Q: Good evening ma’am, I have been doing the water therapy thing until I came across a certain post on opera saying too much water is not good for the body. Ma’am, please which should one follow – drink water or not?

A: Thanks for writing in. Certainly, drink water! 😀 The trick is moderation in all things!

Water is important for life and we use it for very important functions daily: taking a bath, washing clothes, washing dishes, cooking and of course, drinking. The water we drink is very critical for a lot of bodily functions like digestion, excretion (when we urinate, pass faeces and sweat), movement of nutrients all around the body, keeping your joints nice and supple etc. If you also consider the fact that a healthy body contains about two-thirds, water, then it is clear that we can’t joke with our water intake per day.

So how much should we take every day? Though, there are recommended amounts to take daily, it really depends on your activity level (notice how much more water you appear to need after a hectic workout?), where you live (notice how much water you also seem to drink when you live or visit the tropics as opposed to when you live in or visit a temperate region) and your health condition (for instance, people with UTI need to drink some more water).

Generally, we are encouraged to drink 8 8-ounce glasses of fluid per day. This is approximately 2 litres of water per day. Honestly, though it breaks my heart to admit it 😀 any fluid counts e.g. fruit juices, beverages etc. But try to remember that these other fluid sources, other than water, may contain calories that you probably don’t need 😀 So, this is a definite positive for your water therapy!

The flip side of being adequately hydrated is water intoxication, where massive amounts of water are taken in a short time, giving the kidney way too much work to do with resultant headache, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, brain swelling later etc.  It’s certainly not a great idea to drink too much at any given time. Space it out all through the day. Be guided by your thirst. Drink until you no longer feel thirsty and stop. An easy way to check whether your body is getting enough water in a day is to check your urine colour. If it’s dark yellow, you’re probably not getting enough. If it’s pale yellow in colour, you’re doing good 😀

If you don’t like the taste of plain water, you can jazz it up with a slice of lemon or lime 😀

When you first start trying to drink more water, you may observe an increase in your bathroom visits. This should stop after a short while. If it doesn’t, please see your doctor. It may be an over-active bladder, a Urinary Tract Infection etc. Please click the link below to read my post on over-active bladder

https://chatwithdrketch.com/2014/02/20/daily-health-tips-train-that-leaking-bladder/

All the best!