how much water do you drink

[AngryScientist]

i'm what i would term chronically dehydrated.

mornings: coffee, lots of coffee
afternoon: bike riding/running, sweat lots, drink water, but sweat lots of it out
evenings: booze; wine, scotch; beer

this is not working out. i used to be much more conscientious about hydrating myself, but have slipped greatly this spring/summer. i'm keeping my stainless water bottle within arms reach all day now, trying to cram as much water as possible during the day.

a few rough online "calculators" tell me to drink anywhere from 95 - 120 oz per day of water based on my weight and activity level. this is going to be a challenge.

are you getting the "recommended" volume of water a day?

[FlashUNC]

I'm sure I'm nowhere near close.

[rugbysecondrow]

i'm what i would term chronically dehydrated.

mornings: coffee, lots of coffee
afternoon: bike riding/running, sweat lots, drink water, but sweat lots of it out
evenings: booze; wine, scotch; beer

this is not working out. i used to be much more conscientious about hydrating myself, but have slipped greatly this spring/summer. i'm keeping my stainless water bottle within arms reach all day now, trying to cram as much water as possible during the day.

a few rough online "calculators" tell me to drink anywhere from 95 - 120 oz per day of water based on my weight and activity level. this is going to be a challenge.

are you getting the "recommended" volume of water a day?

I use the piss test, if I am pissing yellow, drink more water. If I am pissing clear, keep doing what I am doing. I have a 30 oz glass I keep at my desk all day that I try to refill 2-3 times a day. I drink only water or milk after 8PM, no soda all day. Anyway, that is what I do, piss test.

[godfrey1112000]

I use the piss test, if I am pissing yellow, drink more water. If I am pissing clear, keep doing what I am doing. I have a 30 oz glass I keep at my desk all day that I try to refill 2-3 times a day. I drink only water or milk after 8PM, no soda all day. Anyway, that is what I do, piss test.

I agree, sometimes yellowish orange will give me the creeps but also on the longer rides no matter what the color is if I am going when ever I stop I know I am ok and usually feel good

I try to drink at least 20-32 after long hot rides,

you also could put more ice and water in the scotch :beer:

[cdn_bacon]

The bigger the bottle, the less you have to refill it, the more water I end up drinking. Purely psychological with me. I can't force myself to drink 8 of those sml water bottles. but drink 4 larger bottles is way easier.

[redir]

I have a similar lifestyle and know for sure that the booze is the worst at dehydrating. If I have a race coming up I won't drink any booze for at least three or four days leading up to it.

[flydhest]

a one liter bottle at my desk with a place to fill it near by. Go through three or four per day.

Keep a big glass of water (at least a pint) by your bedside table, better yet a glass and a pitcher. I have been known to partake of various fermented and often distilled drinks. Having a glass and water right there means that when I get up in the night, I down a bunch of water. Also, swig some first thing. It goes down easy for me first thing and you lose a bunch through respiration at night. 8 hours without water . . . that's a long time for me if I'm awake.

[sbparker31]

I agree, sometimes yellowish orange will give me the creeps but also on the longer rides no matter what the color is if I am going when ever I stop I know I am ok and usually feel good

I try to drink at least 20-32 after long hot rides,

you also could put more ice and water in the scotch :beer:

Bad, bad advice. If you are drinking single malt, drink it neat. :beer:

Seriously though, when I am riding, I try to drink one litre water bottle for each hour of riding. Piss test is good too -- I definitely don't drink enough water throughout the day, but if piss test indicates, I will make an effort to chug some water.

[wooly]

Piss test hear too. I "try" not to drink alcohol during the work week but I drink too much coffee. Drink water throughout the day but still don't get enough.

I also find that I drink more if the water taste good. I have a new filtration system in the house which taste better than some of the bottled waters out there. My office had horrible tasting tap water so I would bring my own.

[Fixed]

most of us have limited our salt intake but in summer we need a little more
cheers imho

[A1CKot]

I drink a 85oz Camelback at when I'm at work and drink and 2-3 16oz bottle between lunch and whatever I do after work. I do work on an active flight line and am always on the move so the more water I get the better I feel.

Minot is under a water boil at the moment so my drinking water has been cut a little short, I live in the dorms, but I still think I'm getting a good amount.

[Joachim]

I drink around 1 gallon per day (I have a 1.05 QT bottle at my desk), but that amount is definitely needed in the humid south east.

[jamesutiopia]

+1, if your piss is not clear then you are not fully hydrated

[flydhest]

I would not, however, rely on the notion that if the urine is clear that you are appropriately hydrated. Physiologists on the board can correct me as needed, however, my understanding is that there is a limit to how rapidly the body can assimilate water. Surplus just flows through. As a result, you can be dehydrated, guzzle a gallon of water, some will flow through, and you'll still need to drink more later.

