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Old 11-11-2006, 01:14 PM
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This was taken from another message board. I think it's good info and not alot of people drink enough of it.

Water is needed for every single metabolic process, including protein synthesis. So if your training intensity is high, one of the simplest things you can do for your body is to drink more water.


1. You Aren't Getting Enough
Soda and coffees don't count. In fact, though they are liquid beverages, the caffeine in both can increase fluid loss through diuresis. When this happens, the body begins storing water (see #4). Conventional wisdom tells you 6-8 glasses of water is enough per day. Since you're training for an unconventional physique, you need more. Aim for at least a half gallon to a gallon per day, depending your level of conditioning.


2. Water Clears Out Toxins
Water flushes out toxins and other metabolic waste products from the body. Water is especially important when following a "high protein" diet, as it helps remove excess nitrogen, urea (a toxic substance), and ketones. If you're eating big to gain weight, then you need even more water to help your kidneys do their work.


3. Water Helps Metabolize Fat
Without enough water, the kidneys can't function properly. When this happens, some of the load is transferred to the liver. The liver metabolizes stored fat for energy. If the liver is doing some of the kidneys' work, it burns less fat. In addition, water can actually reduce feelings of hunger.


4. Water Reduces Fluid Retention
Contrary to popular belief, drinking water can actually help you shed excess water weight. When water is in short supply, the body, thinking there's a shortage, begins hoarding it. This water is stored in extra cellular spaces. In other words, your skin starts looking soft and puffy.


5. Water Keeps You Regular
Too little water, and your body steals it from organs such as the colon. When this happens, you experience constipation. Plus, water allows you to digest your meals efficiently. This is especially true when you're consuming over 4,000 calories a day.


6. Water Helps Individuals Who Get Too Much Salt
If water retention is a chronic problem, it may be because there's too much salt in the diet. The higher the sodium intake, the more the body tries to retain water (to dilute its concentration). Either reduce salt intake or drink more water.


7. Water Helps Your Supplements Work Better
Supplements like creatine work in part because it pulls water in muscle cells, thereby creating an anabolic environment needed for growth. For this to work properly, you need plenty of water. Plus, if you're training hard, then you need a basic mega-vitamin. Many vitamins are water soluble, and water unlocks the power of those vitamins
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Old 11-11-2006, 01:27 PM
EricT EricT is offline
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Very good and sound advice, I think.

On the whole how much water is enough and what counts here is a very interesting read that I posted before in another thread:

http://intl-ajpregu.physiology.org/c...ull/283/5/R993
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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.
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Old 11-11-2006, 02:01 PM
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Nice, long read....Mine's just a quick point form.
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Old 11-11-2006, 07:31 PM
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i drank 1.5 gals today (training days)
1 gal on none training days
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Old 11-12-2006, 09:16 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talo
Nice, long read....Mine's just a quick point form.
Mine is just to add to the information for anyone who is interested. Someone has to read the long stuff to get at the short of it!

The short of it is that there just has never been any real scientific evidence to support such coupious intakes of H20. The evidence does say that pretty much every fluid containing thing we take in "counts" including coffee, and the water in food. The osmoregulatory system in healthy persons is VERY efficient. Most of this "fluid retention" and sodium stuff comes from the practice of bodybuilders trying to shed water and "dry out" to appear more shredded. The average guy who bodybuilds and drinks coffee or whatever is not going to be all bloated with water retention. That's an individual problem. I used to drink 5 or 6 cups a day and never "retained" water.

I agree that we need plenty of water. I think, however, that forcing ridiculous amounts of it in the face of NO evidence and in fact, plenty of counter evidence, is just a sort of accepted dogma.

Of course with creatine you need a lot of water.

Last edited by EricT; 11-12-2006 at 10:24 AM.
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Old 11-12-2006, 10:39 AM
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Here is an article that discusses the review I've just posted:

By: Mauro Di Pasquale

Almost everyone agrees that water is good for you and that the biggest problem with water intake is that you don't drink enough. We have all had it drummed into us that we need to drink at least eight glasses of water a day. That it's important to drink water before and during exercise.

