Most of us probably don't drink enough, but how much is enough? I read about one doctor who claimed that he had not drunk any water at all in twenty years. Somehow I have trouble being convinced of that. He claimed to get all the water he needed from the food he ate. He says that it's not necessary to drink water in order to stay healthy and in fact we can over-consume on the stuff. His viewpoint is an unnerving one to me, because I love water and I could probably be called a water "addict" because I don't like to get too far away from a good source of it for very long.
Other doctors suggest drinking one sixteen ounce glass of water per day, which to me, is still not enough, I would dry up and blow away like a leaf in the desert if I drank that little. I have also heard it said that the human body can accept as much as one whole gallon of water per day, although you wouldn't want to be too far from the bathroom if you tried it. The point is, with all these differing viewpoints, what is the correct amount of water that human beings should drink each day?
If your tap water is chlorinated and tastes nasty, you probably either boil your drinking water, or buy it in jugs at the supermarket, which means that getting enough to drink is probably difficult for you due to the prohibitive costs and the fact that good drinking water is not readily available to you. Studies suggest that getting too little water can actually cause the body to retain water, which causes people to look bloated and swollen. This, although it sounds like it should be exactly the opposite, is the body's natural way to store water in times of drought.
So, how much is enough to keep our cells healthy and hydrated? I would suggest that we simply listen to our own bodies to get the answer. When we are thirsty we drink, when we have had enough we stop. Simple as that. We have to make a big deal out of everything, don't we? If my body requires four or five 22 ounce bottles of water per day and yours craves only half that, then probably both of us are following our bodies' natural thirst signals. Yes, it is true that diabetes can cause a person to thirst more than usual, but there are other symptoms that go along with that as well, and most of us are probably pretty well attuned to our body signals that we can tell the normal from the abnormal.
When you are dehydrated you drink. When you are fully hydrated you don't. Any other rule to follow would seem to be pretty excessive if you ask me. Common sense is the key here, and hopefully, that won't fail you in the light of all those rumors, and new "research". Every body is different and we all react differently to thirst and hunger, among other things. So, when it comes to all these theories about water consumption my advice is, just listen to yourself, and go with the "flow".
