3 Times a Day is the Easy Way

  Dehydration is when your body loses more water than it takes in

• Your body is constantly losing water during the day. You lose 2 quarts of water a day which is 8 cups. You lose 1 cup breathing, 2 cups sweating, and 5 cups peeing and pooping.
• So your body continually needs water to replace the water lost through out the day
• The easiest way to do this is to drink water 3 times a day
• You can think of it as a prescription for water that needs to be taken 3 times a day

WHEN TO DRINK WATER
You may want to do Morning, Noon and Night

  Drinking a glass of water as the first thing you do when you get up gives your body what it needs to start the day and gets that first glass out of the way.

• Drink your second glass of water around noon and third glass of water in the late afternoon or evening.
• When you drink a glass of water in the morning you may feel a strong urge for a bowel movement (the need to take a crap) about 10 minutes after.
• Don’t drink your water right before going out the door or you may be in your car needing the bathroom urgently.

You may want to do Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

  It is easy to get busy and forget to drink water. An easy way to remember is to drink a glass of water with each meal.

Natural Appetite Suppressant

  Water is a natural appetite suppressant which will help you eat less and drinking a glass of water before a meal can help you feel fuller as well.

• You may want to drink a glass of water before a meal or a cup before your meal and a cup during the meal.

Hunger or Thirst?

  Your body can’t tell the difference between hunger and thirst.

• Sometimes when you feel hungry you are actually thirsty and dehydration can make your crave sugar.
• Try drinking water as a snack to see if it curbs your hunger.
• You can set a timer, your cell phone or computer to alert you to drink water for the 3 times a day that work for you
• You can also drink a cup of water mid morning and mid afternoon or sip water during the day.

HOW MUCH WATER TO DRINK

  So how much water should you drink a day?

• I was talking with a woman who told me her uncle had died a few months ago and I told her I was sorry.
• She said that two years ago he was told if he drank water he would survive but he refused.
• I can kind of understand that. The idea of drinking a glass of water every hour for 8 hours every day can seem like too much.
• I have talked with people who say you must drink this much to drink the perfect amount.
• For me one of the most important things is for people to realize the wonderful benefits of drinking water and to get started drinking water 3 times a day.
• I know there have been times in my past where I probably didn’t drink even a cup of water in a day.
• A study revealed that 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated.
• Getting in the habit of drinking water three times a day and paying attention to your water intake will help you live a healthier, happier life.

Lower Causes More Damage

  If a cars engine needs 5 quarts of oil running it with 4 quart of oil low isn’t the best but won’t do too much damage.

• Running your engine on 1 quart of oil will damage it and it may seize up and stop working.
• If you are a little dehydrated it isn’t the best but isn’t doing too much damage.
• If you are very dehydrated it can damage your organs and over time can lead to disease.

Longer Causes More Damage

  The longer you run your cars engine low on oil the more damage it does. The longer you run your body low on water the more damage it does.

Basic Recommendation

  So what is a basic recommendation for how much water should you drink a day?

• I am going to suggest drinking a 16 ounce glass of water three times a day as a basic recommendation that you can adjust for your body’s needs.
• Every body is different, some people may need more water and some may need less.
• Talking to your doctor before starting a hydration program is a good idea especially if you have underlying health conditions.

8 Cups or 4 Glasses

  Many people have heard of the eight 8 ounce glasses of water rule which was actually 8 cups of water.

• 8 ounces of water = 1 cup which is about half the size of an average glass.
• So eight 8 ounce cups of water = four 16 ounce glasses of water which seems a lot easier to do.
• We recommend three 16 ounce glasses of water a day with the 4^th glass coming from the food you eat or liquids you drink.
• Here you can see four 16 ounce glasses and eight 8 ounce Styrofoam cups. A 16 ounce glass = 2 cups.

  So you can drink eight 8 ounce cups of water or four 16 ounce glasses of water to get the same amount of water. You can also do a mixture of cups and glasses.

Adding One More Glass or 2 More Cups

  4 glasses of water a day is recommended so if you can add 1 more glass of water a day either sipping on it during the day or in the evening before you go to bed it is even better.

• You may want to add a cup of water as a snack mid morning and mid afternoon.
• This will add up to a glass of water.
• If you are drinking a glass of water in the morning, at noon and in the late afternoon adding 2 more cups will give you 4 glasses for the day.

  You can also get your 4^th glass of water from the fluids in the foods you eat or other beverages that you drink like coffee, tea, juice and milk.

