How do you know if you are hydrated enough?
How much water is recommended to drink each day?
Hydration and taking care of your daily fluid intake is key to staying in shape. In fact, maintaining a good level of hydration on a daily basis is one of the keys to well-being in order to keep your body healthy and feel good!
Each of us, depending on our typology and environment, expresses a different water need. Health institutions agree to recommend the intake of at least 1.5 L of water to drink each day... but this benchmark changes in practice depending on your age, body size, climatic conditions, your diet, and your physical activities…
This article will give you the tips to adopt to prevent dehydration, even slight ones, and learn to recognize the symptoms of dehydration with simple tests.
Adopt the right actions to prevent dehydration
- Start the day with a large glass of water. This will allow you to better eliminate toxins, burn more calories and maintain an efficient metabolism. Otherwise, a less hydrated body will have a slowed metabolism.
- Consider drinking throughout the day, approximately a glass of water every 20 minutes. It is ideal to always have a water bottle with you! For seniors, we recommend Auxivia which allows seniors to control their hydration on a daily basis.
- Favor foods rich in water. Our article “ Hydrating the body: How to hydrate well to feel good?” will describe which ingredients to favor in order to optimize your water intake through food.
How do I know if I am well hydrated every day?
Measure your daily hydration with the skinfold test
The state of suppleness of the skin is a useful indicator for measuring its hydration at a given moment. The suppleness and elasticity of the skin are due to the presence of a protein synthesized in the dermis, “elastin”. It forms a dense network under the epidermis, and allows the elastic fibers of the dermis to be extensible.
Although it is one of the strongest proteins in the human body, its production generally stops at puberty. Its presence then diminishes with age, explaining the sagging of the skin and the appearance of wrinkles.
During this test, we look at the ability of the skin to put itself back into place after being stretched, and after how many seconds it returns to its initial appearance.
Perform the skinfold test on yourself, on infants and children or the elderly.
- Lightly pull a piece of skin on the back of the person's hand between your thumb and index finger, then release it.
- Observe after how many seconds the skin returns to its initial appearance.
- You can repeat the same action on yourself for comparison.
In a normal case, the skin should return to its initial appearance instantly. Otherwise, the skin lacks hydration, and therefore a sufficiently elastic structure.
This test can easily be performed on yourself or your loved ones. It will be easily interpretable in elderly and malnourished patients due to loss of this elastin, but more subtle in children and obese patients. If you identify even slight dehydration, have the reflex to lay the person down and offer them water or another drink.
1) Test the color of your urine to test its hydration
Professor Armstrong, from the University of Connecticut, developed a simple test to judge for yourself your hydration status at any time of the day based on the color of your urine ( Hydration Check: The Science )
The clearer the urine, the higher the hydration level, and vice versa. A numbered scale of colors ranging from very pale yellow (number 1) to brownish green (number 8) allows for simple comparison. If the color of your urine is too dark, remember to hydrate!
2) The impedance meter, a scale with 17 different indicators!
Never has a scale been so versatile! Body mass, BMI (Body Mass Index), protein or fat mass level, proportion of visceral fats and obviously hydration level... But how does it work and does it really work?
This scale measures your water share via a bio-impedance process. A weak, imperceptible current is transmitted by diffusing through the body. The measured resistance, induced by your share of water, allows you to display a rate within the minute.
This method is not 100% accurate, but it has the advantage of allowing you to visualize your biological evolution without great constraints. The ideal is to use this measurement and see its evolution from day to day with the objective of improving it. Be sure to repeat the weighings under identical circumstances (same device used, preferably in the morning at the same time, etc.).
3) The LVL connected watch, a traveling companion that notifies you in real time!
What if we could quantify our water consumption at any time of the day, and without making complicated calculations? This is what the Texan startup BSX Athletics ( BSX Athletics - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding ) is seeking to do with its connected watch project.
Unlike the green light commonly used in all other connected tools, its sensor uses red light here. Ten times more penetrating light that measures much more than hydration levels. Heart rate, sweat rate, number of calories burned and steps taken are displayed on the touch screen connected to your smartphone via Bluetooth.
With a battery life of around four hours, the LVL watch will advise the user from the dedicated application, with advice such as the amount of water to drink before exercising or going to bed.
Although LVL is not yet available on the market due to insufficient funding, its benefits seem promising. For a relatively reasonable price (128 euros), it would make it easier for elderly people to stay at home and reduce the number of hospitalizations for dehydration, a number that is still too high.
4) Medical technology
The technique reserved for professionals is the blood test. An excessive presence of sodium and potassium in the blood, or even a hemoconcentrated state, then confirms the treatment of the seriously dehydrated subject. Except in cases of hospitalization, extreme precision of daily measurements is not necessarily necessary. The key is to keep in mind that a physical exam can already be revealing.
When to use Hydratis ?
If with these different methods your hydration level does not yet appear satisfactory, the Hydratis solution can allow you to achieve it much more easily. Based on hyperosmolarity, it allows much faster and more efficient absorption of water.
While water alone would only reach the bloodstream after a certain digestion time, the osmolar concentration of the drink allows for more efficient assimilation of liquids.
