Hydration question

[Poppdog]

I do keep hydrated and aim to have between 2,000 & 2,500 of water a day, but as I don’t drink caffeinated tea or coffee, haven’t done for years, does/can this count towards the total?

Thanks

[nowster Graduate]

I count all fluids (including those containing caffeine and alcohol) towards my total. You can over-analyse these sort of things. The important measure is actually how dark your pee is. You're aiming for a just perceptible colouration (or very slightly darker).

If you've eaten certain things (eg. some types of veg, some vitamin pills) they can affect the colour and mask the effect. In particular, high doses of vitamin C can cause the colour to verge towards Technicolor yellow.

[IannodaTruffe Mentor]

As explained in this FAQ Post about hydration healthunlocked.com/couchto5... many teas and coffees and alcohol are diuretics, meaning they are not as effective at hydrating you as pure water. They help but are not as effective.

[John_W Graduate]

I swim against the (hydration) tide (mixed metaphor!) And yes, I say this as 'Ambassador'! Us Admins & titled folk are not all on the same page necessarily on subjects like these.

The idea that lidl ol' me, 5'8", 10st, should be downing several litres of water - EXCLUDING tea, coffee etc - each day to ensure I'm 'correctly' hydrated just seems intuitively wrong. As the son of a GP (pee test!) and someone who's run on average about 1200 km / 800 miles each year since 2015, trained for 2 marathons (run just the one), can jog quite happily for 2 hours on no breakfast and just a sip of water beforehand, multiple parkruns, etc, my experience is that 2-3 litres of water per day on top of all other forms of hydration, simply isn't necessary. My pee colour is nearly always fine and my skin is generally lovely thanks

Yes, it's important to be hydrated, but an awful lot of us are without having to think about it. And yes, some of the population could actually do with drinking more water but for us normal folk (I'm excluding elite endurance athletes) there's not much evidence that links hydration or lack of it to any performance/health measure.

And of course, if you're living or on holiday in a hot and humid climate, then you'll know the importance of hydration - and your body will be sure to tell you. But to consciously force 2-3 litres down?

My sister and niece are both keen exercisers - daily workouts, weights etc and follow numerous influencers online . They both now have these ridiculously huge 3 (THREE!) litre water bottles from Amazon and carry them around all day, making sure to drink it all.

This was an interesting discussion and I'm with renowned exercise & sports physiologist Ross Tucker here (not that I have much idea re: the biological details that he talks about):

twitter.com/JulianLoCasto/s...

enjoy