That coffee and tea don't count because caffeine can dehydrate our bodies. And that you can't trust your thirst as an accurate measure of when you need water since if you're thirsty you're already dehydrated. Well think again. According to a recent review in the Journal of Physiology, most of these accepted truths seem to be myths.

This review looked at the scientific evidence of the 8*8 mantra drinking at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day, and found that there really was none.

The claimed benefits of taking in that much water each day, including benefits for weight loss, bowels, fatigue, arthritis, mental alertness and headaches, losing weight, preventing constipation, are also mostly unsubstantiated.

Other Water Myths That Are Debunked In This Article Include:

By the time a person is thirsty that person is already dehydrated. This in fact isn't true and the best measure of how much water to drink is your thirst.

Dark urine means dehydration. Again that's not strictly true either as there are many other factors that can contribute to dark urine.

Caffeinated beverages dehydrate us. As you'd expect much of this is also unsubstantiated. In fact, contrary to popular opinion, a recent study has found that coffee, tea and sodas are hydrating for people used to caffeine and thus should count toward their daily fluid total.

While this review focuses on the validity of the various water myths, no one seriously disputes that getting enough water is crucial. However, fears of dehydration and the constant barrage telling us we don't drink enough water, has led to a mistaken belief that the safe thing to do is to drink as much and as often as possible. But drinking too much water can be hazardous to your health.

Too Much Water?

The reason why over hydrating can be dangerous is that when we consume large amounts of water when exercising, blood plasma (the liquid part of blood) increases, while the sodium concentration in the body fluids decreases, both as a result of the dilution by the water but also because sodium is lost by sweating.

Hyponatremia, or low blood sodium, generally happens after drinking too much plain water and can lead to adverse effects and tissue damage, and interfere with brain, heart, and muscle function.

Early symptoms can be difficult to spot and include:

Confusion
Nausea
Fatigue
Muscle cramps
Weakness
More severe symptoms can include vomiting, muscle twitching, delirium, seizures, coma and death.

A new review of three deaths of US military recruits highlights the dangers of drinking too much water. Like in sports, the military has traditionally focused on dangers of not drinking enough, especially under conditions often associated with exercise and hot conditions. However, getting overzealous over the need to drink large amounts of water and over-hydrating can have deadly consequences.

So How Much Water Should You Drink.

My recommendation is to drink when you're thirsty, and if you think you should be drinking more, don't overdo it. As far as drinking water in and around exercise, I've outlined a few simple guidelines that will make sure you're well hydrated without hitting any extremes.

Within an hour or so of training, drink a few glasses of water so you start well hydrated. While training you can drink a glass or so of water for every 15 minutes you train, especially if you're sweating it out.

However, even during times of heavy sweating don't take in more than a quart and half of water per hour. As far as how much your daily intake of water should be, The American College of Sports Medicine that 12 quarts is the maximum amount to drink in a 24-hour period.

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One other thing on the fluid retention thing. Extracellular water balance is regulated through sodiuim levels. The body does not "hoard water" in times of shortages. If a person retains a lot of water which will usually cause localized swelling there are a host of medical condtions to look at. Dehydration not being one of them. If the healthy normal body hoarded water outside cells just because we didn't drink copious amounts we would be in trouble. It would upset metabolic processes. The reason people shed water when they drink incredible amounts of water is because they lose sodium. Which can be very dangerous. It is not "healthy". If you are not going to step on stage and have not already fucked up your body to the point where you are retaining excess fluid (a medical problem) then it is not good advice to "drink a lot of water to shed water", imo.

Last edited by EricT; 11-12-2006 at 11:08 AM.
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Old 11-12-2006, 12:48 PM
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Since I know people won't take my word about this myth of "hoarding water" as such I thought I'd post this little thing on the function of the kidneys. I bolded the relevant parts.

The body has two kidneys, each about 4-5 inches in length and reddish in color. The kidneys are located just above the waist, behind the abdominal cavity. Each kidney contains the hilus, through which the ureters are connected. Blood vessels and lymphatic vessels also are connected at the hilus, with the blood entering through the renal artery.

