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How Much Water Do You Need to Drink?
- jeromebaek 7y agoDrink water when you're thirsty. If you don't know when you're thirsty, you have bigger problems.
- rcombine 7y ago>The well-known “8 x 8” rule — you should drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day — is not only daunting, it’s unfounded. In fact, nobody is sure where the idea came from, and science doesn’t support it. “It has no basis in fact,” says Michael Farrell, a professor at Monash University in Australia, who studies how the brain responds to thirst and other sensations. > The average adult woman should consume about 11.4 cups of fluid per day (a cup equals 8 ounces) and men should consume 15.6 [...] Subtracting the 20% of water consumed through food, that means the average woman should drink about 9.1 cups of fluid daily, and a man should drink about 12.5. 8 times 8 ounces per day of fluid is 64 ounces of fluid per day, whereas ~9 cups per day of fluid times 8 ounces/cup is ~72 ounces of fluid per day. So isn't the recommendation actually _more_ than the 8x8 adage?
- QuercusMax 7y agoSure sounds like the "8x8" recommendation (why not just say "half a gallon" or "2 liters"?) is actually a reasonable lower bound for what people should be drinking then.
- vernie 7y agoWhat kind of psycho drinks water by the 8 fl. oz. glass?
- gambiting 7y agoI had to look up what 8 fl oz is in a sane unit(236ml), and that seems perfectly normal to me - pretty much all glasses that you can buy here are 250ml. If you buy a 330ml can of coke you can usually pour most of it in with some left for a top-up.
- OJFord 7y agoI wouldn't call anyone a 'psycho' for not adhering, but personally I'd typically pour a pint (568ml) of water, at home. Of course, at any restaurant glasses given with water for the table are going to be somewhere much nearer your 236ml, so there's really nothing psychotic about it.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago> Of course, at any restaurant glasses given with water for the table are going to be somewhere much nearer your 236ml, so there's really nothing psychotic about it. Bingo. It's not hard to sip on a average sized glass of water during a meal. I routinely kill a 750ml water bottle at the gym or when hiking.
- ars 7y agoExcept it's well known that that is way too much water unless you are sweating a lot. If you drink that much, you'll just pee a lot, it won't actually do anything useful. Since the article got something so basic wrong (and if it was intentional you would think they would mention that the numbers were similar), I decided to stop reading the article at that point, I don't need incorrect information. Maybe it's an editing mistake? The actual amount of water you need varies by exertion, and diet and all sorts of things, it's not a fixed amount.
- futureastronaut 7y agoYes agreed, it's not helpful to search for a constant consumption requirement. A healthy and sedentary person, with a reasonable diet, on a cold, gray, damp day, does not need to consume much water.
- UI_at_80x24 7y ago>The actual amount of water you need varies by exertion, and diet and all sorts of things, it's not a fixed amount. I completely agree with this statement. >If you drink that much, you'll just pee a lot, it won't actually do anything useful. I drink on average 6L of water a day. When I first started water-only fasting I was urinating constantly. I discovered that this was because I would drink a lot in one sitting, (as a 'meal' replica) and then interspersed throughout the day. Once I changed my consumption style to ~150mL frequently I found that my body used the water better. Once it realized that a "constant supply" was readily available (and didn't need to worry about feast/famine cycles) I retained what I needed and more casually urinated the processed water. My body can better manage itself when I drink 150ml 40x a day then it can manage 1L 6x a day.
- Finnucane 7y agoWhat people often take away from that is that they should drink eight glasses of water _in addition to_ everything else they might consume--soda, juice, coffee, and anything else that has water in it. And they think there's a rule they need to adhere to, and not trust the fact that our bodies are actually pretty good at letting us know when we need water.
- codesushi42 7y ago>soda, juice, coffee Don't consume these. They have the opposite effect of dehydrating you.
- F-0X 7y agoIf these have a dehydrating effect, it will be (literally) drowned out by the amount of water consumed. It will be a vast net-positive.
- codesushi42 7y agoI guess you use the same logic when drinking sea water. Sugar and caffeine will dehydrate you. You'll be driven to drink more water to compensate. Vote me down, obese soda patrons.
