How Much Water Do I Need & Can You Drink Too Much Water?

According to estimates, the average male adult needs approximately 12 cups of water per day, the average female just about nine cups. These numbers don’t apply to plain old water as our bodies are able to get water from juices, and even many solid food items, however for those serious about peak performance and optimal health you really can’t go wrong using water as your primary fluid source. For those engaged in intensive regular exercise, especially high intensity training more water is needed on a daily basis- an increase that has been validated by several dietetic associations over the years.

Reasons for increased water intake are:

• exercise

• high temperature

• low humidity

• high altitude

• high-fiber diet

• increased fluid losses as a result of diarrhea or vomiting

• caffeine or alcohol consumption (Alcohol and caffeine are diuretics which means they cause water loss and could increase the risk of dehydration)

Water Requirements Are Higher For Those Engaged In High Intensity Training Or Other Activities

Since exercise and a high fiber diet is part of the Naturally Intense System of Diet & Exercise™ I recommend sometimes up to a gallon of water for some based in their bodyweight and activity levels especially since increased protein intake is also an additional requirement for more fluids. Bloating, and water retention is often a sign of inadequate water intake, as such the more you drink, the less water your body will retain. As a rule the more water you drink the less water your body will retain and I have seen some clients over the years lose as much as 10-15 lbs of water weight in the course of a week simply by regulating their sodium intake and ensuring adequate hydration levels.

When Should I Drink Water? Some Useful Tips From The Field!

Thirst tells us we need water, but the thirst mechanism cannot be relied upon to meet our water needs, since by the time you are thirsty, you are can already be slightly dehydrated. Mild dehydration occurs with as little as 1 percent loss of body weight. My suggestion is to to drink water during the day, and taper off the amount as the day goes on so that you can stop drinking at least an hour or two before bedtime. This is a good practice that prevents you having to wake up too often during the night and having your sleep patterns affected by your fluid intake

On days that you exercise, your water intake is most important. You will see a significant drop off in your performance if you do not drink an adequate amount, and it is my recommendation that you not engage in high intensity training if you have not drunk enough water during the day. My clients are often amazed at how well I can tell when they haven’t had enough water before their high intensity workouts. There is inevitably a marked reduction in their strength, endurance and they may experience muscle cramps – especially on warmer days.

Are There Any Potential Dangers To Drinking Water?

People with kidney problems or cardiovascular disease or other conditions where fluid intake needs to be limited should follow their doctor’s recommendations with correct sodium intake. Always seek advice from your doctor before beginning any new diet or changing eating and drinking habits. Can You Drink Too Much Water? In a word, yes, you can indeed drink too much water but it is a very rare occurrence among adults. Too much water ingested at one time can bring about dilution of sodium levels in the body, which creates a state called hyponatremia.

Electrolyte imbalance of this nature can cause arrythmia, confusion, nausea, seizures and it can lead to comatose states and death. The effects mimic alcohol consumption and as such it is often referred to as water intoxification. The key to remember is that this usually only occurs in infants, athletes involved in long term strenuous activities or in individuals that are somehow mentally impaired. Babies can suffer from hyponatremia by having too much water or from drinking formula that has been diluted too much, as their low weight makes it easy for them to over consume water.

Athletes that are dehydrated during marathon type events can also succumb to hyponatremia, as they drink too much water at one time in an attempt to rehydrate themselves. If they drink plain water without any electrolytes, they can very easily suffer from water intoxification. Finally, the third group at risk are those with some degree of mental impairment, be it organic or as a result of drug and alcohol use. The key to remember about hyponatremia is that it is not caused by drinking too much water, but rather from drinking an enormous amount of water all at one time, and it is very unlikely that anyone would do so under ordinary circumstances.

The media does tend to make a big story out of any deaths attributed to water intoxification, but as sensationalist as they can be, it does not take away the fact that most victims are infants, endurance athletes or people under the influence. The kidneys of a healthy human being can process 15 liters a day, (that is almost 4 gallons) without any ill effects. Keeping in mind that muscle is 72% water, and given their high protein intake, and bodyweights, it is not uncommon for bodybuilders and high performance athletes to ingest between 1 to 2 gallons of water a day. But that amount is consumed over the course of twenty four hours and not all at once, and that number can increase based on weather conditions. So as long as you are not trying to win a water drinking contest, or running a marathon, hyponatremia is not something that you should really be worried about.

