How much water should I really drink?

stacey

July 28, 2016 4:59 PM

Living in a hot climate, we need to drink water to keep from dehydration - a serious condition if you succumb to it. Read on to learn how much water you need in a day.

I have a friend who can go ten hours without going to the bathroom.

He tells me he will drink water in the morning at home, use the bathroom then go to work. At work he'll drink about a litre of water, and not feel the urge to go, until he gets home ten hours later.

He doesn't actually know where the bathroom is at his work.

I fear for his health, as I on the other hand am often slinking off to the bathroom, to get rid of the coffee and water I consume through the day.

Living in a hot climate, we need to drink water to keep from dehydration - a serious condition if you succumb to it.

But, how much water do we really need to drink?

You may often hear you need to drink at least eight glasses of water a day, this was the prevailing advice for a long time, but treat it as a minimum.

I reached out to nutrition and health expert Anna Mitchell, who shed a little light.

“While there is no exact rule for everyone, the general guideline is two litres of pure water per day. You'll need to drink more if you are exercising or sweating a lot, or drink a lot of caffeinated drinks like coffee, tea or cola.”

Maybe you're on a medication that causes you to be thirsty, again, your needs will be different.

The main thing is to listen to your body. It's easy to know when you are thirsty, you get that terrible dry mouth feeling, maybe even a headache.

It's hard to drink too much water, if you do this it will just mean you go to the bathroom more frequently, a good escape from your computer.

Our bodies are made of about 60 percent water – everything inside us relies on water, it flushes the toxins from our liver, it keeps the brain hydrated and carries nutrients to our cells.

When you are dehydrated, you feel drained, tired and can't concentrate. Extreme dehydration will kill you.

And it's easy to be dehydrated, you are constantly losing water so you need to replace it.

Ideally, your urine should be colourless or light yellow, that's how you know you have drunk enough water.

Here in Ghana, most people don't want to drink from the tap, and probably shouldn't, but this is no excuse. You can boil water to filter it easily.

You can even eat fruits, like watermelon, available everywhere.

Keep a bottle of water with you at all times and sip away. Have a glass of water with each meal, and then start and end your day with a glass. That should see you through the day.

And my friend, the one who goes ten hours without needing to pee, well I asked the expert, Anna Mithchell about him too, she was astonished and hadn't heard of that before. She believed he was not drinking enough water, so if this sounds familiar to you, then grab that bottle, and start sipping!

stacey