Set Your Fitness Goals. We'll Help You Achieve Them.
Join for free and you'll gain instant access to our tracking and reporting tools, expert coaching tips, and a free trial to our personalized training and nutrition programs.
Blogs
One Small Change
Are You Dehydrated?
Getty Images
This is not easy. The small life change I’m trying to make this month (click here for a recap) is merely drinking enough water to stay fully hydrated, which science says is the simple key to increasing performance, enhancing flexibility, raising energy levels, losing weight and even boosting brain-power. Indeed, there’s not much that’s free (and legal) nowadays that promises such spectacular benefits.
So using the latest research on healthy active adults, I computed that I needed to drink an average of 120 ounces per day. That’s well above what I’m swallowing now and what’s prescribed by the widely held 8x8 rule, but still—I thought—an easy enough goal. Not so.
Even though I can count coffee, tea, soda, energy drinks, juice and even soup, it takes a concerted effort to down that much fluid on a daily basis. I keep a 32-ounce mug of water on my desk at all times and try to sip as regularly and gleefully as those guys in the Flomax commercials. If I’m not watchful and have to drink later in the day to reach my total, then I’m inevitably up more times during the night than those guys in the Viagra commercials. Overall, drinking when you’re not thirsty feels like being back in college, only without the buzz.
And let me tell you what happened this past Sunday. My baseball team had a doubleheader in humid 80-degree weather. I weighed myself beforehand as directed by my advisor in this experiment, Douglas Kalman, Ph.D., R.D. At 176 pounds, I knew I’d need to drink half that, or 88 ounces, plus whatever I sweated out to remain properly hydrated and, by extension, perform at my best. But despite downing more than 100 ounces of water throughout the day and almost missing an at-bat in the fourth because I was in the Port-o-Potty, when I got back on the scale that evening I’d lost a staggering 3.5 pounds, or 2 percent of my bodyweight. Had I not been so well hydrated going in, that loss would have significantly impaired my physical and mental performance. In fact, Kalman says, a loss of 3 percent is considered clinically dehydrated.
Since it takes a pint of fluid, or 16 ounces, to compensate for every pound lost, I was seriously in the well. But by that point in the day I couldn’t force myself to drink any more water. I was sick of the taste (even though it’s supposed to be tasteless), and I felt I had earned a more heady reward. So I popped a few beers instead, even though they don’t count because of the alcohol content. The injustice.
Nonetheless, I’m persevering in this experiment, largely because I’m noticing some small but positive effects, and they’re keeping me motivated. For instance, I feel less wrung out, if that makes any sense—less like a used dishrag and more like a, well, Turkish robe. And it seems I’m less creaky in the morning, and a bit less tired at night and, in this allergy season, my eyes actually feel slightly less itchy and dry. Oh, and I went 2-for-4 in that doubleheader with 2 RBIs.
It’s not too late for you to join me in this experiment. Just amble over to the faucet and fill ’er up.
<< Previous Post Next Post >>
About The Author
Joe Kita – Joe Kita is a noted writer, editor, motivational speaker and teacher. He authors the blog "One Small Change" for CorePerformance.com.
Comments
Stay Connected
Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get expert performance tips delivered to your inbox.
