Welcome to the Fitness Adaptive podcast! Today’s topic is hydration. 

I’ve been active all my life. I love to exercise, play sports, and learn about the best fitness techniques. Throughout all of my training and exercise, fitness and sports coaches always had different philosophies about hydration. Through my studying to be a personal trainer, I found some important principles that we’ll cover in this podcast:

• The importance of hydration
• Hydration strategies
• When to hydrate
• How much water to drink
• How to indicate hydration level

Your body is made of about 60% water. Water has several important jobs that help the body function properly:

• Transporting nutrients through the body
• Regulating body temperature 
• Providing Minerals
• Keeping healthy moisture levels in the body

Staying hydrated is crucial for completing these tasks, but losing water is a natural part of the equation as well. We lose water through sweating, urinating, and breathing. Our lifestyle, climate, and nutrition habits have an effect on how much water we need to drink in order to stay hydrated. In hot climates, more water is needed to regulate the body temperature, as much of it is lost through sweating. People who exercise regularly are more prone to dehydration as well. During physical activity, it’s normal to lose 0.5 to 0.2 liters of water per hour. 

When we become dehydrated, our bodies aren’t able to perform the tasks listed above which can affect your health, endurance, mental capacity, strength and high and low temperature tolerance. Even just a little loss of water can have serious negative effects on your health. The chart below, from Precision Nutrition, outlines the results of body water loss percentages. 

Results Of Percent Of Body Water Loss

While it’s important to always be drinking water, there are certain times when drinking too much water can have negative effects. 

Drinking too much water can make you feel full or give you a side ache, especially while you are exercising. In extreme cases, drinking too much water can also cause hyponatremia, a condition characterized by having too much water compared to the sodium content in your body. Hyponatremia can cause symptoms including, but not limited to, headache, nausea, vomiting, confusion, and/or restlessness. Too much water can also cause excessive urination, which can affect your health by flushing too many nutrients. It’s crucial to make sure you get enough water, but don’t overdo it. 

When should you hydrate? How much water should you drink? Everyone’s body is different, so the answer varies. Someone who exercises intensely would need more water than someone who doesn’t exercise at all because you sweat and lose more water when you exercise. A general guideline for daily water intake is 30-40ml/kg body weight/day. 

For example, if you weigh 50kg, you would need 1.5 to 2L/day. (30×50=1500ml=1.5L. 40×50=2000ml=2L).

Keep in mind, this represents a balance between the amount of water you drink, and the amount of water you lose daily. For example, If a client’s fluid requirement is 2L/day, and the client loses an extra 1L of fluid daily through exercise, sweating, etc. the client will need to consume 3L/day in order to balance fluid-in vs. fluid-out. 

One way to figure out your hydration level is to take a blood test. The test consists of a finger prick, from which a small blood sample is taken and put through a hematocrit test. This measures the ratio of white blood cells to red blood cells. A healthy hematocrit ranges from 39-54, but lower numbers indicate a better hematocrit/hydration level. 

The simplest way to test your hydration levels on your own is through a urine test. With this method, all you need to do is take notice of the color next time you urinate. Generally, the lighter your urine, the more hydrated you are. The urine chart below, from Precision Nutrition, is used for indicating hydration level with urine. If the urine matches 1, 2, or 3 on the chart, you are well hydrated. If your urine is 7 or darker, you are very dehydrated and you should drink more water. 

Urine Chart

Hydration is not only extremely important for improving performance, but also to keep you healthy and alive. If you want to learn to calculate your fluid needs based on YOUR BODY, and YOUR ACTIVITY LEVEL, check out Fitness Adaptive’s fitness courses. I will teach you how to calculate your hydration needs based on your goals and your body type. 

If you have any questions about hydration or fitness, contact me. Let’s talk about your goals and make a fitness plan suited to your needs. This is my invitation to you to take the next step forward and get the results YOU WANT!