Why drink so much water?

Trotter

As part of my new healthy eating buzz Ive been told to drink 2ltrs of water a day. Now.. this sounded very healthy so I gave it a shot this week.

But.. Ive seen no real differences in my "well being" or weight. (I know it wont make a difference that quick anyway). Im curious what its supposed to achieve though??

All I notice is Im putting on plenty of leg muscle, legging it up the stairs to the bathroom 15 gazillion times a day!

What is the link between weight loss and drinking water?

poobum

2 litres a day isnt very much! and it helps clean out your system!

Hmm_Messiah

As I understand it it improves your kidney function / clears toxins and digestive function, it also improves your metabolism as all those chemical breaddowns etc happen within a fluid environment.

And it gives you a full fieeling.

Also I think when you are feeling hungry if you drink water you satisfy some d" brain triggers" where you brain then expects ingestion.

Einstein

it's not that drinking the water makes you feel healthier, but it helps with everything. Digestion, kidney function, aids in muscle fatigue. The number one cause for muscle injury/cramping is de-hydration.
It can also clear up any other small things like greasy skin, spots etc.

DrIndy

2-3 L is pretty normal. Unless you have a medical condition, it is not possible to overdose on water, your kidneys just keep pumping out the extra.

I drink about 2-3L per day - when in hot weather, that rises......

kjt

You should not that your pee's alot clearer

Its for fun.. why else?

I drink alot of water and I feel alot healthier, +
It sort of fills ya up so I dont eat as much.

(but still too much)

DaDa

I heard/read that if you drink enough water, daily, your body doesn't feel the need to store water as much, thus releases it... hence the contribution to weight loss.

Never tried it.

Frankieboy

Ya i think drinking alot of water helps lower water retention. Also I believe that water makes up a large amount of your body mass something like 80% Im not fully sure of the figure but heard someting like that. Point a + point B could lead to weight loss.

Tar.Aldarion

i have to start drinking water,i have only drank about a litre ever....

Töpher

I try to drink about 4L a day. That said, be warned, you cannot overdose, but one day (I was up early, and up late!) I drank 14 pints of water (~7L) - makes for a very uncomfortable nights sleep! Needless to say I didn't drink much the next day! Genereally I find it helps me feel better, if I don't drink alot of water I start feeling groggy etc.

Easily_Irritated

The idea behind drinking so much water is to replace the water that you loose throughout the day. That figure is thought tobe able 8pints a day.

As somebody said up there ^^ if you drink 8 pints (of water) a day it stops ur body from thinking its dehydrated and prevents water retention

Stark

I need to drink plenty of water or I'll feel tired during the day and can't think as well in work.

Attol

http://medrants.com/archives/2005/04/14/drowning-when-running/

Drinking ridiculous amounts of water can flush out nutrients too. About 2-2.5 litres is what I try to have a day. Any more and I feel uncomfortable. Drink it gradually throughout the day. I carry around a litre sports bottle. It's handy having that in my bag in college and I don't even notice myself working my way through it through boring lectures.

DrIndy

Easily_Irritate wrote:

The idea behind drinking so much water is to replace the water that you loose throughout the day. That figure is thought tobe able 8pints a day.

As somebody said up there ^^ if you drink 8 pints (of water) a day it stops ur body from thinking its dehydrated and prevents water retention

I great difficulty believing drinking lots of water results in water depletion and it may be an urban myth. I hope someone can cite someone to the contrary. Anyway - you don't want to lose WATER as weight, you want to lose FAT - and so the notion strikes me as somewhat dubious.

Attol

The link was my main point. Should probably have elaborated in my first post. There have been studies conducted that prove you CAN overdose on water. Drinking 7 litres of water in a day is rather excessive.

The research involved 488 runners in the 2002 marathon. The runners gave blood samples before and after the race. While most were fine, 13 percent of them - or 62 - drank so much that they had hyponatremia, or abnormally low blood sodium levels. Three had levels so low that they were in danger of dying.

angeldelight

To be honest runners in a marathon are not exactly a good example.

