Wellness

By Ally Bowersock

Executive Summary:

Yeah, yeah, water is good for you. But why?

Ally Bowersock is the Co-owner of RunAbout Sports Roanoke. Contact her: runaboutroanoke@ gmail.com

Drinking water – what’s the big deal?

We’ve gone from zero to 100 when it comes to humidity and many people fall short when it comes to drinking adequate amounts of water to compensate for added fluid loss. In fact, most people do not consume enough water on any given day, let alone hot and humid days, so the compounded dehydration can wreak havoc on your daily functioning. However, this is not an impact on function that you can necessarily feel, until you know what it feels like to be properly hydrated. Here are a few tips on how to check and how to increase hydration for optimal health.

1. Check your losses

Fluid is lost through sweat, saliva, feces, and urine. The easiest hydration “check” of the four is your urine color. On average, adequate hydration will result in a faint yellow color of urine, although medications and certain foods may alter urine color in a matter of hours and days. You can check in with your healthcare provider if any medications you take may alter your urine color - and let her or him know that you’re monitoring your hydration.

2. Sip, sip, sip!

There is no one gold-standard amount of water you need to drink but the AVERAGE recommendation is 2-3 liters of water/ day depending on your body size, activity level, where you live (altitude, etc). This does NOT include recommendations for things like athletic competitions, when you should be adding hydration before, during, and after your activity. When starting an activity in a dehydrated state, your body is forced to work that much harder to cool itself. This adds excessive stress to the cardiovascular system, which in turn impacts the rest of the body trying to perform at optimal levels with suboptimal preparation. When you add sweating to the mix of existing dehydration, you bury yourself further in impaired performance and risk for heat-related injuries.

3. Add some flavor!

Chugging water all day may not seem all that exciting, so try adding a bit of flavor to your bottle to make the habit more appealing. Gone are the days when your only choices for flavored sports beverages came loaded with sugar and artificial ingredients. As many know, the field of sports nutrition is constantly evolving; we now have all kinds of products available that are both healthful and helpful when it comes to hydration and taste. Some come in the form of effervescent tablets, some in powder form, but there are now SO many choices that you don’t have to settle for zero flavor. Brands like Nuun, Skratch, and Untappd are just a few options we have available to meet hydration needs. Mention this article the next time you stop by the store (RunAbout Sports on Brambleton Avenue) and we will make sure to send you home with a few sample tablets of Nuun Sport- a low-sugar electrolyte tablet that is a staff favorite and sure to make your hydration habit stick.