- F-0X 7y agoSea water is very salty, and will box your kidneys in. It's not the same at all.
- codesushi42 7y agoNot what I was getting at, at all. The sodium content will make you drink more water to compensate.
- oarabbus_ 7y agoYou're misinformed. Caffeine does not dehydrate those who consume it regularly. Sugar can dehydrate you if you are diabetic or have other blood sugar regulation issues. You're playing straw man games.
- bitwize 7y agoIt could have from Dr. Benjamin Batmanghelidj, author of Your Body's Many Cries for Water in which he claims that chronic dehydration is the source of most disease (and thus water is the cure). The 8x8 was a minimum threshold for his water treatment protocol as I recall. According to Dr. Batmanghelidj, feeling thirsty was not reliable as an indicator of need for water, as dehydration was more likely to manifest as pain or hunger than a feeling of thirst. His methods have been called into question. however.
- bamboozled 7y agoPotential controversial opinion but what could really be wrong with: “When you’re hungry eat, when you’re thirsty, drink”. Sorry but they just seem like such automatic functions I don’t see how it needs to be complicated any further.
- swsieber 7y agoOftentimes what you think is hunger is thirst. Babies who have stomach trouble sometimes over-eat because they mistake stomach pain for hunger. So instinct/reactions aren't failsafe. Especially when we've loaded our diet with addicting things.
- Terr_ 7y ago> Oftentimes what you think is hunger is thirst. Anecdotally, often my thirst is disguised as looking for something to snack on that will cause me to salivate, like chocolate. When I make a conscious decision to have a big glass of water or two, the craving goes away.
- i80and 7y ago"Hunger" is more a function of time than a function of need, for one thing.
- dmitriz 7y agoIt is a variadic function of unlimited number of variables. :)
- msbarnett 7y agoThe distinction is between “8x8 glasses of water, independent of all other fluids you ingest” pseudoscientific rule, and “9.1 - 12.5 glasses of non-alcoholic fluids, which includes juice, milk, coffee, tea, etc, not just water” Drink 6 cups of coffee, a glass of OJ, and 2 glasses of water would be just fine for an adult Woman, but the “rule” convinces people they’re still falling 6 glasses short of water.
- kennywinker 7y agoSix cups of coffee?! I think you might have other problems.
- hombre_fatal 7y agoYour body gets used to it and it basically feels one cup of weak coffee followed by five cups of water.
- weaksauce 7y agoWell the first one is drinking straight water 8 ounces of water 8 times a day and the second statement is you need to drink that many ounces of fluid regardless of source. That includes the foods you eat and any liquids you drink. I think even the diuretics are included in that second figure.
- qntty 7y agoSubtracting the 20% of water consumed through food
- tharwan 7y agoIt would be so nice to not only give measures in freedom units...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- astrea 7y agoIf only there was a large corpus of searchable knowledge only a click away where the conversions could be determined.
- tapland 7y agoKind regards, NASA
- Camas 7y agoTurning a 5 minute read into a 10 minute one.
- okmokmz 7y agoIt takes you as long to read the article as it does to google a simple conversion?
- amaccuish 7y agoYou have to do it multiple times since there is more than one value. Also include time for switching tabs etc, and then returning and working out where you were.
- jplayer01 7y agoMultiply this by every single person who has to do this whole process.
- kalleboo 7y agoFWIW if you're on a Mac, Spotlight will do simple unit conversions, so you can just cmd-space and do it in the popup without having to leave the page. That said yeah US units are absolutely brain-dead and confusing, how hard is it to put real units in parenthesis?
- xenospn 7y agoAm I the only one who is rarely, if ever, thirsty? I couldn't drink 8x8 even if my life depended on it.
- deanstag 7y agoMe and my sister are similar. There used to be a time when my only water intake was 1.black coffee in the morning. 2. green tea in the evening. I have had to consciously create a habit of drinking more. My current metric ( to avoid kidney problems ) is to keep the pee as white as possible ( I have no scientific backing for this ).