Measuring Your Cups and Glasses

  One cup = 8 ounces is a measurement. Cups that you drink from come in different sizes. Some cups hold 8 ounces, some cups hold 16 ounces. There are different size glasses as well.

• You can use a measuring cup to measure out 1 cup of water which is 8 ounces or 2 cups which is 16 ounces and pour it into the cup or glass you will be drinking from to see how full it gets with that amount of water.

Bottled Water and Water Bottle

  If you drink bottled water an average bottle of water is 16.9 ounces so 3 of those a day and one at night will give you your 4 glasses of water a day.

• Bottled water is in one time use bottles and are not made for reuse.
• You may want to use a reusable water bottle or glass with a straw.

Sipping Soda Dangers

  Avoid sipping soda, sugary drinks or juice. A friend of mine would sip on a soft drink during the day which kept his mouth in a sugar state and ended up needing over $10,000. of dental work. It is better to sip on water.

Flavor Water and Electrolytes 

  Some people like to flavor their water. You can lose electrolytes drinking too much water. You may also want to add electrolytes if you feel you are getting low on them.

• Generally it is recommended to not drink over a glass and a half an hour.
• If you ever become extremely dehydrated you want to re-hydrate slowly.

Hydration Variables

  You want to find the hydration level that is right for your body and lifestyle. Talk to your doctor and listen to your body.

• EXERCISE: Exercising you may need more water. Generally a cup of water before working out, a cup of water every 15 to 20 minutes and a cup of water after your workout is suggested.
• AGE: Younger children may need less water depending on their age.
• HEALTH CONDITIONS: If you have underlying health conditions, are older, or on medications it can change how much water you need.
• HEAT: In hot weather you may need to drink more water to replace water lost from sweating.
• WEIGHT: There are charts that recommend that increased body weight increases the need for water.
• MAN OR WOMAN: Some studies show that men may need more water than women.

Basic Hydration Test
The most basic hydration test is the color of your pee.

• If it is clear or light yellow you are probably good.
• If it is deep yellow or darker or smells you probably need to be drinking more water.
• You also should be peeing 5 to 8 times a day which flushes out toxins from the body and helps keep the kidneys healthy.
• Sitting all day is not good for you so getting up to pee gives you a break from sitting.

Help Prevent Cavities, Gum Disease and Get Better Breath

  How drinking water helps your teeth and helps fight COVID-19. Saliva helps prevent cavities. Saliva helps wash away food particles that get stuck in your teeth. Bacteria feed on the food particles that get stuck in your teeth and produce an acid that creates cavities.

  More food particles give the bacteria more to feed on increasing the problem, so having enough saliva to wash away food particles is very important for your teeth. Saliva is 98% water, so drinking water is important to help your body produce enough saliva.

  Drinking water helps healthy gums. The acid that the bacteria create that hurts your teeth can also hurt your gums. Over time they can cause gum disease, which can contribute to tooth loss. Drinking water helps teeth enamel. Saliva has calcium and other minerals in it that can help strengthen the enamel in your teeth.

  Saliva can also help keep your teeth white by washing away food and drink before it can stain your teeth. Saliva helps prevent bad breath. Saliva is needed to wash away the bacteria and food particles which cause bad breath as they decompose in your mouth.

  Drinking water can also help your kisses taste sweeter. Saliva helps your teeth. Your teeth are important in the digestion process as they break down the food you eat before you swallow it. The stomach can't break down large chunks of unchewed food and they can rot in the stomach causing stomach problems. Swallowing large pieces of unchewed food can also cause choking.

  In addition to drinking water to help your teeth we do recommend brushing your teeth, flossing them and rinsing after your brush as well. So for the health of your teeth, your gums, your digestive system and your breath drinking water is an easy solution.

Hydrated Skin Looks Better

  How drinking water helps your skin and helps fight COVID-19. Drinking water helps fight ageing and wrinkles. Your skin is 64% water and your body's largest organ. Dehydration can cause your skin to become dry and lose its elasticity.

  Drinking water helps keep your collagen hydrated and healthy, which helps fight ageing and wrinkles. Dehydration can also cause oily skin on your face and contribute to skin problems like acne, eczema and psoriasis. Drinking water helps create healthy skin and helps you fight these skin problems.

  If you aren't drinking enough water, your skin can look dry and dull, and it can also cause your skin's appearance to look uneven. Dehydration can also contribute to dark circles under your eyes and your eyes may look sunken. Drinking water helps increase the circulation in the skin around your eyes to make them look better.

