Emily: 0:00

Today we're talking about hydration and you kind of brought up something from our undergrad education that I think you should share.

Vanessa: 0:11

Yeah. Okay. If you are a dietician and you tell me that you can think about dehydration without thinking of tenting, I just don't believe you. Tenting, is if you take your two fingers and pinch the skin on the top of your hand, and the skin stays up, you're dehydrated. Now with younger people and tighter skin, you'd have to be pretty dehydrated to actually have it stay, but it could still happen. But this is something that they do, nursing homes a lot. Um, because with older people, it's a pretty good sign that they're dehydrated. Also dehydration is super common in that population, but I just don't, I can't think about hydration without thinking of tending.

Emily: 0:59

and like, literally I guarantee you, every single person is snapping the skin on the top of their hand right now. Just to

Vanessa: 1:06

hope they are.

Emily: 1:08

Yeah,

Vanessa: 1:09

I hope they

Emily: 1:10

I started doing it. I started doing it just so you're talking about, I felt, I thought maybe I shouldn't, I know I'm hydrated, but like, I couldn't. Stop myself from

Vanessa: 1:17

Yeah. Honestly, as I was describing it, I've been doing it so much. The, the skin on the top of my hand is starting to hurt a little bit. Anyway, I also want to preface this with, I hope no one from Gatorade is listening because I have some choice words for a Gatorade.

Emily: 1:38

Oh, I cannot wait to hear them. Okay. Let's get after it. Welcome to this week's episode of wellness myths, where we're focusing all about hydration. So I don't think it's really any secret at all. That you should be drinking more water, everywhere you turn, there's a different influencer showing you the big ass water bottle that holds like 70 million ounces. And don't worry, we'll be debunking any sort of hydration myths in this episode. But a true fact, hydration is very essential to our health. Our body uses water in organ function, water aids, and bringing oxygen and nutrients to cells and aids in elimination processes.

Vanessa: 2:32

and we thought it was especially important to talk about hydration as it's starting to get warmer in most places, and you're going to be outside more, potentially sweating more. So it's something to think about. You should be thinking about it, of course, in cold climates as well, but as it gets hotter, um, it definitely deserves a little bit more attention.

Emily: 2:53

Yeah, definitely. And this is something that does not take a whole huge lifestyle shift to adopt. It's not like, you know, you need all this money. I mean, we don't really ever tell you anything that you need a bunch of money for, because there's just very few things that you do. Um, but. Let's just kind of start with the basics. So women should be drinking generally about nine cups of fluids a day while men should aim for 12 cups and that's according to the Mayo clinic and this number can fluctuate a ton. So that's why we're not really going to give you any equation or any kind of like how much water do you need for your size heightened way, because the number of variables. So much, right. You can drink a little bit, extra water one day. If you're sweating a lot, maybe you're working out super, super hard, or you're an environment where you sweat a lot. I did my dietetic internship in Houston, Texas, and I'll never forget how hot I was the whole time. Um, it can be hard living in those environments and those folks definitely need to drink more water. And also the number can change if you're engaging in a typically dehydrating activity like binge drinking. Right. So, especially even if you're not binge drinking, really, even a couple of glasses or bottles of whatever alcohol you're drinking can be to hydrating. So , maybe on days that you consume alcohol, you end up consuming a little bit more water. So basically all that to say, nine cups for women, 12 ish for men could be more, could be a little less. So let's move into talking about how you can reach these hydration goals. So number one, plain old water, that seems really obvious, but we have to say it. number two would be water in foods. So think watermelons, cantaloupe, cucumbers, apples, celery, any kind of high water content, fruit or vegetable could be aiding in your hydration goals.

Vanessa: 4:53

I just wanted to add there that those food items. So that is going to be additional water on top of the recommendation that Emily mentioned of nine cups for women and 12 cups for men. So the water that you're getting from food would not be included in that nine slash 12 cups. So that would be to meet additional hydration needs.

Emily: 5:17

And then of course we have electrolyte mixtures that could be powders that you buy from the store. You can make your own at home. Vanessa's going to share a little bit more about electrolyte mixes or even electrolyte beverages, like, um, maybe Gatorade, And then one thing that I think is super, super interesting. I know there's such a trend right now with carbonated water. So club, soda, seltzer, water, other sparkling waters. Those can be super helpful in reaching hydration goals, but we just want to point out that they may irritate sensitive bladders. So it really won't be the case for every single person that drinks seltzer water. If you already have an overactive bladder, then maybe just start to notice if the carbonated water tends to make things worse for you.