- deanstag 7y agoedit: There you go, Causality's comments says otherwise about the urine.
- lm28469 7y agoBetter have clear urine than dehydration though. You have to try really hard before drinking too much water becomes a problem.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Udik 7y ago> keep the pee as white as possible That's a symptom of overhydration. Pee should be yellow, as everybody knows.
- 0xDEFC0DE 7y agoIf you're getting a lot of water from your diet (e.g. fruits), you're probably less thirsty than someone who eats a lot of dry sugary/salty foods.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoIt could also be that you are not used to it. I have periods where I don’t drink much and then I am not thirsty. As soon as I force myself to drink more I also feel thirsty more. If you are not used to drinking it’s also easy to confuse being thirsty with being hungry.
- Causality1 7y ago>When urine turns yellow, and especially if it becomes dark, dehydration has begun. Misinformation. Light yellow urine does not mean you are dehydrated and crystal-clear urine is not a "hydration goal".
- 013a 7y agoThe problem is, essentially the only thing anyone agrees on when it comes to "how much" is "its different for everyone". So what's not different for everyone? Well, if your pee is dark, then you're probably dehydrated. Ok; now we have a useful signal. It's not perfect. It doesn't capture the subtleties of the entire situation. But it's USEFUL.
- JustSomeNobody 7y agoExactly. Vitamins can discolor urine no matter your hydration level.
- otec 7y agoWhat is ounce ?
- whiddershins 7y agoDrink when you are thirsty. Really, unless you have a rare and diagnosed medical condition that says otherwise, drink when you are thirsty. > Subtracting the 20% of water consumed through food Where does this article get that number? Edit: Ok, it gets the number from the above link. I still really don’t trust this article as a source of info about how much water to drink. And anyway it ends with “mostly drink when you are thirsty.”
- castlecrasher2 7y ago>Drink when you are thirsty. Yep, and don't wait if you're thirsty. Learned my lesson on that one with a couple kidney stones, and never again.
- juskrey 7y agoWho said this is related?
- okmokmz 7y agoDoctors? "A major risk factor for kidney stones is constant low urine volume. Low urine volume may come from dehydration (loss of body fluids) from hard exercise, working or living in a hot place, or not drinking enough fluids" https://www.urologyhealth.org/urologic-conditions/kidney-stones https://www.urologyhealth.org/urologic-conditions/kidney-sto...
- hestipod 7y agoYour post just made me chug a glass of water. Having seen many people go through it (most of my family as well), I am terrified of stones and drink a lot of water and thus pee annoyingly often. Staying in the lane between stones and water intoxication is a hassle.
- smt88 7y ago> Staying in the lane between stones and water intoxication is a hassle. It's a really, really wide lane. If you're drinking that much water for fear of kidney stones, you may want to address your anxiety/compulsivity as well as your risk factors for kidney stones.
- want2know 7y agoWhat is now also known, and not very clear from the article, is that sipping water throughout the day is not very good. As the article is pointing out, a lot is happening when you drink water. And sipping all day means the body never gets rest from the 'water intake mode'. So it is best to drink water until you have enough when you feel thirsty. Edit: this was studied by Thomas D'havé, Leo Pruimboom, Tim Noakes, and others
- nabergh 7y agoI think it's not very clear from the article because the article doesn't claim that sipping water throughout the day isn't very good, just that it doesn't cause some neurons to fire. Do you have any source for "sipping water throughout the day is not very good" and "sipping all day means the body never gets rest from the 'water intake mode'"?
- jorblumesea 7y agoSource? This seems just as unsubstantiated as the article.
- freshbagels 7y ago"water intake mode" The body is not known to have such a mode unless you are referring to literally having your mouth open while you pour water into it. I suppose next you will tell me that constantly breathing is harmful because it means that the body never gets rest from air intake mode.
- virtuallynathan 7y agoWater intake is regulated by homeostasis... you should drink as much as you want to drink.
- tecleandor 7y agoBut not that much you water-poison yourself!
