Health Benefits Of Drinking Water
The Health Benefits Of Drinking Water
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The human body consists of over 80% water. In fact, your muscles contain about 75% water, your blood has over 80%, and body fat has about 25%. Even bones contain water too, approximately 22%. How much water a body holds varies due to different conditions. A healthier body holds more water for instance, than an obese or overweight body does. Someone with more body fat, even at healthy levels, will have less body water than someone with less body fat, because muscles hold more water than fat does.
Because water is so prevalent in our bodies, and because every single area of our body uses water in one way or another, the importance of this substance cannot be stressed enough. Many people don't seem to understand why nutritionists, doctors, and other specialists keep saying to drink more water, but once you know how it's used in your body, how much your body depends on it, and how well it can make your body feel, you should be able to understand much more clearly.
CONTENTS AT A GLANCE
1. The Health Benefits Of Drinking Water Co...
3. The Health Benefits Of Water On Amazon
4. How Water Improves Kidney Functionality
5. Links For A Happier, Healthier You
6. How Water Improves Liver Functionality
The Health Benefits Of Drinking Water Continued...
Water helps supply nutrients to our cells, muscles, organs and bone structure within our bodies. It also helps remove and dispose of toxins and waste materials which can make us very sick. Without enough water, our bodies start giving symptoms of not feeling well. It's common to have headaches if you haven't had enough water for instance, and you can get tired and lethargic, have a difficult time concentrating, and even get kidney and bladder infections too.
Everyone needs different amounts of water to stay healthy. How much you need can vary from one day to the next because of temperature and humidity changes, and activity levels. A general rule of thumb though, is to drink at least 8-10 glasses of water a day. This should average out to about 2 liters, or 1/2 to 1/3 of a gallon.
If you exercise, or you're losing weight from dieting, or you're on various types of medications, you'll need to increase your daily water intake. It's not uncommon for many people to need at least one gallon of water each day.
Now many people can't figure out how to consume that much water every day. They try everything they can think of to increase their water intake, and it still seems like too much. The problem comes from consuming other types of drinks. If you didn't have anything else to drink at all during the day, you'd most likely get more than enough water. So the first step to increasing your water intake is to decrease the amount of other liquids you consume.
Drinking sodas for instance, has absolutely no health value at all. So replace those with water instead. If water seems boring to you, then by all means feel free to enjoy flavored waters instead. Fruit juices are also sources of water, but they often contain more sugar then you might want for your body too.
Coffee and tea are also sources of water, but caffeinated versions of these also act as diuretics, which will make your body lose water faster than normal. Coffee and tea do have more health benefits than soda though, so these are better options. If you drink caffeinated versions, be sure to increase your regular water intake too.
Water and Weight Loss
How Water Can Help You To Lose Weight
Many people have heard time and time again - particularly when they go on a diet or weight loss program - to increase the amount of water they drink each day. Most aren't really sure why they're supposed to do this though, and most ignore the advice too often.
Water is essential for the human body to operate properly though. In fact, all parts of our bodies use water to function normally. Our blood uses water of course, but so does our muscles, fat tissue, organs and even our bones.
Now, when you're trying to lose weight, water is even more important because your body will start breaking down extra fat tissue into waste which needs to be disposed of. You want the fat removed from your body right? Well your body will comply nicely, if you simply allow it to. And one of the primary ways your body gets rid of waste is through your urine. If you're not drinking enough water, you're not generating enough urine to dispose of the wastes being created by your weight loss program. So not having enough water can actually slow down or stall your weight loss efforts.
The other major way your body gets rid of waste and toxins, is through your bowel movements. And water helps here as well. By keeping your body hydrated with plenty of water, the solid wastes in your colon will remain soft, and be able to move through and out of your system much more quickly and easily. Without enough water though, these wastes can get stuck, and clogged up, because they're too hard and dry to be moved through the colon and expelled properly.
Your body is also extremely skilled at keeping you alive. In fact, it's very determined and stubborn about it, and it will work against you every step of the way to do what it knows is needed to sustain life. And this comes in to play with water as well. If you routinely get less water than you need, your body will stubbornly stock pile as much water as it can to help sustain you, because it's not sure when you'll be able to acquire more. This is a survival mechanism of your body and it's perfectly natural.
By drinking more water though, your body will soon decide that there's plenty more where that came from, thus it'll release extra water from your body more easily. This is why it's pretty common to lose five or ten pounds on some weight loss plans in the first week. Because you've convinced your body that you have a regular and reliable source of water, so it's ok with releasing the extra it's been holding on to.
