The smug “Drink when you’re thirsty, duh” bit is kind of annoying. I in fact don’t feel thirsty until long after I’m dehydrated, and it kinds of fucks up my whole day until I realize why I feel like shit and drink something. I’ve had a kidney stone for the same reason, and those are no fun at all. So, yes, sometimes you do need to drink X glasses of water a day, thirsty or not. I just wish that somebody could agree on a number.
(And I’m fairly sedentary–I’m sure it’s much worse for athletes and people who work outdoors.)
“Beyond that, the benefit of a daily multivitamin for the average person
is murky, and getting murkier. Proponents of the pills say they provide a
sort of nutritional insurance policy, filling in the gaps for nutrients
that people can’t or, more likely, simply don’t get enough of through
their diets. The problem is, there’s virtually no evidence that shows
that doing so actually improves health in populations that don’t have
high levels of nutrient deficiencies.” http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/05/multivitamins/index.htm
I drink at least 2 litres of water a day, probably closer to 3. I drink so much of water that I’ve had myself tested for diabetes twice because it just seems excessive to me. Both times the doctor said that I’m fine and if I’m thirsty, I can just drink water and I don’t have to worry about it. Luckily I have an unlimited supply of clean drinking water straight from the tap.
I try to err well on the side of over hydration too. I think dehydration is a much bigger issue than over hydration. I don’t mean only by the standard used in this video, which is death, but in terms of energy and health. Anyone who hasn’t noticed that they have more energy when they’ve been staying hydrated just isn’t paying attention.
This is especially true when being physically active in arid conditions. Dehydration sneaks up on you, I’ve seen and experienced it firsthand. “You don’t need to drink water until you’re thirsty” is spectacularly bad advice for the 70,000 people at Burning Man right now, as well as for the however many soldiers we still have in various overseas desert shitholes right now.
I did this in Taiwan one evening. That was bad enough, but the next day we were invited out for dinner. Our guest first took us to a restaurant that just served dried tofu. The spices didn’t agree with me, but I ate as much as I could to be polite. Then he took us to a fish restaurant for the main part of the meal (which I didn’t know about - I was new to Asia and didn’t know about visiting several restaurants for different courses). It was a really nice restaurant with a fish tank in one area - you choose the fish, and they take it out, chop the head off and make a few dishes out of it. There was a lot of food, and again I felt the need to be polite and eat some. One of the women who was with us was going to spoon some soup into her bowl until the head surfaced, which put her off it. Again, the spices were quite strong (not particularly spicy, just strong and unusual flavours), but I managed to eat something. By this time I really wasn’t feeling great, but didn’t have any accidents. I think we went somewhere else for dessert. Finally we left, and got back to the place we were staying. Some of the rest of the group had found some interesting fruit in a market, and they’d opened it up and were sharing it. That was my first exposure to durian.
Somehow I made it through the whole evening, but I’ve been sensible with my water intake since then.
Dehydration certainly worsens stones, but they’re more a product of unlucky genes throwing one’s chemical processing out. I suffer recurrent calcium oxalate stones and increased water intake didn’t have any effect, but it seems like potassium/magnesium citrate and calcium citrate supplements do.
In the summer especially, if I’m not working for a few days but spending a lot of time at the computer, I’ll ‘forget’ to drink water, so I develop gout - no fun. I now force myself to drink water even if I’m not that thirsty; no more gout since I’ve started that policy.
“Your body will tell you what’s best…” has to be one of the many pieces of advice that should be taken with a lot of suspicion. (“Yeah, what if the part of your body which talks to you is broken? What then?”)
Not necessarily dehydrated as such, but behind the curve, and it becomes very hard to catch up if you’re going much longer. Yes, if I “drank to thirst” when cycling, I’d finish (or perhaps not) long rides as a dehydrated mess. Drink early and often when exercising.
I get annoyed by it because the whole concept that you have to remain permanently “hydrated” has taken over American adults, to the point that so many of them are constantly sipping from bottles, like toddlers with sippy-cups.
Never mind the ecological waste that has resulted from 50 billion plastic bottles used per year, or even millions of “reusable” water bottles that wouldn’t have been bought if it weren’t for this fad, what really bugs me is the hoards of American tourists in foreign countries, all looking distinct from all the other tourists because of their baby bottles clutched in each of their hands.
My (healthy) diet is mostly fatty meat & skin, full-fat dairy products and eggs with a good bit of veg and very few carbs. On a layabout day I’ll want ~1 liter to drink (water, milk, coffee, but if I’m super-active on an especially gross day (I run) I can do ~5.
Fruit-pedantry: what I generally consider “fruit” is tropical fruit and berries which are mostly carb-sacs and thus, in my view, no less evil than confections or starches/grains. Plenty of fruits are not carb-sacs, though, and I eat them and refer to them as vegetables as do most westerners (e.g. tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers, olives, squashes, avocados).
I do drink at least a liter of water per day, which is undoubtedly less than the “recommended” level, but I get my water from filling a bottle from my kitchen sink then keeping it with me here at my desk in the evening. Since I am supplying my own water, I started to question this idea being pushed by the beverage industry, but then I remembered how much bottled tap water is sold every day. I know the idea wasn’t started by the bottled water industry, but yeah, they certainly do take advantage of it, don’t they?
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