Kickstart your metabolism – Water what are you waiting for?

We’ve all heard the old adage about drinking eight eight-ounce glasses of water per day. However, is this accurate and does it have other benefits besides a nice and memorable ring? While the details may not necessarily be precise, many of us suffer from chronic and mild dehydration without being aware of it, and there are many health benefits to those who incorporate healthy hydration into their exercise plans, as well as their lives .

Think of your muscle fibers as a sponge. If the sponge is dry, it is inflexible and can be easily damaged. Anything trapped inside remains embedded in the sponge and cannot be easily removed. Adding water changes everything. The sponge is easy to manipulate and becomes flexible. Substances or particles trapped inside can be removed more easily, as long as there is enough water to flush them out.

Dehydrated muscles are just as stiff and painful. Toxins trapped inside have nowhere to go and stay, causing discomfort and chronic pain. Since little water enters, the muscles receive little nutrients and cannot further develop or heal the various micro-injuries that each workout inflicts.

Intense exercise creates lactic acid within the muscles, a chemical responsible for pain. If your muscles resemble a dry sponge, lactic acid and other toxins remain inside, causing the pain to linger longer than it would otherwise. If you’re still sore days after a workout, you’re likely suspecting overwork rather than dehydration and therefore not performing at your full potential. On the other hand, if you had been fully hydrated, the lactic acid and other toxins would leave your body more quickly and the pain would go away sooner than it otherwise would have.

Staying well hydrated also increases metabolism efficiency and as such results in more effective weight loss. A dehydrated body has a slightly lower temperature, which results in a somewhat less effective metabolism. Waste products from fat breakdown remain in the kidneys, contributing to body weight and leaving less room for waste products from future weight loss to take their place. In addition to increasing the efficiency of your body’s systems, drinking plenty of water has a more fundamental effect on your diet. Drinking a large glass of water with each meal fills your stomach, helping you feel full and satisfied more quickly. Instead of satiating yourself with additional foods that need to be metabolized into calories, instead you get the same benefit from a substance that will be more helpful for your body to process the food you just ate. Your body must also process newly consumed water, a task that a recent study has shown can consume some extra calories that would otherwise have been stored as fat.

There is no magic formula for determining how much water you should drink, but here are some guidelines. 64 ounces is a good minimum. Hydrate throughout the day rather than in a few small doses, thereby maintaining a constant flow of fresh water throughout your body. Also, substances that are not water generally should not count toward your daily intake. While many of these drinks are water-based, they often contain other additives like caffeine or alcohol that remove more fluid from your system than they deliver.