Tag Archive for: dehydration

How to Live a Healthier Life with Hydration

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The first area to examine for those  focused on living a healthier life is to examine their level of hydration. A person can survive 30-40 days without food but only 3-5 days without water.  Consider what you are drinking throughout the day and particularly  first thing in the morning.

Ideally, you are sleeping the recommended 7-9 hours a night. Living a healthier life certainly requires rest so your body can restore, regenerate and heal. Now, reflect on the last time you body has had water upon first waking. Even if you slept 8 hours, it may have been hours before that since you’ve drank water.  If you are getting the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep than you’ve likely gone all that time without anything to drink if not longer. Drink  about 6 ounces of purified water upon waking to replenish your body’s needs.

Can You Live a Healthier Life Drinking Coffee or Tea?

If you reach for coffee, black tea or a soft drink you are dehydrating your body along with pulling crucial calcium from the body, thanks to the caffeine. That is right, caffeine pulls calcium from the body or specifically from the bone. Plus, coffee and tea also drive iron out of the body. Iron deficiencies may include fatigue, brittle nails, depression and even allergies to foods such as oats. If you still insist on drinking coffee or tea you’ll need to double water intake to counteract the dehydrating effects of any caffeine you consume.

Coffee and tea are also acidic which disrupts the body’s natural pH balance which disrupts the digestive process. If digestion is disrupted you may over eating and literally still be starving to death. This creates the perfect environment to create sickness & disease as well as nutrient deficiencies. Caffeine also greatly stress the body which leads to further health issues.

Not sure if you have a hydration problem? Dehydration can impact brain function!

Hydration Tip : Grab a glass of water FIRST or instead of the caffeine!

  1. Try adding the juice of 1/2 lemon to aid in digestion and assist with weight-loss. Use warm or at least room temperature water.
  2. Consider drinking diluted organic juice mixed 50/50 (half juice and half water) to energize and give you a lift in the morning or anytime during the day. If it is extremely hot outside, add a pinch of pink Himalayan Pink Sea Salt.
  3. Add cayenne pepper and pure maple syrup to the lemon water for a great natural detox.

Water Quality and Living a Healthier Life:

The quality (or lack thereof) of your water is crucial to live a healthier life. Each time we use water (drink, wash foods, bathing) we are also exposed to the chemicals and contaminates in the household water. When you consider just how often we are exposed to household water, it is really no surprise that it could derail efforts to live a healthier life and to improve health.  Heavy metals such as aluminum, chlorine and fluoride are concerns as they create addition imbalances in the body.

  • Your body is over 70% water by volume, your brain and blood are each up to 90%.
  • Third party reports from sites like Homefacts.com link the contaminants present and legally allowed in your tap water to chronic diseases and even cancer.
  • Bottled water is a $60 Billion a year global industry with an average price of $10 per gallon!  It is less tested and regulated than your tap water.
  • Even if you don’t drink your water, you are still likely showering and cooking with it.  So the bottom line is that if it’s in your water, it’s in you!
  • Here are some additional water facts from www.LivingwaterLLC.com
Do you know what’s in your water? You should, as quality water is life sustaining!  I highly recommend taking a good look at the quality of your water and make the investment to improve it as soon as possible.  Poor quality water will always impact efforts to live a healthier life which is why water sources need to be addressed.
Many don’t realize that dehydration is actually more common in the winter months than in the summer months. During the winter months it can be difficult to get the appropriate amount of water and many people have no idea they AREN’T getting enough.

How Much Water is Enough Water?

Take your body weight and divide it by 2, that is how many ounces of water you need each day. So a 150 lb person/2 = 75 oz of water needed a day  or 9 glasses a day. Remember liquids from clean sources of broth, herbal (non caffeine) teas, juice from fruit, etc. all count too. Peppermint or spearmint herbal tea are two of my favorites. What are your favorite sources of hydration?

Improve you health through hydration by:
  1. Drinking water when you first wake up
  2. Ensuring you household water source is clean & healthy
  3. Consuming the proper amount of water per day

Remember implementing small changes will create lasting benefits for a lifetime!

More How to Live a Healthier Life Posts Include:

[catlist name=how-to-live-a-healthier-life numberposts=-1]

Read more about How to Live a Healthier Life here.