A- They're pushing their bodies to extremes which cannot be compared with normal everyday exercise

B- The amount of sweat (salts + water) that they are losing would be excessive and could lead to hyponatraemia regardless of water intake

Chucky the tree

i think drinking 7ltrs a day, every day would be very impossible aswell.

Its also helps with tiredness. If you are de-hydration you will feel tired and groggy.

DrIndy

LadyLotts wrote:

The link was my main point. Should probably have elaborated in my first post. There have been studies conducted that prove you CAN overdose on water. Drinking 7 litres of water in a day is rather excessive.

No. You are describing SIADH - Syndrome of Inappropriate AntiDiuretic Hormone secretion. It is a rare stress response which occurs during any stress and we encounter is particularily, but occasionally in surgical patients post operation. Stress such as major surgery or running a long marathon can cause this, it is unusual, but recognised.

Your kidneys cope with water normally and can filter over 100L a day no problem, under normal circumstances. An atypical stress response can occur under extreme conditions such as a marathon.

Doctors all know of it because it is a rare possibility for which vigilance is needed, but I cannot understate is it rare and only found in those undergoing strong physiological stress.

Note your data states that only 13% percent had a response to an extreme stress and only a very small percentage had "full blown" SIADH.

MooShop

2 litres of water a day is just the RDA any normal person should take, it helps to cleanse your skin and clear out toxins out of your system and helps with kidney function. if you exercise then you would need to drink more because when you exercise your body loses water. you wont see the effects in the short term, but is very good for you and will show excellent results in th long run if you can maintain your intake

FX Meister

Drank 18.9 Litres one day between 9am and 5pm. Took quite a lot to just keep drinking the stuff and the bathrooms breaks were just czazy, every 5 mins I was running out to the toilet.

hacktavist

You people are idiots if you think you cant drink too much water, people who take extasy die because of this all the time because they are afraid of the rumour that if they dont drink enough they will die.
Google: http://chemistry.about.com/cs/5/f/blwaterintox.htm

Easygainer

Trotter wrote:

As part of my new healthy eating buzz Ive been told to drink 2ltrs of water a day. Now.. this sounded very healthy so I gave it a shot this week.

But.. Ive seen no real differences in my "well being" or weight. (I know it wont make a difference that quick anyway). Im curious what its supposed to achieve though??

All I notice is Im putting on plenty of leg muscle, legging it up the stairs to the bathroom 15 gazillion times a day!

What is the link between weight loss and drinking water?

Think I'll just give my 2 cents.

As a general guideline, I think one should take 1ml of water per calories they consume. I'm currently taking +4000 cals per day so that means I'm taking over 4 litres.

Why take water? Well, aside from helping to absorb minerals and vitamins, food needs to be transported through the body and water does this very well. I think I should mention though that you should only drink water AFTER meals preferably 20 mins after if you can. The reason for this is that it retards digestion by diluting stomach acid so waiting allows a lot of the meal to be broken up, then transported. I won;t get into it too much more.

Water is also good for skin, prevents you from being dehydrated (duh), is a major constituent of muscle, clears the body of toxins and is far better for thirst than coke etc.

segadreamcast

Yeah, I drink a LOT of water - thus earning me the nickname in school of Noel 'H2O' Rock (heh, no, that's not my only nickname of course :P)...

Anyway, on a personal level, I find that 2.5-3.5 Litres would be the average level I drink every day - I drink nothing but water and a glass of orange juice every morning and, consequently, I have noticed an extreme improvement in my otherwise horrible skin... I wish I had some before or after pics.

I also find that if I drink more than 4.5-5 Litres a day, I begin to feel odd and, generally, after drinking more than 5 Litres, I develop a cold the next day (though this is probably due to the cold temperature at which I drink the water combined with my strict diet moreso than anything else)

Supercell

hacktavist wrote:

You people are idiots if you think you cant drink too much water, people who take extasy die because of this all the time because they are afraid of the rumour that if they dont drink enough they will die.
Google: http://chemistry.about.com/cs/5/f/blwaterintox.htm

Isnt this because people spaced out on drugs are not compensating with salt as they drink gallons of water ?

hacktavist

Yeah but it can happen to anyone who doesnt compensate for salts, druggie or not.
The only reason they drink so much water is because of scaremongering.

