The Importance Of Water To Health, Fitness & Weight Loss

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Nearly two thirds of your body is water. Water provides 80% of the volume of your blood, 75% of your muscles, 23% of bones and 74% of your brain. You can easily see how important it is to drink plenty of water and stay hydrated. Whether you’re drinking water from a bottle or out of an instant hot water machine (this instant hot water dispenser article listing the best options if you want to buy one), water is essential to our diet.

Too little water can leave you thirsty, cause headaches, muscle weakness and fatigue, and dizziness or lightheadedness. To avoid these symptoms, ensure that you drink enough water, but how much is enough? Start with half of your body weight converted to fluid ounces, if you weigh 160 lbs, you should be drinking at least 80 fluid ounces of water per day, that’s 10 – 8 ounce glasses spread over the course of the day.

Consider these additional health benefits of drinking more water:

  1. Improves Your Digestion – Water will help your body transport and then absorb nutrients. Drinking water with meals and snacks will help move food and partially digested food through your digestive tract, your stomach, and intestines and also prevents constipation.
  1. Improves The Natural Detox Process – Water improves the natural filtering process of your blood and organs and helps transport and eliminate toxins and waste products from your liver, kidneys, blood and colon through your sweat, urine and stool. Drinking more water also helps clear your kidneys and ureters, the tubes between your kidneys and bladder, which decreases your risk for kidney stones or urinary tract infections. However, if you’re still having bladder problems despite the amount of water you’re drinking, you should seek the help of a urologist from centres like Advanced Urology to get a diagnosis of what’s causing you issues.
  1. Helps Maintain Body Temperature – Water helps your body maintain the proper temperature through the cooling process of sweating and also opens the capillaries in your circulatory system thus allowing your skin to maintain proper blood flow and regulate your body temperature.
  1. Maintains Your Blood Volume – If you don’t drink enough water, you become dehydrated and lose blood volume. Too little blood leads to low blood pressure, dizziness, decreased circulation and an inadequate supply of oxygenated blood and nutrients. Dehydration and low blood volume forces your heart to work harder leaving you tired and short of breath.
  1. Suppresses Your Appetite – Drinking more water, more often will help you feel full while also helping your body metabolize stored body fat. Drinking a glass before each meal and with each healthy snack will help you eat fewer calories without feeling hungry.
  1. Improves Your Muscle Tone – Since muscle is 75% water, drinking more will help maintain your muscle tissue and muscle tone. Water and the electrolytes found in water allow your muscles to contract, while preventing shrinkage and helps prevent the soreness related to exercise (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness).

The most accurate method to determine if you’re drinking enough water is by observing the color of your urine. If it’s too dark, you’re not drinking enough water. Your urine should be very nearly clear or only slightly yellow, similar to lemonade and indicates that you are well hydrated.