  Dehydration can prevent toxins from being eliminated through your skin. You need to be able to sweat and release these toxins to help your body fight disease as well as keeping your body healthy. Drinking water also helps your skin heal faster and with less scarring.

  Drinking water helps fight cellulite. Dehydration can make your skin dry and thin because it has very little water in it. The thinner your skin, the more it shows us so you light under it. Water helps hydrate your skin which helps it hide cellulite. Drinking water is an easy way to have better skin.

Get Nutrition to Your Hair

  How drinking water helps build healthy hair and helps fight COVID-19. Your hair follicles need water, oxygen and nutrients to produce a great strand of hair. If you're well hydrated, your hair follicles get all the building materials they need to create a thick, strong, well hydrated strand of hair.

  If you're dehydrated, your hair follicles get less water, oxygen and nutrients to build a strand of hair with and can only build a thin weak dry strand of hair.

  If you're really dehydrated, your hair follicles don't even get enough to build a hair. So when you naturally shed a hair, it can't be replaced and that space on your head is empty.

  To demonstrate this, here you can see a bunch of water, oxygen and nutrients that help build a strong strand of hair. When there is less of these building materials your hair follicle can only create a thin piece of hair. And when there's no building materials, your hair follicle is empty because it can't even build a strand of hair.

  When you're dehydrated some hair follicles will be able to build a really thin strand of hair, while others won't even be able to build a hair so you get a combination of thin hair and thinning hair on your head.

Your Body's Survival Priorities

  When you're dehydrated, your body doesn't have enough water to make enough blood and goes into survival mode. Your body prioritizes where to send blood carrying oxygen and nutrients for its survival. Your body's top priority is getting blood, oxygen and nutrients to your brain first, followed by your heart, kidneys, liver and other organs.

  When you're dehydrated, your hair is very low on your body's survival priority list, so it gets very little of the blood and nutrients and water that the hair follicles need to build great hair. When your hair follicles get a reduced amount of building materials, they barely have enough to create a hair. With less blood, nutrients and water they can only create weak, dry, thin, brittle hair.

  Drinking water helps your body create enough blood which increases the amount of blood, oxygen, water and nutrients that your hair follicles receive to make new hair. This helps your hair follicles create thick, shiny, well hydrated, strong strands of hair.

  Drinking Water also helps prevent thinning hair. When you naturally shed hair and it falls out it is normally replaced with a new hair. If you are really dehydrated, when a hair falls out and your hair follicle doesn't have enough blood, oxygen and nutrients to create a new hair, the hair on your head looks and is thinner.

  Drinking water helps your hair follicles receive all the blood, oxygen, nutrients and water that they need to create a new hair so when you naturally shed a hair, it can replace that hair with a new hair. Lack of water can also cause the skin on your head to be dry and flake causing dandruff as well.

  You can put conditioners on thin, dry, brittle hair to try to hydrate it but drinking water to build thick, strong, well hydrated, shiny hair should be your first step to get great hair.

Feel Fuller and Eat Less

  The water before food diet is easy to do. Simply drink water before each meal. When you drink a glass of water 30 minutes before a meal it increases your metabolism by 30%, helps fill your stomach and decreases your appetite to help you lose weight.

  One of the hardest things with weight loss is keeping the weight off. Most diets have food restrictions that are hard to maintain. Drinking water before a meal is an easy way to restrict the amount of food you are eating.

  The water before food diet can be used by itself with your normal meals. It can also be used with other diet programs.

  Here you can see two glass containers representing your stomach that hold 32 ounces, which is generally what your stomach holds with food in it.

  The first container is empty and can hold 32 ounces of food. When we pour a 16 ounce glass of water in the second container, it fills it up halfway leaving room for only 16 ounces of food.

  Drinking water before a meal will help you feel fuller faster and is an easy way to restrict food intake. It also helps provide your body with the water it needs during the day. So drinking water helps with both weight loss and hydration.

  Your body can't tell the difference between hunger and thirst. Sometimes when you're hungry, you may actually be thirsty. Try drinking a cup of water first and see if that works. If you're still hungry, you can eat food, but you'll probably eat less food if you drank a cup of water first.

  Dehydration causes sugar cravings, which can cause you to want sugary foods and drinks. Drinking water helps reduce your sugar cravings which helps with weight loss. Sometimes people drink more calories than they eat. You may want to consider adding a healthy water flavoring to your water to replace soft drinks.

