Key Concepts
- Drink 1 oz. per kg bodyweight | 1/2 oz. per pound of bodyweight | 30 mL per kilogram of bodweight
- Should be filtered
- Add a pinch of sea salt to your water. Approximately 1/2 teaspoon per 32 oz.
- Add lemon/ lime juice to your water
- Consume water no sooner than 30 minutes before or 60-90 minutes after a meal.
Our bodies are comprised of approximately 60% water with individual variation caused by a number of factors. Regardless of the exact percentage it is imperative that your body is adequately hydrated because water is integral for the proper structure and function of every cell and process throughout your body. If you are even slightly dehydrated, your body begins to suffer. To ensure proper hydration, the general recommendation is to consume one ounce per kilogram of bodyweight, 1/2 ounce per pound of body weight, or about 30 milliliters per kilogram of bodyweight. Rarely should you consume less than this amount, but when exposed to high heat or strenuous exercise, more water may be needed. As with most nutrients, when under high levels of stress, more water is most likely needed to upregulate cellular processes to handle the higher than normal levels of stress.
The water that you drink should be as clean as possible. This most likely means using some sort of filtration system to remove any harmful contents from the water. Ideally, filtering would involve a multi-stage system to remove as many contaminants as possible. However, a simple counter-top system is better than nothing, when cost or access prevents a more comprehensive filtration system.
When filtering water, or buying bottled water, it is likely that a lot of the beneficial trace minerals in the water have been removed along with the harmful contaminants. An effective way of replacing the beneficial trace minerals is to add a pinch of sea salt to every glass of water you drink. The sea salt you add should have some color to it, and shouldn’t be pure white. The color is an indication that there are additional minerals in the salt and the different combination of minerals will help determine the color of the salt. Some sea salt is grey, some is pink, and it is even possible to find black sea salt. You want to add enough salt so that the salt flavor of the water is barely perceivable. The water should not taste like you swallowed a glass of water from the ocean.
In addition to putting sea salt in your water, it would also be beneficial to put fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice in your water. Your body functions best when it maintains a neutral pH. The majority of the foods the average person consumes, along with lifestyle factors, create an acidic environment within the body. Putting lemon or lime juice in your water is one small step to add more alkalinizing substances in your body. It also tastes good.
While your body needs to maintain a neutral pH to function optimally, your stomach needs to be highly acidic to properly digest the food you eat. By consuming large amounts of water close to your meals, you will dilute the hydrochloric acid in your stomach and negatively affect your body’s ability to digest food. Ideally you shouldn’t consume water sooner than 30 minutes before a meal and then wait 60 to 90 minutes after the meal to consume water. A little bit of liquid with a meal is fine. Just avoid consuming much more than 20 ounces of liquid, whatever the form may be.