Drinking water and the right amount is good
for the body. In the process to dehydrate the body, some people make mistakes
while drinking water. Dr. Eric Berg explains:
Let's
start with the first one, drinking too much water is possible, yes especially
when you force yourself to drink water without the electrolytes that help you
deal with this extra water.
I know there are a lot of people out there
that say the most important thing you need to do is keep drinking a lot of water.
That’s the absolute most important thing you can do. You should drink a gallon
of water a day, well that's fine but are you exercising, sweating, taking
electrolytes, or taking enough sea salt.
What happens when you drink too much water, is that you can dilute electrolytes specifically salt and you can create a condition
called hyponatremia where there's not enough sodium in your blood and that
actually is a form of dehydration.
So it
is possible that drinking too much water can put you in a situation where
you're dehydrated. You just need to drink the right amount hopefully you have
the sensation of thirst that can tell you when you're thirsty.
If you are prone to kidney stones you should
be drinking at least two and a half litres of fluid a day because kidney
stone develops in a supersaturated concentration of urine.
So if you're drinking enough water and it's
almost impossible to develop a stone and eight glasses of water a day will do
for that though that really depends on a lot of variables that I’m going to get
into.
The point is to make sure you're not forcing
yourself to drink gallons of water because people have died from the condition
called hyponatremia.
The second point is that drinking water too
quickly, now this is not like a major point. When you drink water too fast
sometimes the sodium in your blood doesn't have a chance to help balance this
fluid and that's one of the sodium's jobs - to help balance fluid inside and
outside the cell.
When you're forcing too quickly too much
water into your body that can actually create some swelling. What happens is that
sodium will start going into the cell too fast and you'll be deficient outside
the cell. So it creates this in balance situations so when you drink water, do
it at a pace that is not too fast.
Number three, having this idea that you're
getting all your hydration from other fluids like coffee, tea soda, and maybe
alcohol, which completely dehydrates you.
There are certain people out there that think
that soda hydrates you. It doesn't, so when you're drinking like coffee and tea
realize that both of those have a mild diuretic effect. So they can be pushing
fluid out of your body and not necessarily hydrating you.
If you're on a diuretic on top of that and
you're pushing all this fluid out of your body it can make you very dehydrated
and so what you drink is a factor to look at and there are other variables to
look at as well . What is the temperature outside?
If you're living in an environment that's
very hot, you're probably going to need more fluid, if you're exercising and
you're sweating a lot, you're going to need a lot of fluids. If you have a
condition where you're not exercising but you sweat a lot that's another
factor. if you're experiencing diarrhea or vomiting both of those conditions
can very quickly dehydrate you.
If you just started the ketogenic diet or
similar related diet plan and you're dumping a lot of extra fluid that's
something to look at because all that stored sugar in your muscles and your
liver also retains a lot of fluid for every gram of stored glucose you're
storing three grams of water.
When you're on a high-carb diet you're
basically a fluid-filled sponge and when you start reducing your carbs that
fluid just starts coming out and so if you're not taking the right electrolytes
with enough fluid you can potentially become dehydrated especially when you
start keto.
Another factor that I want to bring up that a
lot of people don't consider is if you're consuming a lot of potassium as in an
electrolyte drink with a lot of potassium. If you're not also taking enough
sodium potentially with all these other factors you can become more dehydrated.
The only reason I’m bringing that up is
that I personally have an electrolyte powder that's high in potassium but it
also has a good amount of sodium and salts so typically that's not going to be
a problem if you're exercising a lot.
It's hot outside and you're sweating and your
diet doesn't have enough salt let's say you don't put any salt you know it's
something to look at because potassium is balanced out with sodium.
You need the right ratios but on the flip
side, the most common situation is where someone is not getting enough potassium
because they're not eating enough vegetables.
They're heavier on the salts they have more
fluid retention they're usually always deficient in potassium and so doing more
potassium tends to help them.
Number four is that drinking a good amount of
water when you're eating can dilute your gastric juices like hydrochloric acid.
And if you already have a weakness within this area you don't have enough
stomach acid or it's not acid enough which is very common especially if you're
over the age of 45. Drinking more water with your meals will dilute your
ability to digest especially protein and you may end up with Gastroesophageal
reflux disease (GERD)or acid reflux.
I always recommend if you're going to drink
water with a meal just don't overdo, it it's better if you drink maybe a half
hour before the meal or a half hour later, but I don't want to make this a
really big point.
If you are thirsty during a meal go ahead and
drink but the point is if you're already deficient in gastric juices,
drinking more water will weaken your stomach's ability to digest protein.
The
next point is that drinking extremely cold water in large amounts can inhibit
the vagus nerve. Some people
can drink a lot of cold water with no problem but if your digestive system is
already weak, let's say you have a lot of bloating or you have a lot of digestive
issues and you drink a good amount of ice cold water that can slow down the
vagus nerve which is responsible for digestion.
Number six is drinking tap water. Now some
people will say that drinking tap water is safe but they're finding all sorts
of things in tap water that are not safe not to mention the normal chlorine and
fluoride.
But also glyphosate which is the chemical
roundup that is involved with GMO foods, and chemicals that affect
fertility, hormones, and the brain. These chemicals are carcinogenic and on top
of that there are a lot of nano-size particles, very small particles of plastics
that you're getting when you're drinking tap water, so just get a good filter
to filter that out now.
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