How Much Water Should I Drink?

The average human body contains 96 pints of water – 64 of these are found inside the body’s cells. Your brain is 75% water, your blood is 85% water, muscle is 70% water, and you see how important being hydrated is literally from the inside out. Hydration levels are strictly relevant to maintaining proper fluid levels within your body for optimum health and ultimately performance. In fact, When a muscle becomes dehydrated by as little as 3%, that muscle can lose between 10-20% of its contractile strength and incurs an 8% loss of speed.

As a rule of thumb, your need to consume half of your body weight in ounces of water – for example, if you weigh 150 pounds, you need to consume 75 ounces of water daily to maintain proper hydration levels. Any activities that you perform daily: exercise, work, leisure, etc. must be factored in addition to your daily needs.

There are two simple indicators of proper hydration levels: urine color and urination frequency. Regarding your urine color, the lighter your urine the more hydrated you are. Please note, if you are taking a multi-vitamin that contains B vitamins, your urine will be a tad darker as a result. As your body absorbs and purges the B vitamin, the color of your urine will become lighter in color. If you are drinking enough water, you should be visiting the restroom once an hour. Though this can be an inconvenience at time, the health and performance benefits are definitely worth it!