DEHYDRATION NATION.
Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 3:38PM How is your water intake? Good? Bad? Decent? No clue? No idea how much you should be taking in each day? Does the water in your food and drink intake count toward your total water intake each day?
Let’s navigate your water needs and other information together and filter out the junk that could be clogging your perception about proper hydration.
Water and weight loss
A recent study from Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, Oakland, California, indicates drinking water associated with weight loss. Data from short-term experiments suggest that drinking water may promote weight loss by lowering total energy intake and/or altering metabolism. The long-term effects of drinking water on change in body weight and composition are unknown, however. (We’ll go out on a limb and say that it was helpful in keeping the weight off… at a minimum, drinking water consistently and in the proper amounts is healthy for you.) This study tested for associations between absolute and relative increases in drinking water and weight loss over 12 months. Absolute and relative increases in drinking water were associated with significant loss of body weight and fat over time. The results suggest that drinking water may promote weight loss in overweight dieting women. (We’re also going to go out on a limb and say men, you should be drinking plenty of water also…)
The following excerpted from Livestrong.com. Follow the link at the end of the blog post for the full text, “Facts on Water and Weight Loss.”
- Drinking Water Can Help With Weight Loss - Replacing soda and juice with water will help with weight loss. High-calories drinks add to your waistline, and...
- More Is Not Always Better - While your body needs adequate hydration, you doesn't necessarily need to drink 8 glasses a day year-round…
- Foods Contain Water, Too - Much of your daily requirement for water may come from foods, meaning that you don't have to drink it all in water form. For example...
- Drinking Water Before Meals Helps With Weight Loss - To aid with weight loss, drink a glass of water right before a meal as it will fill up your stomach…
- Urine is a Good Indicator of Hydration - Frequent, nearly clear urination indicates that your body has more than enough water and is passing the extra…
Minerals that are present in my tap water… aren't those good for me?
Ever noticed the buildup of minerals around your showerhead, sink drain, garden hose, etc.? Ever tried to scrub that off with only water and not by using vinegar, CLR, or some other caustic household cleaner? Ever use tap water in your iron while steaming / pressing your wrinkled clothing and then see small white "flecks" or "chunks" of mineral deposits that fall out during the process? Ever notice clogging in the jets that spray your windshield when you use tap water instead of special windshield washing fluid in your automobile?
This water corrodes and clogs various pipes, valves and filters. Conversely, your body includes a delicate series of pipes, valves and filters in the form of arteries / veins, heart and kidneys / liver. Though it may clean your shower head, you certainly can't down a shot of CLR every day to clean out your body's organs and pathways without great personal trauma or death. So then why subject your bodily systems to any more work than they already have to perform on a daily basis to properly filter an additional unusable substance being put into it?
Any energy expended to deal with eliminating a substance that the body can't use, takes valuable energy away from the most basic processes on which your body SHOULD be expending energy; such as, digestion, metabolism, immune system function, respiration, cardiovascular function, weight maintenance, fat loss, maintaining healthy balance of pH / good bacteria, and on and on.
“In order for a mineral to be of any use to the body it must be presented in a form in which it can be used. That form involves an association with an organic (carbon based) molecule. Carbon based molecules are to be found in living systems, and are not found in the ground which is where mineral water comes from,” writes Ron Kennedy, M.D. of Santa Rosa, CA on www.Medical-Library.net.
Thus, your minerals should be coming from your diet in the form they can best be assimilated and used by the body.
Dr. Kennedy continues, “Water from the ground comes with minerals, but these minerals are in salt form. When salt is presented to the body (with rare exceptions such as sodium chloride) it must be either stored or excreted. A good example is CaCO3 (calcium carbonate). Carbonate is not a sufficiently complex organic molecule and therefore cannot properly contribute its calcium to living systems. The calcium comes out instead in ionic form (with a positive charge) and precipitates by forming other salts. Common locations for precipitation of calcium are the lens of the eye (cataracts), the kidneys (kidney stones) and the walls of arteries (arteriosclerosis).
“CaCO3 comes from limestone and comprises the bulk of most calcium supplements, including that in ‘calcium enriched orange juice.’ If you want cataracts, kidney stones, and arteriosclerosis, be sure to eat and drink plenty of ‘calcium enriched’ foods.”
Can we at least count on spring water?!
Contaminated runoff, chemicals, pesticides, insecticides, dry cleaning chemicals, oil from automobiles, fuels of all sorts, fertilizers and weed killers, by-products from industrial production and manufacture, etc. etc. etc.
These are all things that seep into our soils every day. Spring water comes from aquifers that are the unfortunate recipients of this runoff. What process does the water pass through before being bottled? Is it the most basic of processes just to make the water "passable" by the Department of Agriculture? Or are heavy metals and other contaminants properly and completely removed?
Are there too many unanswered questions here? Do you want to subject yourself and your health to product uncertainty?
Spring water can also contain dissolved solids (Total Dissolved Solids or TDS, usually measured in parts per million or PPM), as discussed in the previous question and answer, which can lead to the same health issues.
Chlorine and Fluoride: Don't we need those in our water?
Chlorine is used to bring water to your tap disease free. It was introduced to eliminate the spread of cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery and gastroenteritis, as well as many other waterborne diseases, which once killed tens of thousands of Americans.
New mothers are typically instructed (or should be) to ingest pure water for the safety of breast-feeding their child. Why should we not do this on a permanent basis for our OWN health, not to mention that of a newborn?
But with thousands upon thousands of websites, books, etc. that give explanation as to the dangers of drinking chlorinated water, it seems that we need to take a serious second look as to the safety of drinking or showering with chlorine in the amounts that we do.
Water arrives "safely" to us with chlorine. The onus is now upon us to take that final step for our health and well being to get the chlorine out before ingesting it.
Fluoride has been added to our water to fight tooth decay. Despite this benefit, it is a poison. Before being discovered as a decay-fighter, it was mainly used as a rat and insect poison.
On the side of your toothpaste box, it encourages you to call the local poison control center in case of ingesting more than is needed to brush one's teeth. And in an ironic twist, long-term fluoride use can stain and discolor teeth in a condition known as dental fluorosis.
There are many more drawbacks to fluoride usage, even in the "small" amount that is in our water supply. It seems that ingesting fluoridated water also requires a serious look into taking responsibility for our own pro-active dental health and leaving the fluoride for the rats and insects.
And the winner is…
Eight 8-ounce glasses of pure water each day. Start there. Make it a habit. If you can do more, then do so, especially if you’re in a dry climate, working hard or working out regularly.
Water helps in every bodily function and helps you get more energy out of the food you consume.
Drinking cold water causes your body to burn a few extra calories in heating that water up to normal body temperature and is also absorbed more quickly.
EXCEPTION TO THE COLD WATER RULE: Don't drink cold water when you're already warmed up and exercising. When you're not warmed up in general, it's easier to pull a muscle or get injured in some way. Therefore, once warmed up, you don't want to inject cold water back into a system that already has the blood flowing. Go with room temp water at that point.
Drinking water is associated with weight loss in overweight dieting women independent of diet and activity.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18787524
Livestrong.com: Facts on Water and Weight Loss
http://www.livestrong.com/article/950-facts-water-weight-loss/
Distilled Water versus Mineral, Carbon Filtered, and Reverse Osmosis Water
http://www.medical-library.net/content/view/228/41/
The Fluoride Action Network
http://www.fluoridealert.org
Fluoride Dangers
http://fluoridedangers.blogspot.com/
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