I mentioned hydration in a recent post on the documentary “Hack Your Health: Secrets of Your Gut.” Given that we’re enjoying a hotter-than-usual summer here in the desert, this seems an appropriate time to circle back to the subject of hydration.
Before I begin, let me start by saying that I am not a doctor, and I don’t provide medical advice. I always recommend following your medical professional’s advice with regard to your specific hydration needs. If your doctor has told you to restrict or increase your fluid intake, or if you have health concerns, I encourage you to discuss any changes to your hydration status with your health care professional.
If your hydration needs are normal, then at the risk of being controversial yet brave, I’ll start by saying that I go against what you’ll hear elsewhere. If you're looking to lose weight, or maintain weight loss, I encourage you to meet your daily hydration needs by drinking just.plain.water. I dont count diet soda, juices, milk, coffee, tea, flavored water, sparkling water, and so on, toward daily hydration needs. (I definitely don't count foods, even high-water foods like lettuce or watermelon, toward daily hydration needs!)
I believe that unless you need to watch your water intake, plain water is different from any other beverages you drink (and very different from food you eat, no matter how much water it has in it), and I believe in drinking only plain water to meet your hydration needs. Any other beverages you drink (or foods you eat) just add to your hydration status.
I know it’s a controversial stance. I’ve taught an online weight management class for over 15 years, and despite the fact that we carefully explore how drinking plain water is different, and better for weight management, than drinking water with anything added to it, I’ve never had a class in which at least one student (if not several) challenges the idea.
So why do I recommend tracking your plain water intake, and not counting other beverages? When I first became a registered dietitian, one of my first jobs was working in bariatric management with clients who were following a medically monitored very low-calorie liquid diet. In the initial phase of the program, patients ate no food at all, and only drank the program’s low-calorie beverages and plain water.
While almost everyone on this diet lost weight rapidly, I noticed that the more water people drank in addition to the beverage, the more weight they lost. I was fascinated by this. How could drinking more plain water affect weight loss, when all patients were drinking was plain water?
I couldn’t find any research to explain what I was observing. So, I did a deep dive into the chemistry of weight loss. As it turns out, the process of breaking down a molecule of fat (called lipolysis), requires a molecule of water. If there isn’t enough water in the body to engage in lipolysis, the body breaks down muscle mass for energy instead.
That’s important, because of course, the entire body requires water. Some organs, like muscles, can store water. However, the brain can’t store water, so brain function relies on adequate hydration to ensure you stay alive. If the body has to choose between ensuring the brain has enough water, or choosing to break down muscle mass in lieu of burning fat for energy, ensuring the brain’s functioning will take priority over lipolysis.
This also explains why I noticed that as patients added in food and other beverages, I continued to see that those patients who drank more plain water lost more weight.
This brings us back to chemistry. One of the basics of chemistry is that a solution is made up of a solvent and a solute. The solvent is the liquid that makes up the solution. A solute is whatever’s dissolved in the solvent.
Take a glass of plain water, and let’s say you add some sugar-free water flavoring to your water. The water flavoring is the solute, and the water is now the solvent.
As you add the flavoring, you may see the water change color, but you’ll definitely see the water become less clear, at least until the powder dissolves. Now your plain water is a solution. It’s no longer plain water.
Why is this meaningful? Because solutes need to be processed by your body. And you need water to process solutes. Some solutes, like those in alcoholic beverages, require a lot of water to process. Other solutes, like those in juice or milk, require far less. But one way or another, drinking water with anything added to it requires at least a little of the water in the solution itself to process the solutes.
My general rule is that if you add something to water, and it changes color or becomes less clear, even briefly, you’ve added solutes to your water. I love to add a wedge of cucumber and a big sprig of fresh mint to my water and let it infuse. When the water becomes a little cloudy from the cucumber, it’s delicious and refreshing, but it’s no longer plain water. Adding a sprig of mint, however, doesn’t change the color or clearness of the water, so I can count that water toward my daily water needs.
So how much water should you drink? Again, if you have any health issues, or any concerns about changing up your fluid intake, I recommend you check with your health care provider first. If you’re healthy and don’t have any concerns about your hydration status, there are several ways to guesstimate your hydration needs.
One common way is to use the color of your urine as a guide. Your urine should be light in color and nearly odorless. If your urine is dark-colored or smells strongly, then you probably need more water. However, this method has its drawbacks. Obviously, it’s reactive, not proactive. And the color and odor of your urine can be affected by medications, medical conditions, and as anyone who loves asparagus can assure you, by the food you eat.
Another way to guesstimate water needs is to multiply your weight in pounds by 1.0 – 1.5 milliliters. So, if you’re 185 pounds, you’d multiply 185 x 1.0 to get 1850 milliliters, then 185 x 1.5 to get 2,775 milliliters. Your guesstimated water range would be 1850 ml – 2775 ml of water a day.
Still another way to guesstimate is to divide your weight in pounds by 2 to get the number of fluid ounces of water you need daily. If you weigh 185 pounds, you’d divide 185 by 2 to get 92.5 fluid ounces (or 2775 ml) of water daily.
You definitely shouldn't wait until you feel thirsty to start drinking plain water! The human thirst mechanism isn’t terribly sensitive. By the time you feel thirsty, you’re already 1-2% dehydrated. That may not sound like much, but 2% of your body weight is the equivalent of several cups of water. I encourage you to plan ahead for hydration, rather than waiting until you feel thirsty.
I also encourage you to consider drinking water first thing in the morning. Research suggests that we use a great deal of water for a variety of processes overnight while we sleep, and most people wake up a little bit dehydrated. Instead of making a caffeinated beverage your first choice, begin your day with water.
One last thing: As I mentioned, my online students find it hard to believe that plain water makes that much of a difference, compared to water with solutes added to it. If you feel the same way, you don’t need to take my word for it! Track your fluid intake for a week, and notice how you feel, both physically and emotionally. (Hydration affects skin tone, headaches, fatigue, mood, digestion, joint health, and temperature regulation, among many other things.)
Then, drink your guesstimated water intake using just plain water for a week, and enjoying other beverages in addition to the plain water. Again, notice and track how you feel, physically and emotionally. If you don’t see a difference, there’s no reason to follow my recommendation.
Here's to happy hydrating this summer...Drink up, and make it plain water when you do!
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