#Mamavation Monday: Water!

There are SO many schools of thought on how much water we need
to drink each day. There’s the 8×8 rule, the 1 mL per calorie rule (which is rumored to be the origin of the 8×8 rule), the replacement rule and the gender based 3 L for men, 2.2 L for women rule. Then there are formulators that tell you how much you should drink based on how much you weigh + how much you’ve worked out that day, plus climate considerations, among other various considerations. On top of that, there are questions of the fluids that come from other foods and drinks and what counts and what doesn’t..

It’s all awfully confusing.

However, the long and short of it is we need to be hydrated to function in a healthy way.

Now back in the day, I was drum corps drum major. For those of you who don’t know what drum corps is, it’s essentially like major league marching band. Except it’s only percussion and brass instruments (and only specific types of brass instruments at that) and a color guard for added aesthetic value. It’s a sport that’s only open to performers under the age of 21 with an average age around 19. What made it major league was the intensity of our rehearsals and performances. We practiced 12 hours a day, on a football field or an open field painted like a football field every day during the summe.

During. The summer. Seriously.

So we were running around a field, playing instruments (and either holding them up or carrying them around on harnesses), sweating our butts off, all with the sun beating down on us. Unless you’re in the pit or you’re the drum major. Then you’re in one place, but still working your butt off. We were athletes with instruments* and we literally drank water by the gallon, each person drinking about 3-4 jugs per day. Once we got close to the bottom of a jug, we’d add some Gatorade powder mix to keep up on the minerals and carbs we needed (because we were burning them like crazy).

*Click the link to watch an awesome study on the metabolic rate of a drum corps musician in rehearsal/performance mode.

Intense, right? We were obsessed with hydration, but we also encountered first-hand the effects of hyper-hydration (better known as hyponatremia). Yes, there is such thing as drinking too much water, and to our eyes it looked a lot like alcohol poisoning with less vomiting, delirium and incoherence included.

Come to think of it, that was about when we started to think the Gatorade might be a good idea.

Obviously, my lifestyle has changed drastically from my days as drum major, and as most of my day is now spent in a cube, I don’t need 3-4 gallons of water per day to keep me from passing out with dehydration and heat exhaustion. However, I learned SO much about the importance of hydration from those hours spent in the sun. It’s also obvious, though, that the hydration needs are different, and depending on your level of activity per day, your needs will vary as well.

So I based my needs on a few different factors:
-I maintain at least 20-30 minutes of moderate activity per day
-I’m a baby factory
-I spend little time in the sun and I live in the land that summer forgot (better known as coastal Southern California).

As a baseline, I picked the gender rule of 72 oz/day for women (raise the bar on the 8×8!). Then I added on 16 oz for baby, 8 oz for activity and added nothing for climate. So there I am with close to 100 oz already. I subtract 24 oz from that to account for my morning and evening herbal tea. While I do get more fluids from fruits & veggies throughout the day, I don’t really count them because I’m a slacker and it’s hard to say how much water is in an apple. Therefore, I have to drink somewhere around my original 72 oz of water alone.

BONUS!!

Now it’s not a perfect world, and sometimes you want a soda. Soda technically can count for fluid intake, but be warned that it’s a nutrient leach. Personally, I don’t count it because back in the day when I did cheerleading (read junior high), our coach had a rule that for every soda we drank, we had to drink twice as much water. We were motivated not to drink soda, he was happy we weren’t going to pass out from dehydration. Seems like a fair trade to me, and it’s a habit I still have and a rule I still follow (because sometimes ginger ale and saltines are the only answer to bubble gut).

I’ve actually had a really hard time getting in the habit of drinking this much water per day, so I got an awesome 24 oz aluminum water botter that has a wide mouth and sippy-straw-mabob because:

1. I like my water on ice so the wide mouth let’s me fill it with ice water and
2. I’m a spaz and I spill on myself with the other aluminum bottles.
3. It’s easy to keep track of how much I’ve been drinking throughout the day. 3 fills and I’m good to go!

If you really want to go all advanced or keep yourself on top of things, set a schedule. I set a timer for every 3 hours to remind myself to refill. And if I’m not at a refill point, chug then refill. But the timer really helps, y’all.

So those are my personal water rules. How do you decide how much water to drink per day?