[AngryScientist]

I would not, however, rely on the notion that if the urine is clear that you are appropriately hydrated. Physiologists on the board can correct me as needed, however, my understanding is that there is a limit to how rapidly the body can assimilate water. Surplus just flows through. As a result, you can be dehydrated, guzzle a gallon of water, some will flow through, and you'll still need to drink more later.


yes, that leads to my next hydration question: absorption. can the body change how much water it absorbs, its saturation point?

just passed the clear test with flying colors:)

[false_Aest]

IIRC,

Your body can only absorb 8oz every 20 min max.
Or maybe its 4 oz every 10 min.





Whatever.


Just remember that too much water can also be deadly.

[wc1934]

I was told that you should weigh yourself before and after each workout. The difference in body weight represents the amount of fluid you need to drink. One pound of weight lost during activity is equivalent to approximately 16 ounces of fluid. If you eat a helathy diet, about 20 percent of your water may come from the foods you eat.
Also, relying on the color of your pee is not the most accurate gauge of hydration - I take a bunch of vitamins, which means I always produce color.

[rugbysecondrow]

I was told that you should weigh yourself before and after each workout. The difference in body weight represents the amount of fluid you need to drink. One pound of weight lost during activity is equivalent to approximately 16 ounces of fluid. If you eat a helathy diet, about 20 percent of your water may come from the foods you eat.
Also, relying on the color of your pee is not the most accurate gauge of hydration - I take a bunch of vitamins, which means I always produce color.

The piss test is not an accurate measurement, but for many can at least help gauge where we are at through out the day or week.

Is the an accurate hydration test that one can use regularly to see how they are doing, one that would not involve an excel spreadsheet.

[flydhest]

I would say that everyone who advocated the piss test knows that it is only a rough approximation. It can be helpful.

false_Aest's point about hyponatremia is something not to be forgotten, either. I was reading an article about marathoning, apparently no runner has died from dehydration in the big marathons (NY, Boston, . . . ) but they have had fatalities from hyponatremia.

[dekindy]

http://www.drmirkin.com/nutrition/9942.html

Another urban legend debunked! Where does all this misinformation come from?

[witcombusa]

i'm what i would term chronically dehydrated.

mornings: coffee, lots of coffee
afternoon: bike riding/running, sweat lots, drink water, but sweat lots of it out
evenings: booze; wine, scotch; beer

this is not working out. i used to be much more conscientious about hydrating myself, but have slipped greatly this spring/summer. i'm keeping my stainless water bottle within arms reach all day now, trying to cram as much water as possible during the day.

a few rough online "calculators" tell me to drink anywhere from 95 - 120 oz per day of water based on my weight and activity level. this is going to be a challenge.
are you getting the "recommended" volume of water a day?




Well, since both coffee and alcohol are diuretics, you're not helping yourself at all!

[gdw]

"Well, since both coffee and alcohol are diuretics, you're not helping yourself at all!"

but caffeine and alcohol are two of the major food groups....

[biker72]

We've now had 38 straight days of 100 degrees or hotter in the Dallas area. I can't drink enough water to stay hydrated after a couple of hours in the heat. It may just be an electrolyte problem but still a problem that I've tried to correct.

I've resorted to riding in the early morning where the lows have only been in the mid 80's.... :)

[witcombusa]

"Well, since both coffee and alcohol are diuretics, you're not helping yourself at all!"

but caffeine and alcohol are two of the major food groups....


Not mine :no:

[the night owl]

Not enough, it takes forever for me to pee after I ride. I just can't seem to get enough done, however.

[drock]

Not enough, I am always cramping

[beercan]

not enough but i eat plenty of watermellon to keep me going to the bathroom all day long

[Frankwurst]

Piss test. I drink alcohol like a sewer and avoid coffee, soda and everything else other than water. No sports drinks, yadayadayada. I can tell in a skinny minute when I'm close to dehydration. If I pee yellow I grab a water bottle. :beer:

[csm]

pee test here as a general gauge also. we have filtered water at work and it is a couple rooms away so I try to walk over there to get away from my desk. it's as good an excuse as any others.
btw... did anybody see the article about the restaurant in Austrailia that put in a cold water charcoal filtration system and started adding a water charge to each bill rather than serve mineral and other bottled waters? caused quite a stir.

[hookookadoo]

Bad, bad advice. If you are drinking single malt, drink it neat. :beer:

+ 1. You, beat me to it.

I feel a lot better when I ride/run when I am well hydrated meaning drinking a lot of water many hours prior to running/riding. Guzzling water 15 minutes before doesn't cut it.