Are Cancer and Dehydration Connected?

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Water is critical to the operation and healing of our body as our body is comprised primarily of water. The average adult body is about 70% water. The brain is composed of 75% water, and the lungs are nearly 90 percent water. About 83 percent of our blood is water, which helps digest our food, transport waste, and control body temperature.

Each day humans must replace 2.4 liters of water, some through drinking and the rest taken by the body from the foods eaten. Drinking two quarts of purified drinking water per day is helpful to detoxify the body.

Cancer growth usually occurs in areas of severe dehydration.

The cells can run dry and are severely dehydrated for a number of reasons:

1. Lack of water intake
2. Consumption of beverages that have diuretic effects like coffee, caffeinated tea, soda pop, and alcohol
3. Consumption of stimulating foods or substances, such as meat, hot spices, sugar and tobacco
4. Stress
5. Most pharmacological drugs
6. Excessive exercise
7. Overeating and excessive weight gain
8. Watching television daily for several hours

Dr. Lorraine Day, an expert in treating cancer by alternative means, states that diseases/cancer are caused by three things: improper diet, dehydration, and stress.

So how do we keep ourselves hydrated? Not all beverages are the best choice for maintaining hydration. Water is the best choice, but not all water sources are the best option.

Avoid city water that contains fluoride. The best source of purified water is to purchase a filtration system for your whole house or at least an under the sink model to ensure safe drinking water. This eliminates the need to produce additional plastic waste from bottled water and prevents the risk of the plastic leaching into the water.

Remember, coffee, tea and juices are not replacements for water. These create additional health issues within our body plus force our body to digest them. Caffeine in our body creates stress unlike what most people confuse as energy. Coffee and teas (black teas used in most iced teas) create additional acid in the body.

Drinking pure filtered water is a crucial part in healing from and preventing chronic disease including cancer.

 

Homemade Electrolyte or Sports Drink Recipe

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Homemade Electrolyte or Sports Drink Recipe

This recipe is so easy and much safer than commercial products.   My goal is to help the “nutritional gatekeeper” provide the healthiest and safest options for his/her family. The Nutritional Gatekeeper is the person that purchases and prepares the majority of the meals in the household.  The Nutritional Gatekeeper controls 72% of the food decisions that your children and spouse consume…now that’s powerful.  We can have such a positive impact on the health future of our loved ones for generations to come!

Here are a few reasons why you and especially your children should avoid sports drinks. Researchers at University of Maryland exposed the enamel of teeth to a variety of sports drinks including energy drinks.  They found the damage to the enamel was 3-11 times greater than a cola-based beverage. Some drinks contain the sugar equivalent of 14 cans of soda along with caffeine and possible other stimulants.

Here are a few more not so healthy ingredients you can expect to find in most sports drink:  high fructose corn syrup, sucrose syrup, sucralose and acesulfame potassium, artificial food colors (red, yellow, blue) plus preservatives (EDTA) and emulsifiers like Polysorbate 20. These ingredients are all potentially dangerous especially for young children.

Looking for a safer option to rehydrate?

Try this Homemade Sports/Electrolyte Drink Recipe:

  • Pure Organic Fruit Juice (No High Fructose Corn Syrup!)
  • Water or Green Tea
  • Organic Sea Salt

Fill your sports bottle with half juice and half water. Add a pinch of organic sea sat and shake.

Sports Drink Variations and Information:
You can use table salt, but raw organic sea salt is best to use as an electrolyte source as the minerals of the sea are very similar to our own electrolyte composition in our blood. Sea salt contains 84 minerals. Aside from sodium, you are receiving potassium, iodine, magnesium, calcium, zinc, manganese, and more!

Watermelon Variation:

The watermelon beverage is just watermelon with seeds preferably and 1/2- 1 inch of grated ginger. I tossed both in my Vitamix which is so easy. Watermelon has lots of nutrients like Vitamins, A, C, D, lycopene and many more. It also acts as a diuretic as well.

Ice Variation:

Another fun summer drink tip is to freeze organic grapes, melon chunks or pour organic juices into ice cube trays and add to plain water.  Be sure to cut large grapes in half or quarters especially for small children.

Stay cool and be healthy!