- partiallypro 7y agoYou can over-hydrate though. The myth that you need tons and tons of water has actually led to over-hydration which can cause serious problems or even death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
- geddy 7y agoSure, you can over-hydrate, but when is the last time someone died from drinking too much water who hadn't also just run a marathon? Referring to a normal person who decided to up their water intake, and died later that day?
- noja 7y ago2007 during a contest to win a Nintendo: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6261509.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6261509.stm
- 7y ago
- wodenokoto 7y ago"You've completed your member preview for this month, but when you sign up for a free Medium account, you get one more story." Is medium becoming completely pay-to-read?
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- smcgraw 7y agoIf you're a Chrome user, an incognito window also does the trick.
- asark 7y agoFirefox and Safari have incognito modes, too. Call them something different ("new private window" is the menu label, in both cases) but they're the same thing, more or less. Not sure about Edge. Probably has one too.
- gruez 7y ago>Firefox and Safari have incognito modes, too. Call them something different ("new private window" is the menu label, in both cases) but they're the same thing If anything, chrome is the one that's different. chrome: incognito firefox: private safari: private edge/internet explorer: inprivate
- mark_l_watson 7y agoI live in the mountains in Central Arizona. I sometimes hike with a retired surgeon and he recommends one liter an hour, maybe slightly less in the winter when it is cold and you don’t sweat as much while hiking. Anyway a liter an hour sounds reasonable. I just got back from a two hour hike with friends and that is what I consumed.
- fredophile 7y agoHaving done some winter camping I'd recommend not cutting your water intake much in the winter. The air is usually dryer and you lose more water from breathing than you do during the summer. Because you aren't sweating as much it's easy to forget this and get dehydrated.
- immichaelwang 7y agoBody weight (lb) divide by 2 seems to be the consensus general number of ounces I've seen from people like Dr Rhonda Patrick. And the more physically active you are, the more you should drink. Eg: A 200lb person should drink 100oz+ of water a day.
- noisem4ker 7y agoIn metric units: a 90kg person should drink about 3L of water a day.
- emgee_1 7y agoThank you for SI units. Some of us not living in the great country run by the universal moron understand this now better.
- novaRom 7y agoHow did our predecessors drink before pottery was invented? You just cannot stay for all time close to a source of water, right? I suggest a kind of fruits/veggies might be a better source of water especially when you move.
- Bootwizard 7y agoWaterskins made from animal hide
- Raphmedia 7y agoLook at old maps. Every village is either next to a river, next to a lake or centered around a well. People didn't leave their communities for many reasons but one of them was because you needed water. Wooden buckets, waterskins and berries are indeed the solution. Indigenous people of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies used buffalo intestines and stomach to make waterskins and travel the plains.
- dmitriz 7y agoFruits are also sources of fructose, especially fruit juices. Veggies juices are supposed to be healthy indeed. But eating raw... what numbers of fruit/veggies you need to cover the same amount of water?
- DesiLurker 7y agoI just do a pee-drink-work-[repeat] state machine. works out well for weekdays.
- stirfrykitty 7y agoI only drink water during/after lawn work. That amounts to maybe 32oz. Other "water" would include the half gallon or so of green tea I drink daily, along with my 4-5 double espressos during working hours.
- thrownaway954 7y agowhen I am doing intermittent fasting (20/4), I drink about 120 - 150 ounces a day. It's not uncommon from what I see in the IF subreddit.
- sethammons 7y agoLeft to my own, I'll drink between 32oz to 64oz per day. However, a few years ago, I did a several month stint of attempting 1 gallon a day (128oz, or 3.79 liters). It was actually challenging. What I did notice is my skin cleared up and my acne breakouts became nearly non-existent. I had to ensure I stopped drinking before around 4pm otherwise I would be up all night having to piss.
- wppick 7y agoTry skipping a meal and drinking water to satisfy your hunger. I wonder if many of us have confused the body signals for "eat" and "drink water" since we can get water through eating, but also the pleasure and enjoyment of the food itself.
- sethammons 7y agoFor sure. We've done that with our kids. "<whining>I'm hungry</whining>." "When did you last drink water? Go have a cup of water and let me know in 15 minutes if you're still hungry."
