No More Diets

How much water do I need to drink a day?

Common advice you’ll find around is that you need about 6 to 8 glasses a day but this does vary depending on how active you are and where you live (you’ll need more if you work out or live in a warm climate).

The main guideline to follow is that if you are properly hydrated your urine will be pale yellow in color and you won’t feel physically thirsty. If you’re getting dehydrated on the other hand you may experience the following

• thirst
• dark-colored urine
• not passing much urine when you go to the toilet
• headaches
• confusion and irritability
• lack of concentration

There is a very helpful article by the Mayo clinic outlining the facts about drinking water so I won’t repeat everything here. See this article on healthy water consumption.

Do remember that too much water can be dangerous - something you can forget if you constantly try and keep yourself hydrated by drinking from a water bottle all day long.

If you drink so much that you kidneys can’t cope then you can become very ill and even die. For more information on drinking TOO MUCH water see this article on drinking too much water from the BBC.