Vanessa: 6:04

Yeah. And in addition to that, I don't want anyone to take this as like, don't drink seltzer water. I personally love seltzer water, but for some people, like Emily said, it can be really irritating if you already have bladder issues, it can also be irritating and that. And some people, it causes some bloating, um, or it can cause like some extra belching and things like that. A lot of people that it's not an issue for, it's not causing a ton of extra bloating, but some people it is. So just something to be aware of.

Emily: 6:35

And it's something where I don't think people really know that seltzer water could possibly cause bladder irritation or bloating. Also noting that drinks like kombucha, which we touched on a lot last week in our probiotics episode, since that's carbonated as well, that could also cause a little bit of bloating. If you are an avid seltzer water or kombucha, Kind of sore then, and you experienced zero bloating and zero bladder irritation. Then keep going, get those extra ounces of fluids in any way that you can. We just wanted to point that out in case anyone is struggling with those issues.

Vanessa: 7:12

So getting hydration from all of those kinds of sources is super important. I think, you know, most people are probably pretty familiar with what the hype. The ration looks like, but we just wanted to remind you here. So dehydration, one of the main things that you probably hear all the time is feeling thirsty. So once you're feeling super thirsty, that's a sign that you're already a bit dehydrated. So you want to make sure you're keeping up with your hydration. Tenting, like I mentioned is also a sign of dehydration. So if you are, you know, pinching at your skin and it's staying up and not bouncing right back, that's a good sign of dehydration. And then also things like headaches, dry lips and tongue weakness, cramps, nausea. Those can all be signs of some dehydration going on. And obviously the signs are going to be dependent on how severely dehydrated you are., Another big sign that I think pretty much everyone knows about is having super dark, urine., that's going to be a good sign that you're dehydrated Shout out to Courtney, a dietitian that was on our podcast. She talked about performance nutrition with us. She just did a post on Instagram and her Instagram is fit in fabulous nutrition. If you aren't already following her , with a chart and that has. The different colors of P and according to that chart shows you how hydrated you are. And it's a nice illustration too. You actually don't want your P to be like completely clear either., cause that's not necessarily a good sign that could mean you're over hydrated., and then of course, on the other side, really dark P meaning that you're, , pretty dehydrated.

Emily: 8:57

It's really important that we have this , high intake of water because we're losing water all day long. There's two different types of water loss that our body goes through. Both sensible. A loss that can be measured directly like urination. Um, but that's not the only fluid leaving your body that day. We have insensible fluid loss is that we can't typically see like an, a bowel movement or breathing or the most obvious sweating. So you can kind of consider all of those different things when you're deciding if you might need a little bit of extra hydration that day. Vanessa was shared some of the straightforward signs of dehydration. So I'm going to talk for a moment about over hydration. And this episode really has all the shout outs because this one, the story that I'm about to share with you was brought to my attention today. Danielle, who was on our podcast a while ago for our cupping episode, I was like face down on the cupping table today, getting body work done. And she brought up this story about a woman who actually died in a radio show competition because she drank too much water.

Vanessa: 10:09

First of all. I just want to mention here that even this is obviously going to be an extreme story. This is what we learned about this in college too. If it wasn't this case, it was something, similar. But anyway, just want to note here over hydration is not common. Like at all, normally the times where we'll see like hyponatremia or See over hydration or a severe case of over hydration sometimes might be in like a marathon runner or some, a more extreme case. It's very, atypical for just the normal person.

Emily: 10:47

Usually if we see any kind of over hydration, as you kind of mentioned before with. Clear P or something like that, that could just simply be that you're depleting your water soluble nutrients, since you're diluting your body with so much water. So it's not like, oh, you get absolutely zero BNC vitamins at that stage. If your pee is clear, it's not like emergency, right. It just means, okay, you've had enough water. You can kind of cool it for a little bit now. But this story. So this woman drank nearly two gallons of water in over three hours. So that's almost 256 ounces. You're not doing that typically on your day, but in this case, this woman was entered in a contest called hold your wee for a wee. And the winner was promised a Nintendo wi video game system.

Vanessa: 11:41

Wow. That's intense.

Emily: 11:45

And so I guess the court ended up ruling against the radio station and saying that they had knowledge previously that this could potentially be dangerous. And what this woman ended up experiencing , is known as hyponatremia. So. Or water intoxication. It can occur when the body sodium levels fall below normal. So over drinking water really dilutes the sodium in the bloodstream. The brain swells pushes against the skull symptoms can be nausea, vomiting, weakness. You could maybe even have seizures, coma, and unfortunately death also. So basically. Just don't enter any radio station contests, where they're having you chug a bunch of water and hold your pee.

Vanessa: 12:33

That's super crazy., I guess it just goes to show. All that. There's truly nothing that you can't over consume. And that includes water.

