3 Reasons Why You Should Be Drinking More Water
When it is scorching hot outside and the heatwaves are coming in, there is nothing better than grabbing an ice cold glass of drink.
Did you know that 50-70% of your body weight is made out of water? No wonder your body craves for it. You may not specifically long for a plain glass of water but this H2O can also be obtained from other sources such as fruit shakes, your regular salad or even caffeinated drinks (as long as they are not consumed in excess).
US NASEM (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine) tell us that in a day, men should drink about 15.5 cups and women 11.5 cups of fluid. About 20% of that fluid requirement would be coming from eating and the rest of the 80% is from drinking. It is common to hear that one should drink about 8 glasses of water per day, which is a fairly easy goal, but also depends on your body requirements as it varies from one person to another. Exercise, environmental exposure, health conditions and drug intake are some of the things that contribute to the amount of fluids that your body really needs. Luckily, our body has the capability to let us know when you need to gulp on that refreshing drink.
Water is everywhere and there are various reasons why we need this inside our body. Here are some reasons why you should be drinking water as needed by your diet:
1. To Keep That Fresh Skin Glow
You may have already experienced getting chapped lips more than once in your life. When your skin and lips go dry, this is a huge indicator of your body lacking water in the system. The best remedy to chapped lips and dry skin is surprisingly not lotion or lip balm, but drinking water. This is to actually address the root cause we call dehydration.
2. To Aid In Weight Loss And Maintain A Healthy Gut
It is found that drinking water helps provide your stomach a feeling of being full and results in decreased appetite for caloric intake. Sometimes our body cannot tell the difference when you are full with water or full with food and your stomach has stretch receptors that tell your brain when it is full. The signals from your stomach telling your brain that it has reached maximum load on the stomach then tells you to stop craving for food.
You can make use of this fact by drinking fresh clean water, when feeling hungry, to avoid snacking on some junk food. It has also been found that drinking cold water is preferable if you are looking to lose weight, as it burns more calories in your body when it tries to warm up that ice-cold drink to match your body temperature.
3. To Make The Most Out Of Your Exercise
Dehydration can cause your body to feel thirsty, have an elevated heart rate, shortness of breath, feeling nauseous, dizzy or get a headache. In worse cases, it can also lead to heat exhaustion, heat stroke, muscle cramping and breakdown of skeletal muscles. These are things that you do not want to experience during your exercise.
It is recommended to drink about 17-20 oz. of water at least 2 hours prior to exercise, 7-10 oz. of water for every 10-20 minutes during exercise and 16-24 oz. of water for each pound lost due to sweating after you’re done with exercising. Water also helps in cushioning your joints so that you can bend and snap all you want without any pain involved.
And these are just a few of the many perks you can get from drinking water. So always stay hydrated and drink your water!