Doctors never ask me if I drink water. They probably think everyone knows how to drink water. If that’s what doctors think, they’re very wrong. People don’t know how to drink water.
Water is vital for the body. We are born with 75% water in our body, then gradually reach 60% in an adult male and 55% in an adult female. Muscles have more water than fat, so paradoxically an overweight or obese person is more dehydrated than a normal weight person. As we age, the amount of water in the tissues decreases, and when it reaches less than 50% we die.
We are more than half water, so water is our main food, before solid nutrients. We can survive without food for up to 2 months, but without water we die in a maximum of 3 days.
We need 30-40 ml of water for every kg of our body, depending on the season and the physical effort. We need 2 glasses of water at room temperature in the morning to wake up to hydrate the body after hours of sleep. We need a large glass of water half an hour before each meal to feed the gastric juices that will break down the food we eat. We need water to feed our brains so that we can think correctly and keep our balance as we go. We need water to nourish the kidneys and liver to filter toxins from the body. We need water to nourish our joints so it doesn’t hurt. We need water to feed our heart, our engine, to function properly. We need water to feed the billions of cells that make up every piece of our body.
And yet, why don’t we drink water? “Well, I’m not thirsty.” When we feel thirsty we are extremely dehydrated, deficient by 2-3%. And if you have a habit of not drinking water, the feeling of thirst no longer appears, instead there are feelings of inexplicable pain, edema (swelling) in different parts of the body, because the body clings desperately to the few drops of water it receives, joint pain, palpitations, pain when urinating, constipation and other pains that I no longer list here. And we gain weight. If it does not receive the necessary water, our body works foolishly. We may feel hungry when in fact we are thirsty. We can keep all the existing diets, if we don’t drink water we don’t lose weight.
If you know you’re not drinking water properly and you want to lose weight, do an experiment: weigh yourself and then start drinking water as I wrote here for a week, without changing your eating habits (if you drink water properly you won’t need so much more food anymore), and weigh yourself again. You will be amazed. But just water, no juices, natural or store bought, no other liquids. Good old plain water.
