Diet Chronicle, Article (10)

I have a confession to make about my single greatest shortcoming on this diet. It’s the water. You see, diet or no diet, it is (HIGHLY) recommended that adults drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day.

Now the single biggest piece of advice from my sister, Joyce (who, by the way, has lost over 50 pounds on this diet and was one of the influences for me to take this approach) was to DRINK THE WATER!!!!

According to several knowledgeable medical-type experts, we lose about 2 to 3 quarts of water every day. More active people like, say, uh, Ken Griffey Jr., lose even more. (I just thought he should get some attention since he hasn’t gotten much lately.)

Besides athletes, people in very warm climates and people who, umm, well you know, people who, uh, well ... perspire a lot, also lose more. These folks need to drink even more than eight 8-ounce glasses of water.

It turns out that by drinking lots of water, you help maintain your body.

60 percent water

That’s because, as you know, a man’s body is about 60 percent water and a woman’s body is about 55 percent water.

Somehow that doesn’t seem fair. Someone alert the National Organization for Women. They’ll want to look into that I’ll bet.

It also turns out that a lot of us are going around "mildly dehydrated" because, according to the Web M.D. (health.excite.com) "thirst is a poor indicator of fluid needs."

Apparently this is increasingly true of us as we age. This type of dehydration leads to low energy levels, decreased mental functioning, and increases stress on our bodies.

The suggestions include: Drink twice as much as it takes to quench your thirst; Drink frequently throughout the day; Drink those eight 8-ounce glasses of water each and every day!

A better approach may be to drink 1 cup for every 20 pounds of body weight. We’ll do the geography, you do the math!

Eight kids

But here’s where my problem comes in: It is sometimes said that you don’t buy beer, you only rent it. Well, truth be known, water wrote the book on that deal. Those glasses of water are like having eight kids under your wing. The first glass is generally well-behaved and seldom causes any problem you can’t handle. The second is usually just as well-behaved. But the third glass starts to want a little more attention. Suddenly he’s forcing those first two glasses out of the house (so to speak). That’s not too bad. I mean, sooner or later it has to happen.

Now the fourth glass becomes the real problem child. Without fail, 15 minutes into a two-hour meeting (45 minutes before the customary break for just such business), glass four is becoming "antsy" and demanding that glass three vacate the facility (your bladder).

Unaware that glass four was going to cause such a ruckus, you’ve already begun moving glass five into the same quarters. Glass four, now terribly upset, conspires with glass three and you are quite suddenly seriously uncomfortable.

Tend to matters

Twenty minutes into the meeting and you have to apologize and tend to matters. Of course, everyone knows exactly whazuuuuuuuup! But you return feeling much better -- for five more minutes, until glass five, having been exposed to the poor examples of glasses three and four, mimics their behavior. And it’s 20 minutes until the one-hour break time. You know only one thing ... there is no way you can leave the meeting again!

The seconds tick off like hours and with only five minutes to go, you can imagine the light at the end of the tunnel until you realize that the Power Point presentation that is supposed to have your rapt attention has 15 minutes left and that is when the real break will happen.

Having finished glass five, glass six threatens to cost you as sure as a Mike Becker fine at Kiwanis. So glass six is abandoned with a promise of "maybe later, Daddy’s busy right now."

So there you have it. I’m not drinking the amount of water I need to be drinking. That’s got to change. If I can get the water to behave better, especially in public, maybe everything will flow better.