SHOWNOTES:

After 40 Podcast Episode: How Much Water Should I Drink?

Introduction (00:00 - 01:11)

Coach LM and Coach Mike introduce the topic of proper hydration and the importance of water in daily life.

The Importance of Hydration (01:11 - 02:22)

Coach Mike shares a personal story from early 2000 about realizing how many people are dehydrated and how essential water is for everyone.

Hydration Guidelines (02:22 - 04:46)

Coach Mike discusses hydration guidelines for athletes and individuals who exercise regularly, emphasizing the importance of replacing lost fluids during workouts.

Color of Urine as an Indicator (04:46 - 07:04)

Coach LM explains the significance of the color of urine as an indicator of hydration status and the loss of the thirst reflex as people age.

Effects of Dehydration (07:04 - 09:30)

Coach Mike highlights the negative effects of dehydration on athletic performance and the role of water in carrying oxygen to muscles.

Hydration Beyond Athletes (09:30 - 11:40)

Coach LM emphasizes that proper hydration is crucial for everyone, not just athletes, and shares examples of how dehydration can affect daily activities.

Avoiding Overhydration (11:40 - 14:10)

Coach Mike warns against overhydration and discusses the importance of balancing water intake with electrolytes.

Tracking Hydration and Pee Chart (14:10 - 15:43)

Coach LM explains how to track hydration and introduces the concept of a "pee chart" to assess hydration levels based on urine color.

Dehydration and UTIs (15:43 - 18:10)

Coach Mike and Coach LM discuss the link between chronic dehydration and recurring urinary tract infections (UTIs) in older individuals.

Sweat Rate and Oxygen Delivery (18:10 - 20:30)

Coach Mike explains the importance of knowing your sweat rate and how water delivers oxygen to muscles during exercise.

Balancing Water Intake (20:30 - 22:37)

Coach LM stresses the significance of balancing water intake and shares her personal approach to daily hydration.

Hydration as a Pillar of Wellness (22:37 - 24:22)

Coach Mike and Coach LM highlight hydration as one of the five pillars of wellness at After 40 Reboot.

Don't Fear Hydration (24:22 - 25:12)

Coach LM encourages listeners not to fear proper hydration and to prioritize it for better health and well-being.

Conclusion and Cheers (25:12 - End)

The hosts conclude the episode by emphasizing the importance of hydration and bid farewell to the audience.

Episode 5 TRANSCRIPT:

LM:

Hey there, it's Coach LM from After 40 Reboot. I'm here with Coach Mike. And today we are talking about how much water you need to drink to stay properly hydrated. So I am really interested to get Mike's take on this because as you may or may not know, Mike comes from the endurance world. 

His background is in training triathletes. So I would love to hear your take on this versus kind of what I've always believed just doing like, you know, regular functional strength training for people over 40. 

Mike:

Great question. You know, a long time ago, I mean this must've been, I'm going to say early 2000, 2001-2 we were doing these clinics for beginner track leads for the local club here and we'd get 70, 80 people in the room on a Saturday and talk to them about, you know, starting track lawn and, and we got into nutrition and then one of the girls that was helping us out, she was a scientist and PhD and all this stuff. And she's like, 70% of the people in this room are dehydrated right now. And I'm like, really? She's like, you've probably all have had less than two glasses of water. And I'm like, that's right. 

But from that point on, I've always thought about how we're always, all of us, all of us are walking around dehydrated. I mean, it's just a phenomenon, right? Like it's just nobody drinks enough water. You do have the people that have their, you know, the Nalgene's in their water bottles and they're drinking plenty of water, and that leads to another thing of, you know, overhydration, hyponatremia, and are they getting enough electrolytes? Are they flushing the electrolytes? We can get into that a little bit, but I think, you know, the majority of people do need to drink more water. That's a tongue twister. 

Do you need to drink more water? You know, and it can be flavored. It could have a noon tablet in it. It could have a little something in it. That's fine, I think. But the idea of how much water you drink on a daily basis probably has to go up. You know, I don't think you need to drink 200 ounces of water a day. But I think you need to be clear. I mean, that's an important part of this. And even if you are taking vitamins, that yellow color should be on the lemonade side, not the apple juice side, right? Like that's a good way to look at it. You taught me that actually. But yeah, what's your take on it and how do you, how do you measure it each day? 

LM:

Yeah. I mean, you know, the rule of thumb that I was taught when I was getting my nutrition certification which was for athletes, right? So for people who are working out regularly, meaning you're probably spending at least some time each day sweating, a person should shoot to drink at a minimum half their body weight in ounces of water. So that's bare minimum. And if you're working out, you need even more than that to replace the sweat that you're losing. So, I weigh 121 pounds. 

I can tell you today, I'm on my second one of these. This is a quart Mason jar. I like to drink water before I drink coffee in the morning. Then I drink another one of these in the afternoon. And then I try to drink another one after lunch before I start teaching. I try to stop drinking water or large amounts at the clock so I'm not up peeing all night, right? None of us wanna be up at night peeing. But your point about the color of your pee, Mike, indicating whether or not you're dehydrated is a really simple way to test this on yourself. 

