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Several years ago, I watched Iron Maiden crush it on stage both in terms of their music and the sheer lunacy occurring on the stage while they played. Nestled safely in the massive drum pit, drummer Nicko McBrain was protected from the showy shenanigans, as was his side table. On that side table was a bottle of whiskey, and a bottle of Pedialyte, and he would always follow the former with the latter. This is a man who has clearly gotten his hydration routine worked out.
As the summer months get closer and the heat rises, we need to get back into our hydration routines again, so let’s talk about it. Whether you’re the guy who goes nowhere without your gallon jug or that girl who has too many Hydro Flasks and can never find one, each of us understands the need to take in fluids to keep our systems running. The old wisdom says eight glasses of water a day, or the more vague ‘drink when you’re thirsty’, but what about the experts?
Drinking when you’re thirsty is solid advice. The sense of being thirsty is your body’s way of turning a dash light on. As to what to drink and how much? The truth is, any liquids in quantity will do, as long as they aren’t the dehydrating kind. That may seem like a paradox, a liquid that will dry you out, but consider how some drinks work. Coffee, tea, and other caffeinated beverages, as well as coconut water and apple juice are considered diuretics, which means they cause you to urinate more often. Alcohol is also, sadly, in this category.
No coffee AND no alcohol? Well, not exactly. Much like McBrain, you just need to make up the difference. For every cup of coffee in the morning, drink an additional bottle of water, and the same for alcohol in the evening. If you expect to be out late, sober you should put a couple of bottles of water out, maybe a bottle of sports drink near the sink, so you have something ready to go before you fall asleep with your jeans still on.
One final piece of advice? The water you use today is the water you drank yesterday, so don’t skip on the hydration before activity. If you know you’re going to the beach tomorrow, drink those fluids today. Turning into a pain tomato because you were too stubborn to put on sunblock is only made worse if your body was dried out to begin with.