DrIndy

Your kidneys can normally conserve sodium well - it is when losses suddenly exceed intake such as after a bout of HEAVY sweating. The cure is something like lucozade sport or any isotonic drink. I know when I am salt depleted and had it a few times when in texas - quick gatorade and wait a few minutes.....

Chucky the tree

hacktavist wrote:

You people are idiots if you think you cant drink too much water, people who take extasy die because of this all the time because they are afraid of the rumour that if they dont drink enough they will die.
Google: http://chemistry.about.com/cs/5/f/blwaterintox.htm

Drinking to much on E very rarely causes death. Infact, taking E very rarely causes death.

hacktavist wrote:

The only reason they drink so much water is because of scaremongering.

What?! thats bull****.

THe reason people on E take drink so much water is because they are dancing alot. They are sweating and very thirsty.

Its not like there staning there and forcing the water down themselves just cos they are worried they might die from lack of water. They dont care about that.

passive

What?! thats bull****.

THe reason people on E take drink so much water is because they are dancing alot. They are sweating and very thirsty.

Its not like there staning there and forcing the water down themselves just cos they are worried they might die from lack of water. They dont care about that.

Actually i think people on E were dying from dehydration cos they didn't think to drink water while dancing for hours... Then it was publicised that they should drink a lot of water. So some people drank too much and died from that. That's what i heard anyway regarding the whole E/water related deaths thing. Open to correction..

Chucky the tree

passive wrote:

Actually i think people on E were dying from dehydration cos they didn't think to drink water while dancing for hours... Then it was publicised that they should drink a lot of water. So some people drank too much and died from that. That's what i heard anyway regarding the whole E/water related deaths thing. Open to correction..

I dont know they died from dehydration, go to any club and dance for hours straight. Very hard not to think about water or drinking it.

People that die from E only die during there first time taking it. Now you do get gob****es who decide to drop 10 at a time or so, not really a wise idea.

Easygainer

I've said it numerous times, people can technically die from everything, but they only publicise the sensational stuff, like that girl who died taking 1 E that was pure. What about the million others who took it that weekend and every other with no consequences? Alcohol directly kills a lot more than E (people choking on vomit, alcohol poisoning etc), yet because we all know from common experience that this isn't likely to happen, we still drink. IMO, there are no drugs out there that can kill you without you wanting it to be so, like a heroin/coke overdose. You can say "but John Belushi......", how do you know it wasn;t intentional?

Bottom line is that 6 people die putting on their socks every year in the UK... does that mean we shouldn't wear socks?

DrIndy

and 3 were hospitalised with injuries due to "tea cosies" - not teapots in tea cosies, as that is classed as "tea pot" - but TEA COSIES.

Back on track though - you can't go wrong if you drink 2-3 litres a day or slightly more. A great number of people have stated the benefits of doing so and all the statements against this focussed on much higher quantities - with the all encompassing record of 18.9L and living in the loo!

Easily_Irritated

DrIndy wrote:

I great difficulty believing drinking lots of water results in water depletion and it may be an urban myth. I hope someone can cite someone to the contrary. Anyway - you don't want to lose WATER as weight, you want to lose FAT - and so the notion strikes me as somewhat dubious.

Yea... that made little or no sense!

My point was that if your body thinks its dehydrated (seeing as a body looses water all day just from doing day to day activities) then when u do drink water it retains it because it thinks the body is in need of some and stores it (not unlike a camel ) and makes you BLOATED nothing to do with weight gain. Water retention and weight gain are not the same thing.

Capt'n Midnight

Drinking a lot of water can flush out nutrients. But the average person probably gets too much sodium anyway and only Vitamins B's and C are water soluble and even then it's the excess that would be lost.