Emily: 12:43

Yeah, exactly. And sometimes when I do see these influencers with huge like hundred ounce water bottles, and they're like, I drink two of these a day. Okay. But once again, are you listening to internal cues? Are you just drinking it because you have this big ass water bottle. Like I, I'm just wondering kind of where the motivation is lying. So if you're not thirsty and you know, you're reaching that nine cup of water a day goal, then there's really nothing to worry about.

Vanessa: 13:12

It isn't always the same as hunger. Like, you know, once you're feeling hungry, you should eat with thirst. We kind of want you to drink before you're feeling thirsty. So it is an interesting thing, but, definitely don't want to overdo it. And I think that leads us into the importance of electrolytes. It's really important that our cells have enough water to function, but our cells aren't going to get the water if we don't have electrolytes. So electrolytes is a word that you've. Heard all of the time, if you don't already know what it means, it's basically just a fancy word for the minerals that let water enter yourself. So we need electrolytes for water to get into ourselves. Otherwise we're just going to pee out the water and it's going to be virtually useless to us. So common electrolytes include calcium chloride, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and sodium sodium is obviously, kind of the biggest one that we hear about the most. it's the thing that, you know, like after you sweat, your sweat is salty tasting because there's sodium coming out. So. If you're a big sweater, then you probably want to add some extra electrolytes into your life. So as we've grown up and seen, , sports on TV and professional athletes, Gatorade has been absolutely huge, um, because it has electrolytes and,, it's been this sports drink that probably has the best marketing ever. I mean, is there better marketers and Gatorade?

Emily: 14:54

Truly, no, except maybe this new brand called liquid Ivy that every.

Vanessa: 15:00

yeah,

Emily: 15:00

influencer that I follow has been sharing and that I ordered yesterday due to being influenced. So I'm not

Vanessa: 15:08

yeah,

Emily: 15:09

I agree. Gatorade is Gatorade is a big one.

Vanessa: 15:11

Yeah. Gatorade is a big one. And. I just wanted to share a little tidbit on Gatorade and I feel like we always target some company, uh, these episodes, but sports drinks. Companies are, can be especially bad Gatorade. I'm calling out today. So Gatorade, like I said, super awesome marketing, not a super awesome nutrition label. And listen, if you love Gatorade every once in a while, that's fine. Continue to enjoy your Gatorade every once in a while. But again, I don't want you going in drinking Gatorade thinking it's a health drink because it most certainly is not.

Emily: 15:51

It's basically. Yeah, like me and yogurt, where I'm like, if you haven't heard me talk about yogurt before. Where some yogurts have the nutritional profile of a candy bar. And I just would rather eat a candy bar at that point than eat yogurt, because I don't even really like yogurt that much. So I don't want to feel the pressure to eat it because it's being marketed as this health food, when really it's not the case. And so I feel like that really rings true for Gatorade as well. Like if people don't, some people who don't even like it are sitting there, guzzling it down because they're thinking that's like the answer to their electrolytes.

Vanessa: 16:26

For sure. And I mean dream cases where if you didn't have anything else and let's say you were really sick or you had a child. That was really sick. And that was the only thing they would consume. Of course, that would be, you know, the best option you have, but if you're just working out and thinking, oh, I want to get some electrolytes and hydrate myself really well, Gatorade it. Okay. So I looked up the nutrition label on a bottle of Gatorade. So I was curious, I knew it was a lot of sugar, but I was curious exactly how much sugar. And listen to this too. So it was a 20 ounce bottle of Gatorade and they had it as two and a half servings

Emily: 17:11

okay. Nobody's putting. Back in the fridge after drinking half that's

Vanessa: 17:16

Right, right. So that's like already kind of, I find that pretty insidious, you know, that. People are going to drink the whole bottle. So let's just put the serving sizes one bottle, but instead of they're putting it as two and a half, so then they can have all of those numbers of calories, grams of sugar carbs as lower, so they can target it that way.

Emily: 17:42

It's pretty predatory.

Vanessa: 17:43

vary. So one bottle of Gatorade has 34 grams of sugar.

Emily: 17:49

Oh, wow. And this is in 20 ounces.

Vanessa: 17:52

20 ounces. So it has 34 grams of sugar and then there's yellow dye in it, which we could probably do a whole nother episode on food additives , and dig more into that. But I mean, Yellow dye or any food dye is not something that you necessarily want to be consuming a bunch of. And you definitely don't want kids consuming a bunch of, I mean, it's banned for kids in the EU. So it's particularly insidious knowing that these kinds of companies. Also target kids because you know, they are showing professional athletes and if you're watching a football game or something, you see all these professional athletes drinking out of their green, Gatorade, water bottle. And guess what? I'm just going to share a little secret with you all. I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I think I'm pretty safe. It's not Gatorade in there.

