Core of Fitness and Health - Hydration

The next couple of posts will look at what we can take in that should be at the basic core of good health and fitness practices. This is a foundational habit that even with a small change; long term can make a big difference. Hydration, simply drinking enough water to keep our body hydrated to the level it needs to function properly. Jesus taught us a valuable lesson at the well, John 4: 1-30, that if we drink water we will be thirsty again and we need to drink more water.


While many of us drink “fluids” we still leave our bodies in a semi-dehydrated state. Much of what we drink has caffeine and sugars that actually can deplete our body of water. By maintaining proper hydration we can decrease joint pain, improve skin tone, increase the efficiency of our immune system, improve circulation, decrease the risk of heart attack and stroke, improve brain function and decrease memory loss as we age. Not bad for just getting enough water each day.

So how much is enough? The gold standard is seven to eight 8-ounce glasses each day. New research is setting a new standard, which is your weight in pounds divided by two will equal the total amount of ounces per day. So for example, a 180-pound person will need 90 ounces or just over eleven 8-ounce glasses a day. That may seem like a lot to you; if it does you may be one of the semi-dehydrated people not gaining all the benefits of making a wise choice of the foundational habit of drinking enough water each day.

I had a patient a few weeks back that was a classic example of being semi-dehydrated. She was a young girl that had been having headaches for the last few years almost on a daily basis. After going through an examination, she did not have much wrong with that I could assess other than a little tightness in her fascia around her head. Our fascia is the connecting stuff all throughout our body that holds all of our parts together. It is also a larger reservoir area for water in our body, when our body needs water it will pull water from our fascia to use iit in our more vital organs. Think of it as a sponge, when it is dried out the sponge is hard to bend and twist, when it is filled with water it is more pliable. I asked this girl and her mother how much water she drinks. She laughed and her mom stated she was not a very good water drinker. I did some simple fascial mobilizations and encouraged her to start drinking more water. In about three treatments and a week’s worth of increasing her water intake and her headaches were gone for the first time in about three years. Just a simple example of how important having the proper amount of water intake is to our overall health and fitness.