You right now: Isn't salt, like, dehydrating?
For my fellow nurses, you know the hypertension and cardiac disease education:
"Eat a low sodium diet! Less than 2 G per day!"
Well, table salt is 40% Sodium, and 60% Chloride. So, that doesn't really apply here.
Trust me, your water retention issues aren't from your shalt shaker- they're from the processed foods you eat that are pumped with isolated sodium. Why? Because sodium is a food preservative and that's how those Cheetos have a 10-year shelf life :)
Now that we got that out of the way, let's talk about water!
Water is so important that I consider it a macronutrient with your fats, proteins, and carbs.
I'm sure everyone's heard "Drink eight water bottles a day" or seen people carrying around plastic gallons of water at the gym, but, what exactly is all that water doing for us? And how much should we actually drink?
Fun Facts
Drinking 17 oz of water (within a couple of minutes) can increase your metabolic rate by 30% (this is called water-induced thermogenesis) allowing you to burn more calories in that moment and throughout the day
Your brain is made up of 75% water
A 2% drop in your body’s baseline hydration level can cause impairment in tasks requiring attention, motor coordination, and executive function
Insufficient hydration is the #1 nutritive trigger of daytime fatigue, this also negatively impacts mood, reading speed, and mental work capacity
What water is responsible for in our body
Maintenance of your DNA
Mitochondria function
Where your fat is actually burned!
Maintaining the integrity of your blood
Your blood is 90% water!
Creating lymphatic fluid
Supports the immune system and waste removal!
Facilitating digestion
Constipated? Drink water.
Regulating body temperature
Making the synovial fluid in your joints and discs
Arthritis acting up? Drink water.
Maintains the integrity of your cerebral spinal fluid (CSF)
Keeps the brain afloat and cushions it from shock!
Delivering oxygen to your brain
Brain fog?? DRINK WATER.
Water intake mistakes
“Water isn’t just H2O, it’s H2O with other things dissolved in it.
And the things dissolved in it help determine how it hydrates or dehydrates your cells.”
- Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter
Ever wonder why we can’t drink ocean water?
Well, it's because there are too many salts and minerals in the water. More specifically, the ocean water will pull the water out of our cells in an attempt to reduce the concentration outside the cells (osmosis).
Thus, dehydrating our cells, fatally.
Distilled water can have a similar effect, in the opposite way.
Distilled water has all the minerals filtered out of the water, and when we drink it, the inside of our cells has a higher concentration. So, water gets pulled into the cells from the outside.
This can cause the cells to burst!
The balance?
You want to drink water with some minerals in it.
If you are drinking filtered or distilled water, you need to add the minerals back in.
You could buy fancy ionic mineral drops but I just use sea salt, which provides natural sodium, chloride, potassium, magnesium, and other trace minerals.
Adding fresh fruits and veggies iton your water provides vitamins, minerals, and electrons, giving the water charge and structure.
Clean your produce before putting them in the water!! Unless you want to drink pesticide water (yuck). See my post on how to buy and clean fresh produce here.
Natural spring water is another great option! It has gone through the earth's hydrological cycle, adding hundreds of minerals per million solids.
Be cautious though, because spring water is usually stored in plastic. Water sitting in plastic for a long time or in excessive light or heat can arise serious problems for your hormones. (Pssst. Stay tuned for a BPA post!)
My daily water routine
As soon as I wake up, I chug.
I put 2 twists of pink Himalayan sea salt in a cup, a fresh lemon slice, and then add about 12 oz of ROOM TEMPERATURE filtered water from my Clearly Filtered pitcher.
After I chug that, I pour another 12 oz in the same cup and chug chug chug.
The rest of my day I keep my 26 oz yeti water bottle on me wherever I go. I try to drink at least 2.5 of them a day.
Why we need to drink water immediately when we wake up
MISS THE COFFEE AND DRINK WATER FIRST.
When we sleep, our bodies WERK. Repairing cells and removing damaged ones. This requires a lot of water, so, we naturally wake up dehydrated and our bodies need help flushing out the waste products (through our urine). So chugging all that water first thing, eliminates all the waste products sitting in our blood, CSF, and lymphatic fluid while also rehydrating our cells.
If we don't flush out these toxins, they can clog our metabolism the rest of the day, causing fatigue, cravings, and brain fog.
This is where you can take advantage of that 30% metabolic rate increase too!! ;)
How much water should we drink a day?
Your water intake calculator:
Take your weight in pounds and divide it in half. That equals your recommended intake in ounces per day. If your weight is over 200 pounds, stay at a baseline of 100 ounces per day.
Example:
150 (Lb) / 2 = 75 oz per day
References
Medicine and science in sports and exercise (1990). Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 22(2). https://doi.org/10.1249/00005768-199004000-00001
Stevenson, S. (2021). Eat smarter: Use the power of food to reboot your metabolism, Upgrade your brain, and Transform your life. Little, Brown.
The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and metabolism. (1979). The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 48(2), 363–364. https://doi.org/10.1210/jcem-48-2-363
Tchounwou, P. (2004). Environmental research and public health. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 1(1), 1–2. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph2004010001
The water in you: Water and the human body completed. The Water in You: Water and the Human Body | U.S. Geological Survey. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022, from https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/water-you-water-and-human-body
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