Okay, so after talking about all these vitamins and minerals, you may have noticed that I left out something very important until now, water intake is vitally important for optimizing health and performance. The bottom line is that if you're currently not drinking enough water, you're going to notice several immediate benefits by increasing intake to optimal levels. So in this lesson, I want to teach you how much water you need Exactly, and what kind of water you should be consuming. As you probably know, water comprises over 60% of your total body weight, and every part of your body requires water. For example, water is a vital part of your body's detoxification systems. It's used to digest foods and shuttle nutrition to the cells.
It's needed to keep your eyes nose and throat moist. It keeps our joints lubricated and supple, which is vital for preserving joint health and brain cells require a delicate balance of water and other chemicals to function properly. So it's obvious that staying hydrated is important and dehydration will slow you down, both mentally and physically. Now, how much water should you actually drink them to stay hydrated? Interestingly, the question should really be how much do you eat and drink? Because many foods such as fruits and vegetables contain significant amounts of water.
For example, research shows that in the United States, about 20% of our water intake comes from the food we eat. With this in mind, how much water should you be drinking every day? You've most likely heard the traditional recommendation of eight glasses of water per day. But the problem is that optimal water intake will differ depending on your weight and activity level. This is why the Institute for medicine actually recommends the light thirst be your guide. I know that sounds really vague, but our bodies are actually very good at recognizing dehydration.
And once this happens, you will feel thirsty. Now you probably still prefer a specific value that You can target just to make things a little more tangible. A good target value is about 2.7 liters or three fourths of a gallon of water for women per day, and 3.7 liters or a gallon for men per day. So this should be your baseline to shoot for every day. Now, if you're like me and exercise regularly, then of course, you need to add some additional water to that baseline. Simply because you sweat more than the average person.
A good recommendation is to add around one liter per hour of exercise to make up for the additional sweating. Okay, now that you know how much water you need, the next question is what kind of water should you be drinking? This will heavily depend on where you live in the world. in developed countries, tap water is usually fine. But research has shown that even there it can sometimes be contaminated with all kinds of pollutants like bacteria and heavy metals. Many people know this and drink bottled water instead.
But the problem is that bottled water is Especially when it comes from plastic bottles also contains quite a few chemicals, mostly from the plastic leaking into the water. Also, bottled water can be quite expensive when you drink a lot of it. So what's the solution? filter tap water. Home water filters are getting better and cheaper by the year. The key to judging them is the amount of dissolved solids they leave in the water which can be measured in terms of parts per million.
To use them, you simply put water in the top container of the filter, which then slowly passes through the filtration mechanism and comes up pretty much chemical free. A good water filter will produce clean water for many months before needing a change of filters. So to wrap up this lesson to make sure you get enough water let thirst be your guide and shoot for 2.7 liters if you're a woman, and 3.7 if you're a man, if you exercise regularly drink around one liter per hour of exercise on top of that and if you're concerned with chemicals in the water who water filters are a great way to get rid of them without spending too much money.