Drinking plenty of good ole’ H2O is important for your body and your overall health. They body is composed of approximately 60% water, which varies with each person. Water plays a huge role in your body’s health. It can help lower blood pressure and improve cholesterol levels. Your skin will look better if you have adequate water. If you’re feeling tired, try a glass of water, rather than opting for coffee, which can contribute to dehydration. Drinking water can help slow aging, improve your eye health, improve cognitive functioning and help you lose weight, especially water weight.
If you’re working out you need to increase your water intake.
Dehydration can affect your workout and make you drag through it. If you stay hydrated by sipping on water throughout, you’ll feel energized and maximize its effectiveness. According to studies, dehydration can cause people to slow down and get sluggish, affecting their physical activity, not just during exercise, but for the rest of the day. If you’re chronically dehydrated, it has a cumulative effect on the number of calories burnt during the day, making weight loss harder.
Seniors may require more water than younger people.
The older you are, the more risk you face of dehydration. One reason is that fluid reserves are lower in seniors, than they are in younger people. The sense of thirst in seniors isn’t as keen as it is in younger people, so seniors may not feel thirsty as often. Loss of appetite, excessive urination from medications and conditions like diabetes, and other factors also play a role. One of the symptoms of dehydration is mental confusion, which is often mistaken for dementia.
Drinking water can help you lose weight.
There are several ways drinking more water can help weight loss, besides giving you more energy. It can boost your metabolism. If you’re even mildly dehydrated, it slows your resting metabolism rate. It can affect your blood pressure by changing the amount of arginine vasopressin—a hormone that regulates blood pressure and fluid levels, plus how much fat your body burns. Drinking cold water requires the body to warm it, so it burns extra calories, 33 per liter of water, to be exact.
- Studies show that drinking water 15 minutes before a meal can fill your stomach and cause you to eat less. You can also mistake thirst for hunger and eat extra calories, when just drinking a glass of water would be enough.
- While your first instincts might be to reach for a soft drink, reaching for water instead is far better. You’ll lower your calorie and sugar intake. Even diet drinks can play havoc with your body, plus studies show add inches to your waistline.
- Some people don’t like plain water. That’s okay. To make it more palatable, try infused water. You make it by adding fruit, herbs or vegetables to water, letting the water absorb the flavors before straining it.
- Drinking more water is so important that there are now cell phone apps to remind you to take a drink. The amount of water you need to drink varies by your weight, activity level, body temperature and health. It averages about 8-eight ounce glasses a day.
For more information, contact us today at LIV Fitness