How to Drink Water

I was never ever serious about drinking water. Whenever I was thirsty I picked up a bottle and quenched my thirst. So when the doctor advised me to drink more water, I was like - How about Beer Doc!!! I was 108 Kilograms, always sweating profusely and a mere ten steps of walking would render me breathless. I was 47 years old and having seen fat people around, assumed that one grows fat after 45 years. Having discover high diabetes, high blood pressure and all lab reports with higher values (unlike my bank balance), I had to take doctor's advice seriously. My search for cure of diabetes helped me discover the wonders of drinking water correctly.

Body Composition

Our body is composed of 72% water, 12% food and 6% air. The total blood in our body is 5 liters. If the complete blood is taken out of our body it will fill in five one liter bottles. When the quantity of sugar in one such bottle is one gram then the corresponding sugar reading is 100, which is presently professed to be Normal Blood Sugar. So if someone's sugar reading is 250, it implies that there is 2.5 grams of sugar per liter blood of our body. Now if this person drinks one liter water the sugar reading will become 200. My fasting sugar was 397, so it meant 3.97 per liter of my blood. In nutshell I learnt that a diabetic person must drink lots of water. Number One Takeaway - A diabetic person with normal weight of 70 to 80 kilograms must drink 5-6 liters of water daily. Just after getting up in the morning, drinking water the first thing, acts like a good blood thinner. This greatly helps a diabetic patient as the excess sugar in blood thickens the blood.

Principles of drinking water

First thing after getting up. The first thing I do after getting up in the morning is to smile, stretch and thank almighty to have woken up. Then pick up my copper water bottle (One Liter) from bed side table and drink the full bottle. I take about 15 minutes to finish one liter of water.

Sit down to drink (just as you should sit down to eat). Water is the medium for all metabolisms. Our important organs that require a steady supply of water are kidneys, liver, pancreas, heart and lungs. They are all around our stomach, hence sitting on a chair and drinking water helps water flow to them.

Take sips, not full-glass chugs. Small sip, swallow, breathe, Repeat. There is no array of pipelines laid in our body like our homes to directly supply water to the organs. The water seeps to the organs by cellular action during metabolism. If you chug too much water at once your body doesn’t actually absorb all of it and most of it will run right through you.

Before and after meals. Do not drink water 40 minutes before meal and one hour after meals. This helps indigestion. I always had this problem of stomach bloating and indigestion. This one principle helped me in digesting food and relieved me of all stomach pains.

Drink water at room temperature. I remember in summers my usual practice of opening fridge and drinking a full chilled bottle at one go. Cold and iced water literally douses the digestive fire. The intestines shrink and thereby leading to constipation. Warm is even better, too hot or too cold is bad for health.

Only sip a small amount of water with your meals. If you drink too much while you eat, your stomach won’t have enough room for digestive action. Remember this rule: fill your stomach 50% with food, 25% with water, and leave 25% empty for the digestive juices and process. For the same reason, don’t drink loads of water before or after your meals.

Drink when you are thirsty. Our thirst is a natural urge that should be heeded; it means your body needs water.

How much to drink. We’re all different sizes with varied diets and lifestyles. One recommended set rule of eight glasses a day simply cannot apply to everyone. Naturally, the miraculous human body has its own built-in measuring system - thirst. If you’re thirsty, drink water. When you listen to thirst cues and sip water throughout the day you’ll be drinking the right amount.

Colour of Urine. Our urine is a secondary confirmation to know if you are rightly hydrated. It should be fairly clear and straw colored. If it’s dark yellow you need to drink more. Our lips are another indicator; if they are dry you might be dehydrated.

These guiding principle on drinking water are so simple and easy, but they make a serious difference in the way you feel on a daily basis.

Water Memory

I accidentally learnt about this property of water - Memory. Water retains the memory of environment through which it passes. Drinking water must be stored in a container (ideally copper) overnight before using it for drinking or cooking purpose. Imagine the numerous turns that water goes through from source to your home through pipes. These turns are stored as memory in the water. Imagine the havoc this memory will create in our body. So stop drinking straight from tap or water filters. Even if water is stored in steel containers overnight the water changes its memory. This phenomenon of water has been scientifically proven. For more information Google - Water memory.

My practice of drinking water

Keeping track of water in term of number of glasses was a bit cumbersome for me. So I decided to follow simple practice. I follow simple rule - five liters daily.

- One liter on waking up and One liter at 6 PM.

- One liter, two hours after every Meal.

You can plan as per your convenience, what is necessary is to drink water.

Once I was off medication for diabetes and my HBA1C count reached 5.8%, my water intake reduced to normal levels. To calculate the right quantity of every day water intake, multiply body weight by 0.03 and you get the amount of water in liters. For example, for a body weight of 70 kilograms approximate water intake must be 2.1 liters.