Water: it’s not just for ice cubes

In this series of posts we will be looking at the simple stuff. Why? It’s the simple stuff that gives us most of our results. If you dont believe me look up the Pareto principle. Whether it be training, nutrition or relationships, the stronger the foundation the higher you can build. In other words you’re not as advanced as you think you are (don’t worry; neither am I).

In my first post, we’ll we turn our heads to the very simple, utterly essential molecule of water.

While everybody knows we’re supposed to drink a substantial quantity of water, few of us do. Perhaps some facts are in order:

1) Water takes up space, if you take up enough space there less room for other stuff. This may seem obvious enough, but here’s a study that illustrates why that may be such a good idea: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18787524

2) Dehydration has been found to be the number-one cause of daytime fatigue in people who are free of serious sleep disorders. If you’re tired the chances of you deciding to skip that workout skyrocket.

3) We all know that lifting heavy stuff, combined with smart nutrition is great for body composition, but a loss of 4-5% of body weight in fluid decreases the capacity for hard muscular work by 20-30%., So if you’re still using purple dumbells maybe your water intake is to blame.

4) Back pain in many cases is caused by or exacerbated by dehydration. The structure of the human vertebrae makes them vulnerable to dehydration, with resulting pain and swelling. In fact preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers. These numbers are pretty significant when you consider that 80% of North Americans will suffer from back pain at some point in their lives.

Here are other some interesting facts for you to pull out at the party:

1. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. (This likely applies to half the world population)

2. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one’s metabolism as much as 3%.

3. One glass of water shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters in a University of Washington study.

4. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.

Water, it seems, is kind of a big deal. Do yourself a favour though and try to use a glass or stainless steel water bottle. As you may know, the xeno-estrogens in plastic bottles have been found to cause moob’s in both fish and human males.

I leave you with a quote from the man himself Dr. Batmanghelidj, the author of Your Body’s Many Cries for Water.

“In my professional and scientific view, it is dehydration that is the biggest killer, more than any other condition you could imagine. The different aspects and ‘chemical idiosyncrasies’ of each individual’s body reaction to the same pattern of dehydration have received different professional labels and have been treated differently and ineffectively.”

Andy