Heath Tip 1 – Water is the most important nutrient to the body.
The most important health tip – The human body is approx 70% water with the brain being 75%, blood 83% and even your bones are 22%. Every single bodily function is linked, regulated and dependant on water.
Based on F Batmanghelidj MD “Your Body’s’ Many Cries for Water”, the long term effects of continual dehydration is break down the body’s basic ability to function, loss of well being and the starting point for disease. These symptoms of dehydration present as
- Headaches
- Food cravings
- Joint and Back pain
- Anxiety and depression
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Constipation
- Fatigue and Insomnia
- Allergies and Asthma
- Arthritic Pain
This is not surprising given that water is responsible for –
- Carrier of essential nutrients, minerals, hormones, oxygen and chemical messengers to our cells
- Oxygen delivery
- Removes toxins, waste products and carbon dioxide
- Essential for blood flow
- Helps digestion e.g. 8 litres used for digestion every day
- Regulates our body temperature
- Cleans our kidneys – filters our entire blood supply every 5 minutes.
- Reduces our acidity levels and Ph levels to a more alkaline state
- Acts as a lubricating medium and cushions our joints
Health Myth – I thought 6-8 glasses was the correct amount?
A significant number of my clients were drinking this “acceptable” standard but were proven to be chronically dehydrated and consequently suffered significant and painful symptoms. Each of us has a different water requirement based on a number of key factors –
- Body weight – higher weight requires greater water intake
- External temperate – higher temperatures require greater water intake
- Exercise volumes – greater demands on the body requires higher water intake
- Other fluid intake – Caffeine, alcohol, soft drinks and juices dehydrate the body
- Sex – women required higher amounts during different phases in their menstruation cycle
Health Tip – What is the minimum amount of water?
Everyone’s water intake is specific to their individual lifestyle factors as above but as a minimum – Your body weight in Kg x 0.03. As an example, 80 kg x 0.03 = is 2.4 liters with further adjustments required for the above factors (e.g. an additional 1 L of water per hour of exercise)
As a mentioned before, the importance of water is not a secret, new or groundbreaking and to be honest most people know that water is important. So why is it that 70% of the general population is chronically dehydrated?
Here is short video
Video transcript – Health Tip 1
| Hello everyone. Thank you for joining me today. My name is Cameron Corish, I’m from Core Health Coaching.
|
| Our health tip number one. Today is very hot day Brisbane. We’re very high 30’s deg Celeus at the moment so one of the critical things for our health, and one of the most important macro nutrient is actually WATER . Now, a lot of people know this and it shouldn’t be a surprise, but how good we’re at drinking water, not very. So, knowing something and implementing something is something completely different. There’s been a lot of different sorts of commentary around what constitutes water. Is it just liquid or just water but I just really want to focus on water today.
|
| So why is it important? I’ve already said it’s the most important macro nutrient but let’s put that into perspective. I’m going to read some of my notes here – The human body is approximately 70% water, the brain 5%, and blood is 83% and even our bones are 22%. So it’s pretty critical in regards to how our body is made up but every single function of our body is linked and regulated and dependent upon water. So it really is critical and it’s just because you know it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re doing it, or you’re doing it effectively. So hence why the health tip for all of my clients is to just start drinking the right amount of water.
|
| So, leads me onto the next point. How much is the right amount? Many people would’ve heard around six to seven glasses of water a day and that is right if you’re the average weight, average height. Now, unfortunately not everyone’s average. Some are above average, some are below average. Don’t take that wrong way, but we have clients that are 180 kilos and when they come and see us they talk about six to seven glasses and they’re doing really well with it. To be honest, it’s not right. They’re significantly larger than most people so they need to have significantly more. Even the fact that I said 83% of your blood is water, there’s more blood in someone whose larger.
|
| So the right amount of water is really based on your body weight. So the formula goes, is .03, and this is in litres, is .03, So someone who is 80 kilos, needs to have 2.4 litres. I’m stopping there, just listen to that. Someone who is 80 kilos is 2.4. So, if you’re 60 kilos, you need two, if you’re 100 kilos you need three litres. Now that’s the minimum amount of water, so there are some adjustments that normally go with that, is that you need to factor in the external temperature. As I said, Brisbane’s climate is high 30s so you need to adjust your water based on your heat, so that’s the external temperature.
|
| We’ve also have to add in internal temperatures and if you are a woman your water requirements will fluctuate through your menstruation cycle, so she will have higher temperatures so she needs more water. When we’re stressed, we need more water. Our nervous system is actually up regulated and as a result, we need to add more water at that time to actually make sure our nervous system is working well. Other things to consider is exercise. The minimum amount you need for exercise is a litre of water per hour of exercise. So again, thinking about if your minimum is three, then it’s a really hot day, and then you’re doing some exercise … We’re talking you could be anywhere up to five litres of water. Now that sounds crazy to a lot of people, but the reality check on this is that when you’re going to the toilet, your pee should be clear.
