Water

Water Sports Nutritionist Eoin Lacey and Jeff Willoughby

www.isinutrition.com
www.studio41.co.nz

Water

Our bodies are 75% water; it is the most essential nutrient and truely is the source of life. Yet is undervalued and under utilised for its properties in health, weight gain, and living a pain free life. To work out your daily water intake take your weight in kilograms and multiple it by 0.039 to get the amount in litres you'll need every day. For example, an 80kg man 80kg man he should be drinking just over 3 litres per day. Additionally, for every hour you exercise you should be consuming water on top of this base measurement.

As a nation that lives in toxic environments, we have to eliminate millions of toxins on a daily basis. It is the build up of these toxins over time that make the body more prone to weight gain due to being "toxic". By drinking water we can help to better eliminate these toxins, however if we stay in a dehydrated state our body never has the opportunity to "cleanse itself"(combine this with a lack of quality deep stage sleep and you have a lethal mix). If we drink enough water our body can better eliminate toxins and stay in a healthy state. In solutions of higher viscosity (in a dehydrated state), proteins and enzymes become less efficient which mean that you may not be utilising your vitamins and minerals in a dehydrated state.

Beware of bad water

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical building block that is used primarily to make polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins. Because of these attributes, polycarbonate is used in a wide variety of common products including, reusable food and drink containers, cans, plastic sports bottles, plastic containers and many other products. It has been shown in resaerch as early as the 1930s that Bisphenol A is an

A 2008 review has concluded that obesity may be increased as a function of BPA exposure.......The first large study of health effects on humans associated with bisphenol A exposure was published in September 2008 by Iain Lang and colleagues in the journal of the American Medical Association. The cross-sectional study of almost 1,500 people assessed exposure to bisphenol A by looking at levels of the chemical in urine. The authors found that higher bisphenol A levels were significantly associated with heart disease, diabetes, and abnormally high levels of certain liver enzymes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A

Identification in plastics

There are seven types of plastics used in packaging applications. These can be found in the symbol in a triangle at the bottom of plastic drink containers.

Type 3 and type 7 can also contain bisphenol A as an antioxidant in plasticisers. Types 1, 2 , 4 , 5 and 6 do not use bisphenol A during polymerization or package forming.

Dehydration can cause pain

When water is not present, the bodies ability to wash the acidic toxic waste of metabolism ( a by product of exercise) away is severely limited, When too much acidic waste from metabolism is present then it could burn and eat into cell membranes and the inner structures of the cells in the area, thus causing pain that is registered by the nerves that monitor the acid/alkali balance. The intensity of pain may increase until movement and mobility of the area is affected - to prevent the production of additional toxic waste.

The pains of dehydration include dyspeptic pain, rheumatoid arthritis pain, anginal pain (heart pain on walking, or even or at rest), low pack pain, intermittent claudication pain (leg pain on walking, or even at rest), low back pain, migrain and hangover headaches, colitis pain and its associated constipation, and appenditis pain.

The Body's Many Cries For Water, Batmanghelidj, M.D 2008

Injuries

Cartilage cells are immersed in a matrix containing a high quantity of water. However the bone marrow takes priority over the cartilage water that is available as the body has a hierarchy of needs. This hierarchy of needs sees the body decide who needs the water the most, and the cartilage will suffer to give the bone marrow its need of water. This weakens the cartilage causing it to be more susceptible to injury and any joint will not be able to regenerate cartilage cells fast enough as cells get naturally damaged due to wear and tear - creating further "structural" problems down the line.

In the spinal vertebral joints, water is not only a lubricant for the contact surfaces, it is held in the disc core within the intervertebral space and supports the compression weight of 75% of the weight of the upperbody.

What happens when we replace team coffee or colas in place of water?

When we replace our natural water intake with drinks that contain caffeine, although being central nervous system stimulants, at the same time they are known as diuretics, which mean they act on the kidney to increase water secretion in your urine, so although there is technically water in the drinks - they have the long term effect of dehydrating you.

Caffeine is a natural diuretic, forcing more water out of the body than is contained in the caffeinated beverage.

The Body's Many Cries For Water, Batmanghelidj, M.D 2008

So although you may not feel as though you need to drink more water because your body has become used to the low level that you are drinking, you will eventually suffer the long term consequences of not drinking enough water, whether it shows itself in a lack of elimination of toxins and eventual weight gain, back pain or your keep on tearing a ligament, it will catch up to you. So drink and stay healthy.