Macronutrient: Water

[AdventureMarc]

Let’s start with the basics…in a basic nutrition class, they would tell you that all foods are broken up into two main categories: Macronutrients and Micronutrients. This is where everyone agrees, vegans with meat eaters, paleo with macrobiotic, microbiologists with raw foodists. Macronutrients are nutrients that humans need in large (“macro” amounts) ratios to survive, and micronutrients are nutrients that humans need less to survive. Usually macronutrients are only subdivided into 3 groups (fats, carbohydrates and proteins) due to their energy containing characteristics, but we still need two other nutrients in macro quantities to survive: Water and Fiber.

Funny how little emphasis has been put into these two macronutrients, but since we do not have a proper understanding of how much water and/or fiber a person should consume, it’s difficult to quantify. A basis that has been a guiding principle at The Ashram and The Ranch has been to go by one’s bodyweight. It’s easy to connect that a heavier person would need more water than a smaller person, especially when doing as much physical activity as both programs encourage.

When hiking and exercising for an excess of 6 hours in a 12 hour day (considered a high activity day), I recommended taking a sip or mouthful of water (NOT a guzzle or other large volume that could make you nauseated) every 10 minutes, to replenish water used for perspiration, respiration, detoxification, and maintain proper fluid balance in the blood. This sip/mouthful of water every 10 minutes usually translated into a volume of water close to a person’s bodyweight in pounds, carried over into ounces of water consumed within that same 12 hour day. For example a person who weighs 180 lbs. would probably need about 180 ounces of water over the course of the day during a high activity day. Since there are 128 ounces in a gallon, 180 ounces equals about 1.4 gallons. Some people would consider that a lot of water, but remember that this is over the course of a 12 hour high activity period— approximately a sip/mouthful of water every 10 minutes.

Let’s break this down, 12 hours equals 720 minutes, a sip every 10 minutes equals 72 sips of water. If you measure how many tablespoons of water you consume in a sip or mouthful of water and multiply that by 72, you find out how many ounces you would consume. This number should be close to your bodyweight in pounds (just the number, not by any conversion)—for example if you weigh 130 pounds, you should be drinking about 130 ounces through a day; if you weigh 190 pounds, you should be drinking about 190 ounces through a day.

When I did this exercise (I weigh 135 lbs, so I should be drinking about 135 ounces of water through a high activity day), I found that a sip or mouthful of water for me equaled about 4 tablespoons of water. This meant that at this rate of 72 sips/mouthfuls of water a day, I would be consuming about 288 tablespoons. Since there are 2 tablespoons to an ounce, I realized that if I drank 72 sips/mouthfuls of water a day, that would be 144 ounces—close to the recommendation of 135 ounces per day.

During a low activity day, I recommend about half that volume of water. This is translated to drinking a sip/mouthful of water every 20 minutes (with 12 hours=720 minutes, divided by 20 minutes equals 36 sips/mouthfuls) and calculating total water needs by bodyweight in kilograms (e.g. 135 lbs = 61.2 kg so 61 ounces of water on a low activity day).

• This topic was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by AdventureMarc.

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