water, but can surely have some other adverse effects on your health. Therefore drink coffee moderately, and if you can’t live without your favorite fizzy drink, at least buy a low calorie option of it.

4. Don’t wait to feel thirsty to drink water

Remember, it works like this: when your brain gets signal for thirst its already red alert in your body. We've mentioned on the beginning of the article how much water is needed (percent wise) for normal running of vital organs. Think of it in this way: do you like to drive your car always with enough gas in the tank, or you prefer to wait until the red light showing gas reserve turns on. Therefore, it’s better to keep your body “not on reserve”.

5. More water during workout

Make sure you supply your body with enough water before, during and after your workout. More physical activity results in higher level of hydration. Therefore more water is needed to support the boosted metabolism. This is also extremely important if you’re on a workout program for losing weight. In this case water can become your great supporter – just make sure you get enough of it.