[Cat3roadracer]

I have very good luck with Accelerade in one bottle and plain water in the other. I enjoy coconut water when stores get depleted.

[craptacular]

Just remember, coffee is water run through a ground bean. Yes, caffeine has some diuretic properties, but for an 8oz cup of coffee, you are precessing about 7.999% water (rough estimate). Actually, beer is probably one of the safest ways to drink to water. You can be guaranteed that the water in beer is not contaminated with any dangerous microbes. This isn't to say that these are the best two things for you to drink in order to make you faster, but you can't discount the fact that they add to your overall hydration.

[etu]

i would not over think the issue of hydration
it's almost like saying, i don't get enough oxygen because i don't breath deep enough so i better take deeper breaths.
you're body will take of itself as long as you pay attention to your urges, i.e. drink when you're thirsty.
drink too much you'll piss the excess out. don't drink enough, you'll get thirsty. if you ignore your thirst, it will get thirsty to the point you cannot resist your need for water.
of course, this approach does not apply to hydration during exercise.

[Ferrous (Fe)]

I try to drink LOTS of water whether I am exercising or not (though I do drink more when I am exercising), probably on the order of 1-1.5gallons.

The "color" test, as described earlier, is a great way to get an idea of what's up (but you have to be going in the first place, which is not happening if you're not drinking to begin with).

[the night owl]

Thirst is an incredibly imperfect indicator of how you're doing hydration wise.

[Ahneida Ride]

no water and the Prostrate acts up ...

and I do mean Prostrate !

Drink Water !!!!!!!

[Dlevy05]

2 liters if it's a cold day.
3 liters if it's a hot day.
5 liters if I'm active.

[forrestw]

IIRC,
Your body can only absorb 8oz every 20 min max.
Or maybe its 4 oz every 10 min.
During training/exercise that would be my minimum intake, cool weather and moderate pace. In warm weather if I'm going hard I double that drinking 3 lbs/hour. In heat above high 80s I may drink a shade more than that but can't keep up with my sweat rate and start to dehydrate.

I need a lot of electrolytes along with that.

I'm large at 215 lbs and figure that's part of it, I also can absorb more calories/hour while training than the books say.

[dhoff]

IIRC,
Just remember that too much water can also be deadly.

Too much water in the absence of sufficient electrolytes can be deadly. In teh presence of electrolytes, H2O is always a good thing.

Salt, by the way is not a bad thing if you are using the right salt. I use Himalayan crystal salts and keep a saturated solution around. I add 1 oz of that to every liter of water when I am not on the bike, and 2 when I am. I drink well in excess of a gallon a day.

By the way, I gave up coffee completely a few weeks ago, drank tea made with yerba matte to make the transition. I will likely drink coffee on ultra events over about 20 hours but other than that, I am done.

-d

[dcpdpayne]

Lately I've started about two hours before my training rides to begin drinking water at a reasonable pace. On really hot days I'll try to have 4 to six bottles down the hatch before the even walk out of the house. Dehydration over bonking is my greatest worry on the bike.

[swt]

Every time I pee I drink a tall glass of water. I end up drinking probably a gallon a day that way.

[toaster]

This is from a nutrition textbook.

"Water needs vary greatly depending on the foods a person eats, the environmental temp. and humidity, the person's activity level, and other factors. RDA recommends under normal dietary and environmental conditions adults need between 1 and 1 1/2 milliliters of water from all sources for each calorie spent during the day.

For a person who expends 2,000 calories a day this works out to a fluid intake of about 6 to 8 cups, assuming the rest will come from food and metabolism. Sweating increases water needs."

This is, I think, where the 8 cups a day comes from and is probably good basic advice. Just drink more if you exercise more than average person and more if you sweat more because of high temp/humidity.

[toaster]

Also, the color test for urine is a good indicator (clear urine meaning sufficient hydration) and sometimes the pinch test where when you pinch the skin on the back of the hand and if it returns quickly you are not dehydrated. Of the two, though, the color test is better.

If you weigh yourself before a ride and then after you are more than one or two pounds lighter you probably are somewhat dehydrated.

In my experience, if I'm more than 3 pounds lighter after a 3 or 4+ hour ride I know my urine color is going to be dark.

[LouDeeter]

I would also watch what vitamins you are taking. Some vitamins, like B complex, act as a diuretic as well. When I was younger, I had three instances of heat exhaustion and I am more susceptible to heat intolerance as a result, so I am extra conscious of my fluid and electrolyte intake. I usually drink twice as much water as my buddies and irritate them by stopping at every porta-potty set up at construction sites in the area. In general, two large water bottles will last me 1.5 to 2 hours. I put ice in the bottles in the summer. And, yes, I do drink coffee and alcohol.