Though it's probably best not to drink litres just after a meal, having a drink a few minutes before you eat might be a much better idea.

Can remember a good few years ago having to drink a lot of water, isotonic drinks at half dilution (I find them too strong) and some milk (it's got some salts in it too). Must have sweated off 10L and my skin appeared to be covered in dried salt.

Easily_Irritated

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Drinking a lot of water can flush out nutrients. But the average person probably gets too much sodium anyway and only Vitamins B's and C are water soluble and even then it's the excess that would be lost.

Though it's probably best not to drink litres just after a meal, having a drink a few minutes before you eat might be a much better idea.

Can remember a good few years ago having to drink a lot of water, isotonic drinks at half dilution (I find them too strong) and some milk (it's got some salts in it too). Must have sweated off 10L and my skin appeared to be covered in dried salt.

Ick that doesn't sound too pleasent!

mad m

Now all this talk about water,I've got a couple of questions.

Water to be drank,should it be out of the tap,or off the shelf?

Is there any opinions with tap water and flouride in it meant to be bad for our teeth?

The above question I heard somewhere so dont shoot me,just curious.

poobum

i thought floride was good for teeth(probably am wrong do) but i do no some of the bought waters if taken alot can give kidney stones! this happened to my dad! he cursed the water after! he had ben drinking bottle water only because he thought it was better for him! but when he got the stone the doctor told him othrwise!

28064212

Fluoride is good for your teeth, but it is a halogen (poisonous). It's only present in tap water in tiny quantities though. There's a whole debate going on about it in Ireland at the moment, some people are claiming it's carcinogenic (like everything else). Some countries have stopped adding it to the water supply, but most have kept it in, until some solid evidence can be found it is causing damage

<edit>See the Wikipedia entry</edit>

mad m

poobum wrote:

i thought floride was good for teeth(probably am wrong do) but i do no some of the bought waters if taken alot can give kidney stones! this happened to my dad! he cursed the water after! he had ben drinking bottle water only because he thought it was better for him! but when he got the stone the doctor told him othrwise!

Ha! Thats amazing I have got atleast 5+ kidney stones since I was 23 and im 33 now.I was told to give up anything dairy etc.But I used to drink alot of bottle mineral water but not much these days.Last time I got a kidney stone was lastyear but it came out without any worries. :rolleyes:

DrIndy

A small amount of fluoride strengthens teeth. A large amount causes people to have white flecks on their enamel and too much results in tooth malformation. I am not a dentist, but this is something Lomb knows.....

Capt'n Midnight

28064212 wrote:

Fluoride is good for your teeth, but it is a halogen (poisonous). It's only present in tap water in tiny quantities though. There's a whole debate going on about it in Ireland at the moment, some people are claiming it's carcinogenic (like everything else). Some countries have stopped adding it to the water supply, but most have kept it in, until some solid evidence can be found it is causing damage

<edit>See the Wikipedia entry</edit>

If you don't want fluoride in your water then buy a de-ioniser or drink bottle water. I couldn't be bothered looking up a quote about how it's fluoride in the water that has made a huge improvement in dental health because not everyone uses fluoride toothpaste (and actually that IMHO is marketing hype because there is probably too much F in toothpaste, you aren't supposed to swallow - then try explaining to kids why it tastes so sweet ?) Oddly enough on timeteam they showed that before the sugar grown on slave plantations was popular in europe that most people had heathy teeth. For a time when the sugar tax was high black teeth were flaunted as a sign of wealth. At present it's only about 25% on confectionary and nothing on the white poison (:)) in it's raw state. Maybe re-taxing this might help with obesity and other health problems. Would it raise 0.7% of GDP ?

