I have been reading your article under the "Active Elements Therapy" - Drink more water - I am in the habit of drinking a large quantity of water and I pee often as well as during the night. I do not have or add any salt to my diet - do I understand that I am doing it all wrong ? The water I drink is pure rain water from the tank and as we live by the sea I thought there would be sufficient natural salt in the water. I also eat a lot of salt water fish. Does this help ? I will be very interested in your reply. "D"
Note: "D" Has a set of Salter 9106 scales and has shared the results for his wife and himself. Both are in their late 60's.
His percent water is 45% and his wife's is 30%. Both results are too low regardless of age.
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Gary Replies:
"D", the short answer is you can drink all the water you like and it will do nothing for your hydration, other than bloat you, wash all the salts and vitamins out of you and have you getting up every night for a pee.
If you are waking to pee at night, then you are drinking too much. If you have a set of Salter 9106 scales, then note these points:
Note: I am selling these scales at well below retail. I want my clients to have them so that they can share their body composition results with me.
- Weigh yourself daily first thing in the morning after you have been to the toilet and note your body water, muscle, fat and total weight.
- Your bone measures should remain pretty constant if the machine is working properly
- Your goal is to get as close to 60% water over the long term.
- You will note that there is no relationship between how much you drink and % water.
- The better relationship is with getting the Active Elements tissue salts balance right over a process of several months.
- You are better to take the Active Elements which is a mix of the salts your body needs to be healthy and it is better not to salt your food, since table salt is only one of the 12 salts your body needs to function.
- Salt water fish are very good for you all round; especially the head and eyeballs (vitamin A) - keep that going.
- The water you are drinking is probably better for you because it does not contain chemicals that are added to municipal drinking water. But unlikely to supply your daily needs for tissue salts.
- We used to get our tissue salts from a wide range of whole foods, including from eating whole animals, including their organs and then rendering the bones into broths.
- Drink only as much water as you need to maintain a consistent body weight through the day.
- If you exercise and lose, say, 1kg in weight, then you need to drink about 1 liter of water and a little more in the hour or so after. That's all.
- If you drink too much water, you will flush tissue salts and some vitamins out of the system.
- You may also compromise digestion by diluting the digestive juices.
David, in evolutionary terms, you ceased being a fish millions of years ago. Do not regress - resist the water companies who are doing a damn good job at suckering us all in.
Do you have a question?
Email Gary: gary at myotec.co.nz (Replace the "at" with @ and remove spaces). Please include any relevant background information to your question.
