“The waterboy just needed some water!” -The Waterboy, starring Adam Sandler
Water should be all that you drink 90% of the time. Gatorade has been talked up for years, and it is needed in some instances, but the average fitness enthusiast has no use for the high-sugar drink. Soda’s strip the calcium from your bones and cause tiny eruptions in your stomach lining that can cause ulcers, acid reflux, and a pH imbalance. Coffee and caffeinated tea dehydrate your body and strain your kidney
s and liver.
It’s ok to drink gatorade, soda, tea, coffee, etc. sometimes, but you should not depend on them to hydrate you.
Here’s why it’s important to be properly hydrated with water.
1. You actually lose the use of your fast-twitch muscles when they are dehyrated.
2. Blood needs a high volume of water to bring nutrients to your muscles for repair and recovery.
3. Drinking the right amount of water for you body actually speeds up your metabolism. (Faster weight loss!)
4. Water hydrates you 3x faster than any other fluid.
5. Your body is 75% water, so it absorbs plain water easier than a fluid that needs to be filtered by your body.
To be properly hydrated, each day you need to drink half your body weight in ounces of water. Example: If you weigh 200 lbs, 200/2=100, so you need to drink 100 ounces of pure water each day. Anything else you want to drink needs to be in excess of that amount.
Stephanie Pool, CSCS
Tags: athletes, austin, Bootcamp, fitness, hydration, stephanie pool, tx, water, waterboy