Emily: 18:58

I would agree with

Vanessa: 18:59

It's not Gatorade. If you think Tom Brady is out here, drinking Gatorade, you got some common. He's not, he's just not. So, you know, if you were in dire straights and needed some electrolytes, of course, you know, you could try some Gatorade. Would it be my first option for you? No. Like Emily had mentioned a little bit before. There's a ton of, powders and different electrolyte drinks on the market. Some of them good, some of them not so good, but Gatorade is kind of a perfect example of. You need to be cognizant just because it's advertised as a good for you or healthy drink does not necessarily mean that it is. They can say all of those words or claims., they don't have to be backed up by anything. It's just marketing. So be a smart consumer and make sure. You're evaluating it. And if you're not evaluating it, or you're not sure, talk to someone that you trust that, , like a dietician, you know, , or someone who is more educated in that area and have them take a look at it.

Emily: 20:11

Yeah. And I think it's really important to say too, like there's other drinks that have electrolytes in them that are still really convenient, like a coconut water or something. They make a lot of different flavored coconut waters. Nowadays too. So there's a lot of options for you. I know a lot of people who drink a Gatorade when they're sick, if you're super sick and you can't keep anything down and you're not feeling well. And the only thing you can, stomach is Gatorade and you like to drink it. Okay, cool. Right. Because you're not drinking, you're not eating a lot of other sugars that day. Right. So like your daily allowance of sugar, not like you really have an allowance. Right. Everyone knows I don't focus on stuff like that or numbers, but. You know, it's not the end of the world. If you're in that situation like Vanessa side, if you're in a scenario where you're not feeling well, it's really hard for you to get down any fluids or anything, then maybe it could be helpful. But for the average person, post-workout not going to be our first choice.

Vanessa: 21:04

Right. I'll share too. I'm a little bit, my personal choice of an electrolyte drink, which is something I just make at home. So. Some of those powders, like we mentioned, like liquid Ivy can be great. They do tend to be a little bit more expensive though. So if it's out of your budget, that does not mean that electrolytes are out of your budget. They definitely don't have to be. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. So now that you know what electrolytes are and that I don't like Gatorade,, let's talk about whether you need electrolytes every day is water enough or do you always need more? So our dietician answer to that is it depends. So, sorry, everyone, if you were expecting some big recommendation to one about electrolyte needs, but it definitely depends. If you are doing lots of intense workouts or working in the heat or you're sick, if you're a really heavy sweater, then those are some times that you might want to add in some electrolytes. For me sometimes if I get a little bit of a headache, I'll make a little electrolyte drink. Cause I know even I'm, even though I'm drinking water, it kind of lets me know if I'm getting that headache. I know for whatever reason, that water isn't getting into myself. So I need a little bit of help. So I'll add that in. But again, usually it's going to be, if you're, heavy sweater and the heat sweating a lot or doing intense workouts. Other than that, you're probably okay with just plain water. So electrolytes isn't necessarily something that you need to be adding in every single day. personally, my kind of favorite electrolyte drink, that I'll make some times is just coconut water. I'll put about a quarter teaspoon of salt and then a splash of orange juice or some lemon, or maybe both. And I'll do that with some ice. I like that a lot. It tastes good. It makes me feel good, especially after or before a workout, depending on what I'm doing. but super easy, not fancy, and pretty accessible to most people.

Emily: 23:19

So we always love to leave our listeners with some action items. Things you can implement to reach your own personal hydration goals. So Vanessa, aside from your homemade electrolyte mix recipe, any other tips for our listeners?

Vanessa: 23:35

Yeah. So things I personally do to make sure that I'm staying hydrated throughout the day is number. One drinking water, as soon as you wake up in the morning. So this is really important because you do become dehydrated overnight. So that's the first thing I do. I fill up my Mason jar full of water and start drinking some instead of reaching for your coffee, try water first. If you can, if you have the time, if you have time to make coffee, you have time to fill up a water. I also really love it. Using my glass straws when I'm at home. So this helps me drink so much more water. And as a WIC dietician, I used to always tell clients to have their kids drink more water by giving them a fun water bottle. But that kind of also works for adults. If you really love the water bottle you're drinking out of, you'll probably drink more water. So it's not only kids with that. We're just big kids at the end of the day. And then if you don't love the taste of water, even if you do like the taste of water, but you just want to spice it up a little bit, you can always add fruit to your water. You can add some lemon, lime, strawberries, Bazell, whatever you want to do, add some ice, make it fun. And add a little bit of flavor.

Emily: 24:57

Thanks for sharing all those awesome tips with us, Vanessa. And now I'm off to go drink some water.

Vanessa: 25:04

Cool. I, uh, I'm not going to drink Gatorade.

Emily: 25:10

See you guys next time.