|
| Now, the first pee in the morning obviously doesn’t need to be clear, and that’s because it’s getting rid of a lot of acidity, it’s getting rid of a lot of toxins over the night but after the first pee it should be clear. If you have high vitamins, and the classic is vitamin B, it might be even yellower, depending upon when you actually had the vitamins , but at the same time generally, it should be clear. So, the other adjustment is the fluid intake like if we’re having caffeine, alcohol, soft drinks or juices, they will dehydrate the body. It kind of makes sense, like when we have a lot of alcohol we know we get toxins more. Now, I think it’s funny that you might have two or three drinks of wine but within an hour or two hour, all of a sudden you’re there and you’re sitting on the toilet and you’re there for a while and it’s just kind of like I didn’t drink that much to constitute but the body is trying to get rid of those toxins, so as a result it’s flushing them out
|
| So, peeing more water than the fluid than you get in. Same thing for caffeine. Caffeine is known as a diuretic and as a diuretic the body is actually getting rid water out of the body. So if you actually drinking caffeine, all sort of alcohol, obviously that’s going to create a deficiency of water. The other one fluid is definitely around; sugary drinks. If you have too much sugar, the body will try to get rid of it by flushing it out. So, make sure that you’re having adjustments for these. If you can get rid of those couple of things, obviously your body’s not getting rid of water, and you don’t need to have as much.
|
| The last adjustment that I will talk about is the different sexes. Now, there is fundamental difference male and females. So you know that but during menstruation cycle, the last three to four weeks generally a woman will be storing more water to get ready for the blood letting process in menstruation. So, you do need to have more water. Woman that I’ve talked to really get probably a little bit bloated through that period of time and think oh I don’t need water, but that’s actually the time that you need to do it cause if you’re not having water, the body’s going to draw it out other parts of the body. So definitely, those adjustments, we talked about body weight, external temperature, internal temperature, exercise volume, other fluid intake and depending upon your sex as well, you need to adjust the amount of water at as well.
|
| So what other sorts of things do we need to think about with water? So the extra things that we need to think of and might sound a little bit strange but this is coming from Batmanghelidj and if you’ve ever heard it, his book is called the Body’s Many Cries for Water. I think it’s a really great read but what he talks about is actually having sea salt in the water. Again, it sounds kind of, a little bit crazy and it’s kind oh isn’t salt bad. When you can get past the understanding of the differences of table salt and sea salt, is that the sea salt actually adds a micro nutrient element to our water. Now, when people go to a hospital and they’re dehydrated, the first thing they do is put them on a saline drip. Saline is salt water. So, just a little bit of salt, not so much that you can taste it, will actually help with the absorption of the water. Otherwise, what happens, it goes through a longer process and it’s a lot slower and this is nothing new.
|
| If you think about sports drinks, they excels on fast absorption and how they do it is based on a sugar delivery system whereas what I’m talking about is more of a salt delivery system, which draws straight through the stomach wall. Now, that doesn’t apply for water, that is really cold. So that’s the other extra thing that you need to think of. I know I talked to a lot of clients about weight loss, one of the things is when you want to lose weight, is to drink cold water. Now, the problem with having really cold water is that the upper sphincter and the lower sphincter of the stomach then close up and got a warm up to body temperature. So as a result, it’s not going to be absorbed through the stomach wall, slow hydration down, and obviously will increase the heat that happens internally because that stomachs needs to really shake and really warm it up.
|
| So, even in hot weather like we are at the moment, it can actually increase your core temperature because it’s gotta work harder if you’re having cold water. So if you have it room temperature, that’s great. So there are the extra couple of things that I would suggest around water. The last thing that I would want to actually have a quick chat about was just in regards to, if you found this health tip really interesting, come join our Facebook group, Daily Health and Fitness Tips. https://www.facebook.com/groups/206488016481480/ It’s a daily health tip. It’s something that I’m really passionate about, that I want to give, and expose as many people as we can, in regards to it and a different view on health. It’s not a pharmaceutical approach, definitely very much more of preventive, but looking not just at food, water, exercise … It’s really about more things around your overall wellness, your lifestyle and your stress. |
| So this is an opportunity just to have something in front of you on a regular basis to try to help out in regards to shifting through a lot of the information. There’s so many things to do. If you just focus on one small change, and if you can do that on a daily basis, you can make a real significant change. So, I wanted to thank you for listening to me and again I encourage you to come our Facebook group Daily Health and Fitness Tips and we’ll catch you at another time. Have a healthy day. See you |
Cameron Corish has been caring and achieving results for the local Wishart, Mansfield and Mt Gravatt community for over 10 years. Together with the Core Health Coaching Team, he takes a multi-disciplined and holistic approach to health and fitness addressing the physical, mental and emotional aspects of one’s health.
Ready to feel and look your best? Come in for a FREE chat and see how we can transform your life. Call 0406 451 907 or book a session here.
[…] much water you should consume for your particular weight, you may wish to visit this article – Water is the most important nutrient […]