And After 40 Reboot, we actually have a chart, a pee chart with different gradations of the color yellow. And pretty much as a rule of thumb, we say that if your pee is clear for light yellow to light medium yellow, then you're pretty hydrated. If it's medium yellow or dark yellow or greenish yellow or brownish yellow, then you are really dehydrated. 

Mike: Right. And why is this indicator important? 

LM:

Well, it's important for a number of reasons. Let's start with the fact that as you age, you lose your thirst reflex. So what does that mean? That means starting at age, I think it's 55, even if you are thirsty, your body doesn't tell you that you're thirsty. 

So that's why you see a lot of old people getting recurring, or I should say older people, not old people, because I don't consider people in their 60s and 70s old, older people getting a lot of recurring UTIs because they're dehydrated. So that's like chronic dehydration can lead to UTIs. But Mike, what about all the ways water just supports our body on a regular day-to-day basis? 

Mike:

Right. As an athlete, even if you are, let's just say you're working out three days a week for an hour, you're doing some kind of boot camp or you're running or spin class, whatever it is. With your body, it's important to know your sweat rate. 

So if your sweat rate, if you drop more than 2% of your body weight, so let's say you weigh 120 pounds, so 12 times two, so if you lose 2.4 pounds, that's 2%. If you lose that during a workout, your performance basically drops off a lift. So maybe 45 minutes into that workout, all of a sudden you've hit that sweat rate, where your body has lost those, and you're not replacing it, you lost that fluid, all of a sudden, your heart rate goes from whatever it was, maybe it's 150, 160. Now it's skyrocketing into the 170s and your performance is actually dropping. 

And you're standing up on your pedals, pushing harder and harder, saying “I'm going so hard, but I'm not hitting the same numbers I was hitting five minutes ago”. So that's one thing that's really important as, you know, at least as an endurance athlete and for the general public that it's important to know what the sweat rate is, and here's the kicker, the only way you drive oxygen, which helps your muscles do what they have to do if you're lifting weights or you're running or kickboxing, whatever you're doing, is with water. 

Water carries the oxygen to your muscles. So when that water drops off, that fluid level drops off, that's when you hit that wall. And that's why you can be running a marathon perfectly fine and it's a hot day and you're not getting enough water and you haven't peed for three hours and you're nearing the finish line and then all of a sudden you're three or four miles out and boom, you hit that bomb because it may not be calories, it may just be fluid and all of a sudden you are just in a world of error and that sucks. But there's a way to fix that. It's really easy. 

LM: 

Yeah. And it doesn't even have to be running a marathon, right? I can't tell you how many times I've had people come into a nine o'clock introduction to self-defense class and they're striking or they're trying to hold pads and they're shaking and they're shaking because they got up in the morning and they pounded the coffee, but they didn't have any water, right? So it's just what you said. They might have enough calories in them. They eat breakfast, but they're peeing out all their water from the caffeine, right? And they're not hydrated. And now they're asking their bodies to perform. 

The body needs oxygen and they don't have it to give. So, you know, it's not just your marathon runners. It's not your triathletes. The point is that, in order for your body to properly function, you need certain amounts of water every day and proper hydration is so crucial. And that's why it's actually one of the five pillars of wellness at After 40 Reboot. With our fitness plans, with our nutrition plans, with our recommendations for sleep and our recommendations for mindset, hydration is its own separate pillar. 

And it can be very personalized. I think the biggest pushback we get is, I don't want to be in the bathroom all day. And like, I get that, but it's also one of those things where being hydrated feels so much better than not being hydrated that if I'm making a few extra trips to the loo a couple times a day, I'm okay with that. 

Mike:

Right. And I think that's a great point to get across. It is literally time consuming to go to the bathroom and all that, but your body functions so much better. But once your body starts absorbing the fluids each week, you're going to be able to go, if you start out with, maybe you've taken four or five glasses of water versus one or two a day, eventually you're going to stop going to the bathroom as much because your cells actually end up with the right amount of water they should have, versus all the time struggling to do things because you don't have enough water. So the bathroom visits will slow down and you'll feel better. You'll feel 100% better. 

LM:

I mean, yeah. So I think it's important to note that Mike and I have both seen this taken to the extreme as well, where people get this thought in their mind that they need to drink X amount of water a day and they end up drinking like two or three gallons of water a day. You can also drink too much to where you dilute your electrolytes. 

This is a mistake I actually made on my black belt test and I had the electrolytes mixed and ready to go. It was a 14-hour test. It seemed like every time we had a water break, we were getting attacked. So I wasn't thinking straight. I needed somebody on the sidelines saying “hey, you need more electrolytes”. 

And it wasn't until I started cramping, my husband was like, how are you cramping? You're drinking so much water. And he said, “oh, you're down on electrolytes”. He gave me some pineapple juice and I bounced right back. So it is possible to do that. We see that the norm is more that people are dehydrated than over hydrated. 

Mike:

Right. Well, saying all that, I think I need to go pound some water. So until next time. Cheers. All right.