Sources:

The American Dietetic Association. Water: The Beverage for Life.

Convertino V.A., Amstrong L.E., Coyle E.F.,Mack G.W., Swaka M.N., Senay L.C. Jr., Sherman W.M. 1996.

American College of Sports Medicine position. “Exercise and fluid replacement.” Medical Science Sports Exercise.

Kleiner S.M. 1999. “Water: An essential but overlooked nutrient.” Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

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Kevin Richardson- celebrity Personal Trainer New York City is the creator of Naturally Intense™ High Intensity Training, a lifetime natural bodybuilder, head of Naturally Intense™ Personal Trainers NYC and one of the most sought after personal trainer in NYC.

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Diet soda weight gain? Not only possible but highly likely.

Is Diet Soda Bad For You? Diet Soda Weight Gain.

In my early years in the health and fitness field, nothing changed the landscape as much as the onset of diet sodas. Even more popular than diet supplements, diet soda has become a ubiquitous addition to everyone’s attempts to lose weight- but is diet soda bad for you and can you end up with a weight gain from diet soda? Like so many others, growing up as a teenager in my native island of Trinidad, I saw diet sodas as a perfect solution to the problem of not having anything sweet in my diet while trying to get into peak shape. A sugar free, and almost zero calorie drink that I could have guilt and worry free seemed almost too good to be true and in the eyes of my bodybuilding coaches at the time, old timers all of them, it was.

Several of my coaches surmised that if the brain perceives what is being consumed as sugar, then the body will respond with a concurrent spike in insulin levels; An insulin spike that thus sets in motion the body’s fat storage mechanisms and a potential for weight gain. At the time, I was not completely convinced by his argument but I heeded their advice nonetheless- after all, I had seen first hand what their personal training clients looked like and they had dispelled many a myth I had held in the past about health and fitness so I saw no reason to distrust their instincts.

Diet Soda Weight Gain- Studies Show That Diet Soda Can Increase Insulin Levels

As the years went on, studies indeed began to surface that even though there is no actual glucose in a diet soda, the body still secretes insulin in response to consuming what it perceives as a sugary  drink, much in the way that Pavlov’s dog would salivate at the sound of a bell after being fed a tasty treat every time a bell would ring. So in the end, the old timers were indeed on to something!

I would also add that diet sodas are just about as artificial a food product as is humanly possible and thus in no way could ever be a natural part of a human diet. My belief has always been that processed foods always create problems in the human body and our growing obesity epidemic here in the United States and in developed countries continues to highlight the fact that our modern food products are not compatible with our physiology. It’s hard to compare an apple, which we as humans have evolved over the course of over countless thousands of years to harmoniously derive essential micronutrients, carbohydrates and fiber with a diet soda. The term ‘diet’ may be a great marketing tool to help us not be wary of a potential long term health hazard but the more we reflect on where we are and where we are going as a species the more obvious it becomes that such food products are best avoided. Our great-great grandparents didn’t have soda of any kind, much less the diet variety and they also didn’t have problems with obesity and the slew of preventable diet related diseases that come with it.

Diet Soda And Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is estimated to affects one in five women over the age of 50 in the United States and among the potential causes is a high dietary phosphorous intake. Phosphates have been shown to deplete calcium and are considered a factor in osteoporosis. Where would such high levels of phosphorous come from- you guessed it- carbonated beverages. Other countries (usually poorer ones) where the populations does not consume as much dairy products or supplemented calcium as we do here in America do not have such alarmingly high rates of osteoporosis as compared does the U.S. and other developed countries. One theory lays the blame on squarely on America’s number one drink- soda, and its kissing cousin, the highly fashionable diet soda.