  Your metabolism is a major factor in weight loss and uses about two thirds of your daily calories to keep your body working. Your heart pumps 2000 gallons of blood a day, which burns calories as well as your other body functions that burn calories too.

  Drinking a glass of water can increase your metabolism from 10 to 30% for close to an hour. Your body needs water to function and if it doesn't get enough water, it slows down which slows down your metabolism.

  When your body is dehydrated, it is harder for it to burn fat. Water helps your body break down fat and burn calories. Not drinking enough water affects your muscles ability to burn calories as well. The growth hormone HGH is a great fat burner, but dehydration lowers your body's production of it, which hurts your weight loss.

  When your body is dehydrated it creates stress on all the organs in the body, which stresses the brain, which you increases production of cortisol. Cortisol hurts weight loss. Dehydration can cause blood sugar to rise, which leads to insulin resistance, which can hurt your weight loss.

  Water helps fight cellulite. Dehydration contributes to larger lumps of cellulite. Drinking water helps remove toxins that can create fat deposits that gather under your skin. Drinking a glass of water in the morning, at noon and in the late afternoon will help hydrate your body and help you lose weight. Drinking water is an important foundational part of any weight loss program.

Less Joint Pain & Stronger Muscles

  How drinking water helps your joints and muscles and helps fight COVID-19. How drinking water helps lubricate and cushion your joints. The cartilage in your joints is 70 to 80% water. If you don't drink enough water, you become dehydrated and your cartilage dries out causing friction and pain as well as reducing your cartilage's ability to cushion.

  Water is also needed for synovial fluid which helps lubricate and cushion your joints and cartilage. Synovial fluid lubricates your joints to reduce the friction so they can slide easier for less wear.

  When you're dehydrated your body doesn't have enough water to make enough synovial fluid to lubricate your joints. Lack of synovial fluid can cause friction between your bones which causes wear and pain.

  Drinking water helps relieve back and neck pain. There are jelly like disks made mainly of water in between the 24 bones in your back that cushion them. Dehydration dries out these discs which reduces their ability to cushion and can cause back and neck pain. Dehydration also contributes to hip pain.

  Dehydrated joints and cartilage are also more easily damaged and more easily injured. Well hydrated cartilage is wetter so it can slide easier with less friction to wear it down, which can also help it slide instead of tearing. When cartilage is dehydrated, it is dry with increased stiffness, less flexibility and can tear more easily.

  There is more wear and tear with dehydrated, dry cartilage. Your body's survival response to dehydration is to send water to the most important organs first, and so your brain heart, lungs, liver and kidneys and other really important organs get it first and then the areas that aren't as critical to immediate survival end up getting less water.

  This means a little dehydration can have a big impact on your cartilage as they are lower on your body's survival response list. Drinking water is an easy way to help keep your joints and cartilage's healthy.

  How hydration helps muscle strength. Your muscles are 79% water and will be able to work stronger longer if they are well hydrated. Dehydration reduces the flow of blood, nutrients and electrolytes to your muscles, making them weaker.

  When your body is 3% dehydrated, it can reduce your muscle performance by 10%. When you feel thirsty, you're already two to 3% dehydrated so it's easy to become that dehydrated and lose that much muscle performance. Drinking water to hydrate your muscles will also increase your muscles endurance.

  Dehydration can cause muscle fatigue. When muscles are exhausted it is often because they are dehydrated. Your muscles are also more susceptible to injury when they are dehydrated. Dry muscles tear easier.

  Dehydration can also reduce your workout. When working out dehydration decreases the number of repetitions you can do. Dehydrated muscles also have a slower recovery after working out and slower recovery after a muscle injury. If you're dehydrated your muscles cramp and it hurts.

  Not enough water can also contribute to muscle aches. If you're feeling muscle aches or pain, dehydration magnifies that pain. When your brain is dehydrated, it can contribute to headaches as well.

  Drinking water helps your athletic performance. Drinking water to help hydrate your muscles will help you be stronger during competition, as well as having more endurance at the end of the game or competition.

Drinking water to hydrate your muscles and joint cartilage can help you have less severe injuries as well as recover faster. You want to continually hydrate drinking water the days before the competition as well as the date of the competition. You also want to hydrate during the competition if you can.

  Drinking water takes time to get into your system to hydrate your body. If you're a coach and want a winning season, drinking water can give your players an edge by keeping your team hydrated during the season, even during practice.

  The combination of a faster brain, stronger muscles and more endurance by drinking water can help you get more wins.