Drink Yourself Fitter
Knowing how much to drink will boost your health and fitness.
Being properly hydrated is good for your skin and digestive system, it helps your concentration, prevents headaches and aids your body with flushing out potentially harmful toxins. Follow these steps to stay hydrated and healthy.
- Aim to drink approximately 2 litres of water each day. For a more accurate guide you should drink 30-35ml of water each day for each kilo you weigh. (So 70kg means 70 x 35ml = 2450ml = 2.5l)
- After exercise drink a litre of water for each kilo of weight you have lost. (Almost all the weight you lose is due to water loss)
- Don’t worry too much about sodium/salt replacement as this is likely to happen through your regular eating
- Tea can count as part of your fluid intake as if you are used to drinking it tea is unlikely to have a diuretic effect (to make you pee more). But aim to base your hydration around water
- If you are exercising for 30min or less it is probably not necessary to drink while exercising
- If exercising for more than 30min aim to drink 150ml to 200ml each 15-20min. See Point 2 to help you work out if this is adequate/more than necessary for you as fluid needs will vary with temperature/activity/effort level/size. If your weight has not varied you have got it right. If you have gained weight you have drunk too much (assuming you were hydrated to start with). If you have lost weight you need to drink more
- Get used to drinking while exercising. Practise makes perfect. Many people find a half empty bottle is easier to drink from than a full one while running. It can also help to hold the water in your mouth before swallowing rather than trying to do everything at the same time and gulping down air with the fluid.
- You need to drink during a longer race, say 10k or over, so get used to taking fluids onboard. Check out our race day hydration article.
There have been some concerns in the media about people ‘over-hydrating’. This is called hyponatremia and is when drinking excessive amounts of water and not replacing sodium means that blood sodium levels fall dangerously low. Following the points above should help you stay hydrated while avoiding this problem.