- User23 7y agoI find pickles to be a great combination of the two since they are mostly water, but with a flavor and texture I quite enjoy.
- gringoDan 7y agoAbsolutely. "Hungry" and "tired" are two signals that are often confused as well. Try just going to sleep if you're hungry late in the day!
- ElijahLynn 7y agoPeople who eat more "living" foods such as veggies and fruits consume water via those foods. Also, dehydrating foods such as dried, salty potato chips affect this too. So the foods you eat drastically affect how much water you need. Lastly, exercise plays a big role as well.
- OJFord 7y ago> "living" foods such as veggies and fruits What is a non-living food? (Given that by living here we clearly mean 'has lived'.)
- kwhitefoot 7y agoI imagine they mean food that was still alive either while you were consuming it or when you cooked it.
- sufiyan 7y ago/r/hydrohomies would like to have a word with you..
- toss1 7y agothe answer is: "IT DEPENDS", on dozens of factors, starting with your environmental heat & humidity, and current workload. Generally, drink at least enough so that you pee clear once a day, and not too dark. If it is clear all the time, you may have other issues. Also, roughly follow your thirst (unless you are drinking sweetened / salted drinks).
- jwildeboer 7y agoIs there a metric version of this article using simple measurements like liters instead of cups, quarts, gallons and other weird things?
- baal80spam 7y ago> simple Hm, you spell 'logical' in a weird way :-)
- petermcneeley 7y agoIt should be noted that human infants don't drink a drop of water for the first 6 months of life.
- gringoDan 7y agoHuman infants also don't eat (what is considered for adults) a healthy diet or get any exercise. We shouldn't be taking health advice from infants' habits.
- noja 7y agoanecdata: if I feel myself getting ill, I drink more water. Before I did this, I became ill more often.
- thirdsun 7y agoI thought that was widely understood and common knowledge. If you're approaching or already suffering from a flu or cold you should drink a lot.
- woodandsteel 7y agoA key point the article mentioned is that you can tell if you are well hydrated by seeing if your urine is reasonably clear. Though I would guess if you are exercising or in real hot weather you would need to stay ahead of the game by drinking more than needed for that.
- tracker1 7y agoAre you thirsty? Try drinking some water.
- m463 7y agoA friend told me that weight loss happens through the kidneys. It makes me think if you're trying to lose weight, drinking water can help.
- simonblack 7y agoThe best indicator of water requirements is urine color. If your urine is dark, you need more water. https://imageproxy.themaven.net/https%3A%2F%2Fusercontent1.hubstatic.com%2F8414092_f1024.jpg https://imageproxy.themaven.net/https%3A%2F%2Fusercontent1.h...
- graeme 7y agoI have been getting dry mouth recently, and if I let it progress, headaches. The thing is, I drink a lot of water. My urine is clear/slightly yellow most of the time. I even tried drinking more water, and the dryness got worse. Gatorade is the one thing that consistently fixes it, but it seems a vicious cycle. I’m also trying various electrolyte powders, but they don’t seem as effective. Anyone ever had this? Unsure why “drink more” isn’t working anymore. I’m not doing any particularly vigorous exercise, just walking.
- dmurdoch 7y agoYou should learn about the salt balance in the body a bit and then try doing things to mess with it. It could be a sodium issue, hence the gatorade helping, or maybe a potassium issue as well. There is such thing as drinking too much water vs. the salts you consume on a daily basis. [1] https://mcb.berkeley.edu/courses/mcb135e/kidneyfluid.html https://mcb.berkeley.edu/courses/mcb135e/kidneyfluid.html
- graeme 7y agoThanks, helpful overview. How would I diagnose what’s gone wrong though? The article was good, but I’m not sure what steps to take. Just try a bunch of different salts in isolation and varying quantities?
- ninedays 7y agoI spoke with several of my friends who are doctors and for them, there is no general rule that applies to everyone ("you should drink at least X"). However, the most common rule is "if the color of your pee is not "clear/transparent" enough, then you should drink more water". The "darker" your pee is, the more you should drink.