And last but not least, drinking water often helps with weight loss simply because it kills hunger pains. Many people don't know that sometimes when you think you're feeling hungry, your body is actually thirsty instead. So by keeping it supplied with a continuous supply of water, you can actually find yourself eating less naturally.
How Water Improves Kidney Functionality
As you may have learned by now, water is a critical ingredient to keeping your body healthy. And one of the primary functions of the body can have much less health problems simply by drinking more water.
Kidney infections and kidney stones are a very common illness in the United States. These conditions are quite painful, and sometimes the solutions for them are even worse. When kidney infections or kidney stones get too bad, doctors will often elect to operate in order to fix the worst of the problems. These operations are quite painful, and sometimes you're faced with months of painful recovery depending upon what procedures are being done.
You can however, actually prevent and sometimes cure both kidney infections and painful kidney stones simply by increasing the amount of water you drink each day.
Water is used by every single part of the body, including your muscles, fat tissue and bones. When the body is not getting enough water for it's needs, it will try to stockpile as much as it can to keep everything functioning - even if it means everything will function below normal capacity, and cause additional health problems in the end. The body does this as a survival mechanism.
Now, when there isn't enough water in your body, your body will release less water at fewer intervals. This means the body will not create nearly as much urine as normal. And the kidneys suffer greatly when urine is not passing through them.
You see, your kidneys filter out wastes and toxins from your body. And the urine which is created and passed through the urinary system is made to remove those toxins from the body. When there isn't much urine being produced, the toxins sit around in your kidneys. And these toxins and wastes fester. They create infections, they crystalize into hard stones which are painful. And sometimes these infections and stones can become life threatening.
The simple act of drinking more water each day can prevent or solve all of these problems. By giving your body enough water, kidney infections and stones don't have time to develop because there's a continuous flush of toxins, wastes and bacteria from your body. If you already have an infection or stones developed, extra water can help flush those from your system as well.
How much water you should drink really depends on your health level, how hot or dry the climate is that you live and work in, how much exercise you get, and whether you're obese or not. If you have an existing problem with kidney infections or stones, you should try to drink at least one gallon of water each day to help flush out the current problems. Once you're healthier, you may be able to drink an average of about 1/2 to 1/3 gallon a day, but again this will depend on your lifestyle and where you live.
One easy way to know if you're getting enough water to keep your kidneys healthy, is to see what color your urine is. If your urine is dark to medium yellow, you're not likely getting enough water. Healthy bodies which get plenty of water tend to have almost clear urine. So keep increasing your daily water intake until your urine is either clear, or as close to clear as you can get it.
How Water Improves Liver Functionality
As we've touched upon in other articles on this topic, water is an essential ingredient to the proper functionality of every single part of your body. A human bodies blood supply requires water, the organs require water, the muscles, fat tissue and even the bones all require water too.
Water is the key component of helping your body to dispose of wastes, toxins and bacteria properly. And the largest waste disposal system in your body is the solid waste disposal. This system is made up of the liver, gall bladder, and the intestines or colon. The liver is an essential part of this disposal system though, because it's job is to filter out the toxins, bacteria and waste. The liver creates bile from the toxins it filters from your system, and then sends that on to the gall bladder. The gall bladder then sends the wastes in solid form to the colon, where the wastes are supposed to be quickly and efficiently removed from your body.
A body which does not get enough water each day though, has extra stress added to the liver functionality. The liver is not able to filter and process wastes and toxins from your system as effectively when it does not have an adequate supply of water. So the liver starts functioning slower, and at less than optimal levels, and this can cause a variety of health problems throughout your body because toxins are no longer being filtered as well.
The secondary effect of not having enough water though, happens in the colon itself. As solid wastes move through the five to six foot length of your intestines, additional water is being removed from them through the thin colon walls. This drys the waste material out as it travels through your body.
If there isn't enough water in the waste material to begin with, and it dries out even further as it travels down the colon, it quickly becomes very sticky, and sometimes even hard or brittle. And when it's sticky, hard or brittle, it can become stuck in the colon. This is often referred to as constipation, because the solid waste material is too hard and dry to be expelled properly from the body. And it's this reason that one of the most natural remedies in the world for constipation is to simply drink more water.
When waste materials are stuck or slowed down greatly in your colon though, the toxins and bacteria that is supposed to be expelled can start leaking back into your blood stream. And this can create a whole host of different health problems in your body, because everything is attached to the colon through nerve endings. So a backed up or stagnated colon can create skin problems such as eczema or psorasis, it can create various types of infections, sinus problems, colds and more too.
