BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Weight Loss 8 glasses of water per day?

The key is to drink the water throughout the day, not try and get it done and over with in a short period of time. At work, we inject a patient, and then they are supposed to drink 6 glasses of water over a 3 hour period of time for the test. I always have to stress that they drink it slowly, about a glass every half an hour, because, if I don't, one of them will try to finish it in the first 15 minutes so he/she doesn't have to worry about it. But what happens is that drinking it that fast changes the electrolyte balance in the body and they get dizzy and nauseated. We also stress that they don't drink any caffeine, since it can be very dehydrating, which is the opposite of what we are striving to accomplish.

Another thing to look at are sodas. Did you know that carbonated beverages decrease your absorption of calcium???

Marian

It's amazing how many ways soda is bad for us, and look at how much of it we drink! Cola is especially bad for women and their bones.

The Parade's fitness question this week was in fact about maintaining electrolyte balance. When you work out, you sweat water and salt. So if you then drink large amounts of water without eating anything, you could get out of balance. They list that leading to nausea, dizziness, headache, and lack of coordination. Of course we normally get WAY more salt than we should in our diet so it's not a problem unless you start chugging water in large quantities.

They say that for an hour workout you need to drink between 13.5 and 27 oz of water to replace that sweat. So if you exercise an hour a day, that's over 3 8oz glasses of water right there you need just to maintain your status quo <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The article says if you exercise OVER an hour at once that it's time to switch to a sports drink so you replenish your salt and water in proportion while you work out.