Three Almost-Instant Steps to Improve Your Health (part one)

Fitter, Healthier, Happier

When it comes to the process of creating and maintaining a healthy body, there are many variables that come into play. Naturally, when we talk about our overall level of health, there’s stuff we can control and stuff we can’t. Yes, we all want to be fitter, healthier and happier but take a look around and you’ll see that fitness, health and happiness are not the dominant states in most of our communities.

Of course, we all know about the importance of regular exercise and a healthy diet because we’re constantly having those messages shoved down our throats – along with all those low-GI, low-fat, low-salt, low-cholesterol foods. But did you know that there are three often-overlooked everyday factors that can (and do) have an almost-instant impact on our health – for good or bad – depending on how we manage them?

The Smart Species?

The thing about these amazing machines we call the human body is that they’re unbelievably resilient. Just ask Charlie Sheen. For a species touted as being the smartest on the planet (I don’t believe that, by the way), we sure are good at doing stupid destructive crap to our biological home – the only resource we can’t replace.

While a human body can survive years of smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, inactivity and poor diet (and keep in mind that surviving isn’t thriving), there are three lifestyle variables that can impact significantly on our health (one way or the other) in as little as one day. Today, we’ll start with one of the most relevant and easy-to-address variables: hydration. Or is it dehydration?

A Drink for Your Cells

It’s simple: a dehydrated body can’t function optimally. A chronically dehydrated body will get sick. Not might get sick: will. While a body can survive for up to three months without food, most of us will die within two to five days without water or some other kind of hydration (depending on the environment we’re in). Without doubt, hydration is one of the most overlooked, misunderstood and mismanaged components of short and long-term health.

It’s also one of the easiest to address.

Your body is around seventy-five percent water so you don’t need a medical degree to realise that being dehydrated ain’t where it’s at Jack. Don’t like drinking water? Well, what’s worse: hydrating your body properly or dying before you need to? And no, that’s not me being melodramatic, that’s science.

The Consequences of Dehydration

The almost-immediate potential effects of dehydration are: decreased aerobic capacity and sporting performance, headaches, lethargy, irritability, inability to concentrate, constipation, stinky breath, white crap on your tongue, decreased blood volume, increased resting heart rate, increased blood pressure, increased blood sugar levels and increased risk of stroke and heart attack – due to an increase in blood viscosity (thickness).

And isn’t that white crap on someone’s tongue always a major turn-on?

FYI, your blood is about ninety percent water so dehydration is something you really want to avoid. No shit Sherlock. Of course, water is not your only option for feeding those thirsty cells – fruit, vegetables, herbal teas and various other drinks will do the job. Preferably not sugary drinks or diet drinks. And no, blokes – beer is probably not your best option either. Sorry.

Because alcohol is toxic, your body will eliminate it as quickly as possible. In other words, it’s more likely to dehydrate than it is to re-hydrate. Interestingly, one of the symptoms of dehydration is not always thirst. Statistically, more than half of us are regularly dehydrated which means that right now a large percentage of you reading article this could be putting your health at risk unnecessarily.

And no, caffeine-based drinks (coffee, black tea, cola drinks, energy drinks, chocolate drinks) won’t do the job either as they have a mildly diuretic effect (make you wee more) – although some people are now debating the merit of this long-held belief. Either way, I don’t see coffee or coke as being an ideal hydration strategy for anyone.

A True Story

When I first started working as a trainer (in the early 18^th Century), one of my first clients was a bloke who never drank water and rarely ate fruit or vegetables. What he did do was drink copious amounts of coffee, beer and coke. Perfect. Apart from looking fifteen years older than he was, he was always tired, suffered from chronic headaches, had shocking breath (trust me on that) and had dry flakey skin. Other than that, he was totally sexy.

In the first twenty-eight days of his program, we changed his daily habit from:

8-10 coffees, 3-4 cokes, 4-5 beers

To:

2 coffees, 2 herbal teas, 8-15 glasses of water (he was big boy)

No, he wasn’t particularly happy about the changes (at first) but he was compliant nonetheless. While we changed his diet (overall) and implemented an exercise program, my primary focus for the first twenty-eight days was to rehydrate his desperately thirsty and neglected cells and to see improvements in his functional and observable health as quickly as possible. In order to accomplish this, I made him carry a water bottle everywhere so we could accurately track his water consumption.

Within two weeks, this is what happened:

• His headaches disappeared completely (after years of daily headaches). They didn’t come back.
• His breath improved dramatically (his wife was very grateful to me).
• His white skanky tongue turned pink.
• His energy levels improved significantly.
• His skin was healthier (and he looked healthier overall).
• His eyes were clearer.

I trained this particular client for a few years and he got some great results but without doubt the most significant and almost-instant changes were made via something as simple and do-able as re-hydrating his desperately thirsty cells.

So, How Much Water Do We Need?

Thanks for asking. Of course, I’m gonna tell you that there’s no definitive answer because your water requirements will vary depending on a few things:

1. How much ‘water’ you get through your diet. If you have a diet with a high fruit and vegetable content then your water requirements will be less than your non-fruit-and-vegetable-eating friends. Some people (not many) are well hydrated through diet alone.

2. Your weight. The heavier you are, the more you have to hydrate. Obviously. More weight means you need more water. FYI, I typically consume around four litres of water per day to keep my ninety-five kilo (209lb) body hydrated.

3. Your activity level. Like your energy needs, your water requirements will vary day to day – depending on how active you are. If Friday is spent lying on the couch and Saturday is spent climbing mountains then obviously your needs will vary from one day to the next.

4. The weather. Being in a hotter environment means more sweating and more sweating means you will need more water.

A Simple Way to Test Your Hydration Level

If your wee looks like coke, run to the tap. Seriously, the colour of your urine is probably the simplest and most practical way to gauge whether or not you’re dehydrated. As a rule, your wee (I think I prefer the word ‘wee’ to urine – you?) should be almost clear. Typically, the more yellow your wee is, the more you need a drink. If the colour is somewhere in the dark yellow to orange range, you can be certain you’re dehydrated (unless you’ve just consumed something that will darken your wee – like some vitamins). 

I hope you found that interesting and valuable. See you next time for variable number two.

Drink?

As always, love to hear your feedback on this post. Even from you long-time Scaredy-Cat-Lurkers. We don’t bite.

Love this article? Sign up for my FREE Email Newsletter today to receive more articles like this, and my FREE Ebook!