Diet Soda Long Term Weight Gain From Reinforcing The Bad Habit Of Consuming Sugary Drinks

There are other behavior related reasons why diet sodas can bring about weight gain and are bad for you without even touching on the health questions raised by the long term ingestion of artificial sweeteners and that is the fact that it prevents a progression towards healthy eating habits. I have in my own personal training practice that clients who trained consistently and avoided the use of diet soda had an easier time making the transition toward consistently better eating choices than those consuming diet sodas regularly (the same applies for those that drink high levels of caffeinated beverages as well- but that’s another article.) In order to stop consuming a particular food it is important that we learn to forget about it and replace their tastes with those of healthier varieties. By keeping diet soda in your diet that switch away from needing something sweet on a regular basis never has a chance to go away and thus it becomes all the more difficult to eat well on a consistent basis.

Even among my clients that ate well but still consumed diet soda, they never seem to make as much progress in terms of weight loss and body fat reduction as the ones that cut them out completely- an interesting piece of information for anyone serious about getting into their best shape.

Diet Soda Is Not Part Of A Long Term Strategy For Getting In Shape

It may not be a scientifically validated double blind study, but it is what I have seen over the course of almost twenty years as a personal trainer- and it makes sense. Being able to make good food choices requires a gradual movement away from things that are simply not good for you, and by drinking diet soda, you are continue the behavior of accepting that sugary taste as something positive as opposed to working to accustom yourself to the tastes of foods that are indeed good for you.

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Kevin Richardson- celebrity Personal Trainer New York City is the creator of Naturally Intense™ High Intensity Training, a lifetime natural bodybuilder, head of Naturally Intense™ Personal Trainers NYC and one of the most sought after personal trainer in NYC.

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High Intensity Training Workouts For Women Increases Bone Density In Post Menopausal Women

Osteoporosis is the loss of bone density over time and the most common type of bone disease. It is estimated that 1 out of 5 American women over 50 have osteoporosis. About half of all women over the age of 50 will have a fracture of the hip, wrist, or spine over the course of their lives and the leading causes of osteoporosis are a drop in estrogen in women at the time of menopause and a drop in testosterone in men. Most women shy away from the idea of weight training and high intensity training in general in favor of more aerobic type exercises and classes however more and more research is affirming that not only weight bearing exercise, but also high intensity training workouts can decrease bone loss- especially among postmenopausal women.

According to a study published in the Journal of American Medical Association, high intensity training using strength exercises have been shown to be an effective way to preserve bone density while also improving overall muscle mass, increasing strength and balance in postmenopausal women. The research was done at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts and the subjects ranged in age from 50 to 70 years old. Following a high intensity low volume protocol the 39 women involved exercised twice a week performing five different strength training exercises per session over the course of a year.

High Intensity Training Workouts For Women Increases Bone Density

The findings were quite significant- in the women doing high intensity training femoral neck bone mineral density and lumbar spine bone mineral density increased by approximately 1 to 4.5% while the inactive control group saw a similar DECREASE in bone density of the same regions.  Total body bone mineral content was preserved in the strength-trained women while it tended to decrease in the sedentary women who were used as a control. Also of note, muscle mass, muscle strength, and dynamic balance increased in the strength-trained women and decreased in the inactive women.

High Intensity Training: A Proven Method For Preserving Bone Density & Improving Strength & Muscle Mass

The study’s conclusion:  ’High-intensity training exercises for strength are an effective and feasible means to preserve bone density while improving muscle mass, strength, and balance in postmenopausal women.’

References:

1. High-intensity resistance training and postmenopausal bone loss: a meta-analysis.Martyn-St James M, Carroll S. Osteoporos Int. 2006

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Kevin Richardson- celebrity Personal Trainer New York City is the creator of Naturally Intense™ High Intensity Training, a lifetime natural bodybuilder, head of Naturally Intense™ Personal Trainers NYC and one of the most sought after personal trainer in NYC.

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The 'Biggest Loser''s competitive weight loss approach may be entertaining, but it is certainly not a healthy precedent for weight loss.