As for it being a halogen / poisonous - the same is true of Chlorine which is kinda essential to life. In it's native state F is just about the most reactive substance out there. Combines with all other elements except Oxygen and the nobel gasses , and with a catalyst you can get it to combine with most of them too. Asbestos burns in Fluorine. Not nice stuff and if you use HF for etching glass then make sure you have Calcium Gluconate handy http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/safety/HFtreatment.htm

scuba steve

I try drink bout 2-3 litre every day but sometimes might have 4/5

Cake Fiend

hacktavist wrote:

You people are idiots if you think you cant drink too much water, people who take extasy die because of this all the time because they are afraid of the rumour that if they dont drink enough they will die.
Google: http://chemistry.about.com/cs/5/f/blwaterintox.htm

This is because ecstasy can hinder the kidneys' ability to filter and get rid of excess water. I doubt the people on this thread are on ecstasy on a daily basis.

And "all the time"?? The last ecstasy-induced water intoxication death I heard about was Leah Betts in 1995. More people are taking ecstasy now than ever before, but it's very very rare that someone dies of water intoxication.

So, who's the idiot?

BossArky

All this talk about water is making me thirsty.

*dashes to water fountain, returns with two plastic cup fulls*

Over the weekend I read that drinking adequate amounts of ice cold / chilled water helps with losing weight. This is because the human body burns calories in raising the temperature of the water from 0 or therabouts to 37.5-ish(body temperature). Apparently drinking half a litre of ice water would burn about 17 calories... probably the equivalent of 2 minutes moderate running.

(The figures about are not exact but google it if you need the exact facts)

OLDYELLAR

After a couple of weeks you`ll notice the difference , lay off aqll the crap for a month eat healthy have 2 litres of water a day and you`ll see a great diffrence in your skin , worked for me

BossArky

I drank so much water today that I was full of it before going to the gym. I weighted myself before and after(and didn't drink anything whilst working out... for about 45 minutes).... afterwards I was about 1kg or so lighter. I did some sweating!

rubadub

FX Meister wrote:

Drank 18.9 Litres one day between 9am and 5pm. Took quite a lot to just keep drinking the stuff and the bathrooms breaks were just czazy, every 5 mins I was running out to the toilet.

Christ! was that for a bet. I drink a lot of water, probably a gallon a day in this hot weather.

Most of those E advice leaflets now tell you to eat salty snacks to absorb the water better. I do remember seeing people forcing water down them in nightclubs, I have seen girls wretching about to get sick from drinking so much water. The low death figures with the massive user base shows how safe ecstacy really is, when people do die from water overdose it is usually hushed up and the death is blamed on toxic effects of ecstacy.

GreeBo

you shouldnt drink much of anything 30 mins either side of eating a meal, you silute your digestive juices and slow down digestion.

incisor71

FX Meister wrote:

Drank 18.9 Litres one day between 9am and 5pm. Took quite a lot to just keep drinking the stuff and the bathrooms breaks were just czazy, every 5 mins I was running out to the toilet.

Having just taken a cup of water from the refrigerated water dispenser at my workplace, I noticed that 18.9 litres is the capacity of its reservoir capsule (I'm sure there's a better piece of jargon for that)..... that amount of Wasser must've taken some guzzling. Did you actually manage to get some work done that day??

I'm not entirely convinced about the theory of not drinking water with meals, as stomach acid is strong enough to dissolve a razor blade (which makes the thought of having a stomach ulcer particularly frightening). In any case if I don't drink water with the meal then I'll have forgotten about it 20 mins later, and how else is one supposed to cool down if the meal's too hot - unless I subsist on cold meat salads from now on?

{Edit} In keeping with the original theme, I drink about 2-3 litres per day, and I keep a 5L bottle next to the bed at night in case I wake up thirsty. One gets used to the increased number of visits to the Gents!

Rew

Dont think anyone esle ahs mentioned this but drinking water can burn calories. If you drink an amount of very cold water your body burns calories to warm it up to body temp.

StickyMcGinty

E is an anti-diuretic so you cant have a slash like you normally can, so if you drink too much water you can actually "drown" yourself!

i've only started drinking loads of water in the office, about 4 litres a day. i hate tap water, the water cooler water has a deadly taste of it, that prob why i started drinkin so much!

BaZmO*

How have the mods let this thread go on for so long? So many myths and mistruths.

B.