If Not Now, When?

THIS ISSUE: Exercise and Drinking Water

Table of Contents:

1) Editor's Note
2) Food for Thought
3) Feature Article: Exercise and Drinking Water
4) Teleclasses
5) Question & Answer
6) Our Services

Editor's Note

Hi,

Happy Cinco de Mayo! In case you don't know, today is a holiday celebrated by people of Mexican descent. It is similar to the 4th of July, Independence Day, in the U.S..

I did a bit of traveling over the past month. I had three trips in four weeks. Traveling for business is really getting old. I'm glad that I'll be stopping all that travel soon.

Because of all my travels, I really haven't had much time for anything else. My wife and I did attend a friend's son's wedding locally early in April. It was fun to see "the kids" enjoying themselves. And Barb and I did get up and dance a few times.

With the warm weather starting to show up in parts of the country, I thought it would be a good time to write about drinking enough water in general, and also how it affects exercising. I hope you find the information useful.

Reminder - I still have a few spots open in my on line fitness coaching group.  Just go to  my coaching site to check things out.

Good luck, keep exercising, and remember – "If not now, when?".

Best Wishes,

Tom Manfredi


Send any comments you may have to tom@fitness-after-50.com

My site fitness-after-50.com

Food for Thought

Feature Article - Exercise and Drinking Water

We are constantly reading articles and hearing in the news about drinking plenty of water to stay healthy. In fact, most of us don’t drink enough water. It is recommended that the average person (someone who weighs approximately 150 pounds) drink at least eight - 8 ounce glasses of water (64 ounces) per day to stay properly hydrated. A simple way to make sure you drink enough water, no matter what your weight, is to divide your weight in pounds by 2 and use that result as a guide for your daily water intake in ounces. If you are an "average 150 pound person" this means you would divide 150 by 2 and get 75 ounces as your daily water requirement. If you are 225 pounds and you divide that weight by 2 you will get approximately 112 ounces as your daily water requirement. Once you know what your daily water requirement is in ounces you can fill up a container with that much water and make sure you drink all of it by the end of the day. A half gallon container holds 64 ounces of water, so that can be a good choice for our "average person". Of course a gallon container holds 128 ounces, so that will work well for a 200+ pound person.

When we exercise we need to take that into account as far as our daily water requirements go. The amounts mentioned above are daily averages for someone who isn't doing any heavy exercising. For me, any exercise you do that causes you to sweat is heavy enough exercise to make you eligible for additional water intake. And remember that there are several circumstances under which you may not realize that you are sweating while you exercise. Some examples include swimming, where the water washes away your sweat; and exercising in very dry climates, where your sweat evaporates. A good guideline when you exercise is to take in 8 ounces of water every 15 minutes while you exercise.

But remember, you can get too much of a good thing. Believe it or not, there is actually such a thing as drinking too much water. When you drink too much water, it can reduce the level of sodium in your body. This condition is called hyponatremia. This situation usually arises when people drink too much water during heavy, prolonged exercise like a marathon or long, extremely strenuous hike. This phenomenon has been found in Grand Canyon hikers and Boston marathon racers.

What happens is that an exerciser takes in large amounts of plain water and sweats out a lot of fluid that contains sodium and other electrolytes needed in the body. In extreme cases this can cause a dangerous electrolyte imbalance. When that happens, water enters the body’s cells, which causes them to swell. If swollen, brain cells start pressing against the skull. The result can be brain damage, paralysis, coma, and sometimes death.

So, make sure you drink plenty of water, but keep in mind that too much of a good thing can sometimes cause problems.

(c)2005 - 2008 Thomas D. Manfredi, MS

Teleclasses

I will be announcing upcoming teleclasses in this section in the future.

If you have a topic that you would be interested in hearing about in a teleclass, send an e-mail to teleclasses@fitness-after-50.com

Questions and Answers

Answer - Yes. Sweating helps to keep our bodies from overheating during strenuous exercise. You need to make sure you replace the fluid you sweat out with water. And, if you do extremely long strenuous exercise, you may need to make sure you replace the electrolytes that were excreted from your body in the sweat.

Also, if you exercise in an extremely humid environment, your body might not be able to sweat enough to keep you cool. Under these circumstances you should make sure you are wearing clothing that will help wick the sweat away from your body so you can sweat some more. When I exercise out doors in the summer, I carry a hand sized sponge with me and wipe away excess sweat from my body and squeeze out the sponge.


To get more information on various fitness and health issues, please go to my site – www.fitness-after-50.com


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If you have a fitness or nutrition question you would like me to consider answering here in the newsletter, just send your question, along with your first name and city, in an e-mail to quesandansw@fitness-after-50.com

Obviously, I can't answer every question submitted. I will choose one question each month to answer here.

About Our Services

On line fitness coach Tom Manfredi is the creator of the site "fitness-after-50". This site is designed with the mature adult in mind. There is a lot of information available on the site for anyone looking to start or restart a sensible exercise program. Learn more by going to www.fitness-after-50.com


Tom also offers on line fitness coaching for people interested in getting expert guidance with their fitness plans. Check out Tom's coaching services and get a F.R.E.E. fitness analysis too.

Benefits of Fitness Coaching On Line:

I am now offering on line fitness coaching to my readers. Below are some of the reasons you may want to check in with me about having me be your coach. I will only be accepting a limited number of people to coach so that I can give each of them the attention they deserve.