8 ms·
>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 i
by 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