Three layers of tissue surround each kidney. The renal fascia, made of a dense connective tissue, anchors the kidneys to surrounding structures.

The principle task of the kidney is to preserve the volume and composition of the extracellular fluid constant. This it must do despite a varying outside environment, and varying input. A part of this task–but only a part–is to remove from the body some of the waste by-products of metabolism which the cells cannot break down further. Thus the principal function of the kidney is not excretion, but regulation. We can move and live on dry land, even though we are three-quarters water, and survive; our cells tucked away in a carefully preserved ocean of extracellular fluid, whose composition is guarded with exquisite accuracy by the kidneys, a major part of our life-support system in this hostile environment. We can roam into deserts, and (usually) survive, or drink a six-pack of beer, or starve, or gorge, but essentially the extracellular soup remains of a constant composition, and because of this, the composition of the cells themselves is constant.

The kidney is less in control of the intracellular water, since if the kidneys do their job adequately, each cells is largely autonomous, and will extract and eject what it needs or does not need from the extracellular fluid. The kidney conserves what we need, but even more, it permits us the freedom of excess. That is, it allows us to take in more than we need of many necessities—water and salt for example—and excretes exactly what is not required. This is essential, since neither our ancestors nor we, animal or human know the composition of the foods we eat, and the only way to ensure a sufficiency of everything is to eat an excess of at least some. Finally, the kidneys preserve the volume of our body fluids as well as their composition. Given that we’re almost ¾ water, quite simply weighing oneself each day can assess the precision with which the kidney achieves this.

Despite variations in diet, exercise or fluid intake, the figures remain constant. The kidney performs its tasks, with a precision of as good as 1% and never worse than 5%, under extremely varying circumstances. If the kidneys fail suddenly, death occurs after a few days, partly because some of the accumulated metabolic waste products are toxic to the heart, which stops. More interesting, is the way in which the kidney can adapt to slow destruction by dysfunction, so that one can survive on as little as 5% of overall kidney function. The kidney has greater reserve capacity in the face of disorder than (for example) the heart or the lungs.

Why can’t we switch off urine production all together in times of drought? This is impossible because of two constraints. The first is that there is an upper limit to the degree of concentration of urine that we can achieve. This is a function of the length of the loops in the kidney tubules. The other constraint, given that there is a limit to our concentrating capacity, is that there is a minimum amount of soluble waste, which we must excrete through our kidneys each day. This is mostly nitrogen-containing compounds, principally urea; and on a normal diet we produce an amount which will not dissolve in less than about one pint of the most concentrated urine we can produce. Therefore, even on a raft in the ocean, or in the dessert, we go on passing this volume of urine. If you are dehydrated, your urine is already four times as concentrated as your blood.
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Old 11-12-2006, 12:48 PM
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When drinking lots of water causes sodiuim levels to drop, then wouldn't it be safe to say that for every 2 litres + - (just picked a number) we should drink something to replenish our electolyes like gatorade or something ? Then wouldn't that make drinking a lot of water safer ?
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Old 11-12-2006, 12:54 PM
EricT EricT is offline
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As a matter of fact that is just the kind of thing that is recommended. But in order for this to be necessary you really have to be consuming way too much water. In other words, it doesn't make any sense to me to replenish electrolytes in order to compensate for over-hydration. That is just assuming there is some need for all that EXTRA water, and again, past the point of saying if your active you need more.

This is assuming you are not sweating your ass off in the hot sun for long periods of time. But even then the body regualtes electrolyte levels up to a point very well. It is another myth that all of your sweat contains sodium and such. It doesn't.

I posted something else on that before but I don't remember exactly. It is interesting to note that these military deaths involved simple over-hydration and loss of sodium because of that. Perhaps gatorade would have helped but the fact of the matter is they were pushed to consume more water than was necessary.
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Old 11-19-2006, 05:48 PM
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water is good to you in the trainning,and good to you for the metabolismo 3 or 4 liters at the day
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