Hydration, a topic drowned with myths, but are YOU really taking on enough fluid?
Let me clear up the mind field that is Hydration whether that be from your office chair, to your local park run or maybe the World Championships. I’ll share with you some tips and tricks that helped me perform to my maximal capability racing across the world. While I flush away those myths that you’ll often see on your news feed.
As we begin to reach the summer months; temperatures are due to increase, and dehydration is believed to be more prone than any other time of the year. Many people are getting stuck into “Facebook fitness challenges”, “Joe Wicks PE Lessons” and “Couch 2 5K” during this period of lockdown but can YOU improve your performances just by monitoring your daily fluid intake.
Absolutely!
So, Hydration, your body depends on it. Every cell, tissue and organ require water to survive and work efficiently. Water is the simplest form of hydration and can help maintain its temperature, remove any waste products and lubricate your joints.
Increasing your fluid intake is a bigger deal than most of us think. Often, we don’t make the right choices, but increasing our fluid intake should be made a priority throughout our daily life. Remember your body is made up of up to 60% water.
Grab yourself a glass, or perhaps a jug, and let’s go through the basics to improve your maximum capability from the office to your next race.
F A C T
Nowadays you see many social media plugs with celebrity’s holding their personalised water bottle to help aid weight loss – so does it work? A question I always get asked is does drinking more water help you lose weight. Drinking an extra three or four cups of water a day will not trigger weight loss. However, water is deemed to be a natural appetite suppressant due to taking extra space in your stomach helping your body feel the fullness. In addition, replacing those high calorific fizzy drinks with water will have long term weight benefits. When metabolising (burning) fat a process called lipolysis occurs. The first step of this process is called hydrolysis. “Hydro” meaning “water” from the Greek origin thus, requires water for this reaction to occur.
M Y T H
“Everyone needs to drink eight glass of water per day” – a statement you hear far too often. A very generalisable statement to help the general public increase their fluid intake. But NOT YOU, you are your own individual and have different needs. You are a different weight, body type and have a different energy expenditure. Fluid intake needs are very individual and can be dependent on your own sweat loss. It is difficult for me to say you should drink a certain amount a day so here’s some goals you can apply to yourself.
1. Keep your body weight loss due to sweating below 1 or 2% of your body weight before exercise.
2. Avoid an increase in body weight
Tips:
If training is started in a well hydrated state, ingesting fluid is only necessary during training greater than 60 minutes. When this is not the case, perhaps you are exercising fasted early morning, drinking during is highly advised.
Assess your Hydration throughout the day using our hydration system. Print it out and stick it in your bathroom at home or at your workplace.
FACT – Losses in excess of 5% body weight can decrease the capacity for work by 30%.
TIP : Print the above chart and stick it to your wall in your bathroom
F A C T
Hydration isn’t all about hydrating your body for physical function, cognitive function can be impaired by approximately 3% when involving tasks such as visual, short term memory and psychometry ability. So, if you are a business owner and want to better your office maybe a bulk buy of those celebrity water bottles could improve your business efficiency by 3%.
P E R F O R M A N C E
As an athlete you want to be at full capability whether that be in a race or training. No one wants to “bonk” or “hit the wall” and increasing your fluid intake can help reduce the risk of seeing the “red mist” and maximising your full capability. After a hard training session I look to replace 150% of the sweat losses.
Here’s how I do it below:
T E A V S H Y D R A T I O N
A small study carried out by researchers in Fife and Reading recently reported that drinking six mugs of tea a day is actually good for hydration. While apparently it disproved a myth of “the idea that regular tea drinking can dehydrate the body due to its caffeine content”.
So – do we believe it?
This may be a blog idea for the future but let’s summarise the facts.
· This study was funded and carried out by a Tea Advisory Panel
o Lacks validity but someone has to fund it right?
· The report states that the level of caffeine was not measured
o Does this mean that all participants consumed equal dosages? Or perhaps we are looking at caffeine itself dehydrating the participants rather than tea?
· The study believed that the diuretic effect of tea is evident at a higher dose of caffeine
o Perhaps they could follow up their first study with including women in the next?
I’m very open minded when reading through studies. However, a study conducting by that of a tea panel seems rather bias. So, what can we conclude from the study?
Not a lot really. Although the study did conclude that consumption of equivalent amount of water and tea over the course of a day deliver the same level of hydration.
The question we do have to ask is whether caffeine has a negative impact on hydration of the human body.
So, have I quenched your thirst in everything hydration?
While you grab yourself a refillable bottle; I’ll go an investigate the correlation in caffeine and hydration.