A guest post by Kelly Hamel on her quest to instill the good habit of drinking more water! Kelly has also shared with us an app for our phones that will help us keep track of our water intake. Thank-you Kelly!
Keep calm and drink more water everybody!
I have decided to instill a good habit into my life. My new habit will be to drink enough water for my body and activity level each day. My start date will be September 1, 2017; I will drink more water.
I feel that I have not been drinking enough water for the physical activities that I do. I have downloaded an app on my phone called Plant Nanny. (Google Play) It helps you keep track of your water intake. It is fun to use, and I like the visual metaphor—you get to water a plant whenever you finish a drink of water, and it makes the plant grow. Once your plant is grown, you get to start another, and another, and so on.
The Effects of Not Drinking Enough Water
The human body is comprised of about 65% water, which is needed for a number of bodily functions. These include: blood circulation, metabolism, regulation of body temperature, waste removal, and detoxification.
Once your body has lost between 1-2 percent of its total water content, it will signal its needs by making you feel thirsty. Using thirst as a guide to know how much water you need to drink is one obvious way to ensure that your individual needs are being met day by day. However, it is important to note that by the time your thirst mechanism actually kicks in, you are already in the early stages of dehydration.
Additionally hunger and sugar cravings can be a sign that your body is crying for water. Other signals indicating that you need to drink more water include: fatigue, dizziness, mood swings, muscle cramps, back / joint pain, dully or dry skin, pronounced wrinkling of the skin, constipation, infrequent urination, dark concentrated urine, headache, bad breath, and many others.
Severe dehydration can be life threatening, but even mild dehydration can cause problems. These problems can range from headaches and irritability to impaired cognition.
Dehydration can also effect your sport performance. Even being slightly dehydrated effects your ability to put effort into your workouts. A 2% dehydration level in your body causes a 10% decrease in athletic performance. The more dehydrated you become, the worse your performance gets.
My Personal Experience
Personally I have experienced the following as a result of not drinking enough water: headaches, fatigue, dizziness, poor concentration, muscle cramps at night, infrequent urination, and a lot of back and joint pain.
Now that I have started keeping track of my water intake, I feel much better! I feel like I have more energy, less muscle and joint pain. And my sports performance has even improved. My running pace has improved by seconds.