The Biggest Loser- A Bad Example For Weight Loss

Over the past several years weight loss themed reality shows like ‘The Biggest Loser’ have become increasingly popular but are such shows really helping promote weight loss and a healthy lifestyle? In the ‘Biggest Loser’ the objective is of course to have the contestants lose as much weight as possible and has made these goals very much a matter of entertaining the public rather than trying to show healthy and realistic methods for long term weight loss that anyone can apply.

Weight Loss Is Only Effective When Done Slowly

The benchmarks are ridiculously unrealistic and for that matter, dangerous. Much is made over the fastest 100 pound weight loss- some poor soul lost that much in seven weeks, whereas in my two decades of helping people lose weight long term it takes at least nine to twelve months to lose that much weight safely and keep it off. The most weight lost in a week on the show was 34 pounds, which while may make for compelling television viewing, sends a really bad message to the public in terms of weight loss as studies have shown that individuals who lose weight quickly run the risk of gallstones, mineral deficiencies, loss of muscle tissue and reduced bone density. The safe rate of one to two pounds of weight loss per week might help someone stay healthy and keep the weight off long term, but it would only get them kicked off the show for not losing weight fast enough.

Competitive Weight Loss Sends A Potentially Harmful Message To The Public

Many of my colleagues in both the personal training, nutrition and medical fields agree that the idea of competitive weight loss is a dangerous one that does little to educate the public on how to lose weight safely and effectively. In my own personal training practice I have always been steadfastly against the use of Before and After photos in my marketing campaigns as it sets the stage for highlighting unrealistic weight loss figures and takes away the importance of the individual focusing on achieving their own goals through lifestyle modification rather than trying to make the numbers on the scale go down.

The Dangers Of Too Much Too Soon

Needless to say there have been hospitalizations on the show- and numerous instances where contestants suffer cramps, exhaustion and stress fractures from the high workloads. This type of programming isn’t inspirational, its voyeuristic- watching someone who is significantly obese try to complete strenuous exercise activities and work out five to six hours a day while following remarkably restrictive diets. It also sets the stage for the idea that to lose weight you need to do extreme things like exercise every day for hours on end while starving yourself while studies are increasingly showing that you can actually make more progress following low volume high intensity training which calls for no more than a half hour of exercise a week.

The Biggest Loser Is An Unrealistic Portrayal Of Weight Loss In Real Life

But there is another side of ‘The Biggest Loser’ that most viewers don’t see. The screening process alone requires that potential contestants camp out for hours on end in line for a chance to audition for the show. Being able to spend eight hours in line for anything is more than most would attempt but it ensures that the contestants, while obese are far more determined than most members of the general population. They are further screened to make sure that there is a ‘Wow factor’ by choosing contestants that are truly obese. It wouldn’t be half as entertaining to watch someone that was 10 or twenty pounds overweight on the show and so they opt for most of the contestants to be severely obese.

Fast Weight Loss Is Seldom Long Lasting & Potentially Dangerous

Research has shown definitively that if you lose weight and then regain it you significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Many former Biggest Loser contestants have regained some or all of their weight and it isn’t surprising given the unrealistic amount of exercise and the severity of the diets. No one takes into consideration the fact that these individuals actually made their health problems worse by going through such an extreme weight loss process as entertainment, cleverly packaged to look like it is meant to be some form of public service is the end goal at all cost.

I have seen for myself more and more people feeling like they are failures since their weight loss isn’t as fast or as spectacular as the contestants on the ‘Biggest Loser’ and I have to constantly remind them that weight loss more of a marathon than a sprint and that their modest losses of one to two pounds a week is not only phenomenal but safe, healthy and more likely to be permanent. If you want information on weight loss, you don’t turn on the television in prime time and you have to keep in mind that entertainment is just that no matter how well packaged it is. At the end of the day slow and steady wins the race, without starvation diets and without spending hours every day exercising to exhaustion.

Get a copy of Kevin’s free weight loss ebook here!

Kevin Richardson- celebrity Personal Trainer New York City is the creator of Naturally Intense™ High Intensity Training, a lifetime natural bodybuilder, head of Naturally Intense™ Personal Trainers NYC and one of the most sought after personal trainer in NYC.

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