Your Body, and Water
Water is vital in our body, and a lack of it certainly has its consequences. Your body is roughly 70 percent water. The build of your muscles are about 70 percent water, blood 80 percent, brain cells 85 percent, and even your bones are 25 percent water. Your body looses approximately two quarts (64 ounces) of water per day through urination, perspiration, and even exhalation. The average adult can last as much as seven weeks without food, but not much more than five days without water.
F. Batmanghelidj, MD, highlights some main benefits of keeping your body well hydrated in his book titled “Water for Health, for Healing, for Life”:
Water is vital in our body, and a lack of it certainly has its consequences. Your body is roughly 70 percent water. The build of your muscles are about 70 percent water, blood 80 percent, brain cells 85 percent, and even your bones are 25 percent water. Your body looses approximately two quarts (64 ounces) of water per day through urination, perspiration, and even exhalation. The average adult can last as much as seven weeks without food, but not much more than five days without water.
F. Batmanghelidj, MD, highlights some main benefits of keeping your body well hydrated in his book titled “Water for Health, for Healing, for Life”:
- Water being the main lubricant in joints, helps prevent arthritis and back pain.
- Water increases efficiency of the immune system
- Water prevents the clogging of arteries in the heart and brain, thus reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke.
- Water is needed to efficiently manufacture neurotransmitters in the brain, including serotonin and melatonin (for hormones). It also improves are attention span, and can prevent attention deficit disorder (ADD).
- Water prevents memory loss as we age, reducing the risk of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
- Water reduces the effects of aging, making our skin smoother and giving is a sparkling luster.
Water Keeps you Young
Yes you read that right. Getting the proper amount of water each day will keep you looking and feeling young. For one, drinking water helps you lose weight. Not many people know this, but hunger pangs and thirst pangs are nearly identical, so many people eat when they should be drinking. Assuming that you are dehydrated, you body will carry extra “water weight” because it is unsure when it will get some next, and it wants to be sure it has enough to survive. This is caused by the hormone aldosterone, and its main job is water retention. However keeping your body well hydrated dramatically decreases this emergency storage, so you are not carrying around extra weight. Emerging research shows that dehydration also contributes to a low metabolism, which in turn causes your body to store up more fat.
Water revives your cells, and keeps them alive. Roughly two-thirds of your body’s fluids are on the inside of cells, and the other third are on the outside of them. The first sign of failing health is when the fluids shift from the inside to the outside. After this happens, cells do not have enough energy to maintain the membrane pumps inside them, causing the cells to die. Likewise, when there is more water on the outside of cells than there should be, your blood vessels compress, causing less nutrients and oxygen to be delivered to them. Everything from your cells to the largest organ in your body, your skin, suffers.
Did you know a lack of water contributes to memory loss? Your brain cells are eighty-five percent water, and your brain itself is the only organ that never rests. It is safe to say that your brain is the single most important organ to be sure is well hydrated.
Water removes harmful toxins from the body
Water helps our bodies remove toxins in many different ways. Water flushes toxins and waste from the body through urination and perspiration. Water helps reduce constipation and aids in bowel movements which ensures that wastes are removed quickly and regularly before they can become poisonous in the body. This waste buildup can occur in the body if dehydration becomes a regular occurrence and this can cause headaches, toxicity and illness. Drinking enough water will also lessen the burden on the kidneys and liver by flushing out waste products
Water transports valuable nutrients to the body
Blood is about 92% water and it carries nutrients and oxygen throughout the body. Nutrients from the food we eat are broken down in the digestive system where they become water-soluble, which means they are dissolved in water. Water allows these nutrients to pass through the capillaries within the intestinal walls to the blood and circulatory system where the valuable nutrients and oxygen can be distributed throughout the body to all the cells and organs. In addition to the daily maintenance of our bodies, water also plays a key role in the prevention of disease. Drinking sufficient glasses of water daily can decrease the risk of colon cancer by 45%, bladder cancer by 50% and it can potentially even reduce the risk of breast cancer. And those are just a few examples!
What is sufficient water?
The age old “eight glasses of water a day” works great for some people, but not all of us. Instead, here is something a little bit more customized to your body type. Simply take your weight (in pounds) and divide it by two:
__ lbs. / 2 = ___ ounces a day.
So for example take a 120 lb female. Divide her weight by two, and you have 60 ounces of water a day. Keep in mind that this is total water intake, and there are many foods with a high water concentration. To be safe, you should drink eighty percent of this in pure water. So using our female example again, 80 percent of 60 ounces is 48 ounces, or six eight ounce glasses of water per day.
Yes you read that right. Getting the proper amount of water each day will keep you looking and feeling young. For one, drinking water helps you lose weight. Not many people know this, but hunger pangs and thirst pangs are nearly identical, so many people eat when they should be drinking. Assuming that you are dehydrated, you body will carry extra “water weight” because it is unsure when it will get some next, and it wants to be sure it has enough to survive. This is caused by the hormone aldosterone, and its main job is water retention. However keeping your body well hydrated dramatically decreases this emergency storage, so you are not carrying around extra weight. Emerging research shows that dehydration also contributes to a low metabolism, which in turn causes your body to store up more fat.
Water revives your cells, and keeps them alive. Roughly two-thirds of your body’s fluids are on the inside of cells, and the other third are on the outside of them. The first sign of failing health is when the fluids shift from the inside to the outside. After this happens, cells do not have enough energy to maintain the membrane pumps inside them, causing the cells to die. Likewise, when there is more water on the outside of cells than there should be, your blood vessels compress, causing less nutrients and oxygen to be delivered to them. Everything from your cells to the largest organ in your body, your skin, suffers.
Did you know a lack of water contributes to memory loss? Your brain cells are eighty-five percent water, and your brain itself is the only organ that never rests. It is safe to say that your brain is the single most important organ to be sure is well hydrated.
Water removes harmful toxins from the body
Water helps our bodies remove toxins in many different ways. Water flushes toxins and waste from the body through urination and perspiration. Water helps reduce constipation and aids in bowel movements which ensures that wastes are removed quickly and regularly before they can become poisonous in the body. This waste buildup can occur in the body if dehydration becomes a regular occurrence and this can cause headaches, toxicity and illness. Drinking enough water will also lessen the burden on the kidneys and liver by flushing out waste products
Water transports valuable nutrients to the body
Blood is about 92% water and it carries nutrients and oxygen throughout the body. Nutrients from the food we eat are broken down in the digestive system where they become water-soluble, which means they are dissolved in water. Water allows these nutrients to pass through the capillaries within the intestinal walls to the blood and circulatory system where the valuable nutrients and oxygen can be distributed throughout the body to all the cells and organs. In addition to the daily maintenance of our bodies, water also plays a key role in the prevention of disease. Drinking sufficient glasses of water daily can decrease the risk of colon cancer by 45%, bladder cancer by 50% and it can potentially even reduce the risk of breast cancer. And those are just a few examples!
What is sufficient water?
The age old “eight glasses of water a day” works great for some people, but not all of us. Instead, here is something a little bit more customized to your body type. Simply take your weight (in pounds) and divide it by two:
__ lbs. / 2 = ___ ounces a day.
So for example take a 120 lb female. Divide her weight by two, and you have 60 ounces of water a day. Keep in mind that this is total water intake, and there are many foods with a high water concentration. To be safe, you should drink eighty percent of this in pure water. So using our female example again, 80 percent of 60 ounces is 48 ounces, or six eight ounce glasses of water per day.
So, lets drink to your health - water of course!