So just by drinking enough water to keep your colon and liver healthier, you're contributing to the overall improved health of your entire body.
Water And A Healthy Colon
As we've talked about in detail with recent related articles, water is an essential ingredient in keeping your body healthy. In fact, most people do not get enough water from day to day, and this contributes to the myriad of health problems we see cropping up every time we turn around. By simply drinking more water though, our bodies can become healthier naturally.
Water is used by our entire body and every part of it. The human body is made up of more than 80% water, and that water is used in our muscles, or fat tissue, our brains, or bones, and our organs and skin too.
In fact, water is one way to help keep our colon and digestive system clean and operating at peak capacity. Water is what our bodies use to help carry out toxins, waste, bacteria and other harmful substances that shouldn't be inside us. The kidneys use the water to help the body carry out wastes through urine, but our colon also uses water to help carry out solid waste materials too.
You see, the liver is one of the primary toxin filters in our body. It removes harmful substances from our body, and sends it along to the colon to be disposed of outside the body. The bile created by the liver is what ends up as solid waste mater inside our colon. And the colon's job is to move that waste material out through bowel movements as quickly as possible.
The colon is about five to six feet long though, and as the solid waste material travels through it, additional water is extracted for use in other areas of the body. When the body isn't getting enough water to begin with, extra water is extracted from the waste materials moving through the colon. As that water is removed of course, the waste matter becomes very dry and hard. If it gets dried and hard, it stops being able to move easily through the colon. Sometimes it actually gets backed up and stuck, and this allows the toxins in that waste matter to start leaking back into your blood stream and poisoning other parts of your body.
By simply drinking more water throughout every day, you can help the colon keep that waste material moving easily through, and it will be eliminated practically without effort through your bowel movements.
It's not too difficult to tell when you're drinking enough water to keep your colon healthy either. If you're having at least two effortless bowel movements each day - and by effortless we mean there is no straining or waiting for the movement to happen - then your stools are most likely very soft, and thus you're probably getting enough water to help keep the colon healthy. Whenever you notice difficulty with bowel movements though, or hard stools, or if you go a day or more without having a bowel movement, you may need to increase your water intake.
Water And Healthy Skin
How Water Can Contribute To Healthier, Younger Looking Skin
Many people don't realize it, but the amount of water you drink each day has a direct effect onhow healthy your skin is. Drinking enough water can help keep your skin plumper, moister, younger looking, and free from acne and blemishes.
Water is used in every part of our body. The organs use it, the blood uses it, the brain uses it, and even the bones use it. Most of what water is used for involves filtering toxins, wastes, impurities and bacteria from our bodies. The water is converted to sources such as urine, stool, and sweat as means of carrying out these wastes and harmful substances.
Unfortunately the skin is one of the first organs on our body to suffer from a lack of regular water intake. Not getting enough water each day can result in dry skin problems, acne, and premature lines and wrinkles.
When we do get plenty of water though, our skin very rarely has problems with dryness and flaking, because the skin cells are plumped full of extra moisture. Acne problems are usually much less, and even non existent for some people when you get plenty of water, because the water helps our skin flush out bacteria and other toxins that can cause the acne. The skin is usually much younger and healthier looking when you drink plenty of water too. This is because the skin cells plump up from the extra water, and this plumpness smoothes out wrinkles and makes your skin softer and more elastic too.
Now the amount of water you should drink each day really depends on a variety of things. The area you live in for instance, can make more water required daily. If that area is quite dry, hot, or windy, it will dehydrate your body more quickly.
If you're obese, as strange as this might sound, your body requires less water to maintain than an physically fit person's body does. This is because muscles require more water than fat tissue.
If you drink caffeine beverages such as coffee, tea or soda, you'll need more water than average because these liquids will contribute to dehydration. Caffeine acts as a diuretic, which causes your body to eliminate more water than normal in the form of urine.
If your body is sick or has a disease or infection, it will need more water than usual to help carry out the bacteria that's causing your health problems.
In general though, most people need at least 1/2 to 1/3 of a gallon of water each day. This shouldn't be taken all at once either. To ensure the maximum results from the water you give your body, spread it out over the course of a day. If, as mentioned earlier though, you're sick, have a disease, live in a hot dry climate, or work out frequently, you'll need to increase the amount of water you drink daily. Even if you seem to be healthy but have acne problems though, you should increase the amount of water you're drinking each day. You might be surprised at how well your acne starts clearing up.
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