8 glasses or 10 or 16... or 5?

Water.

This post isn't about saving it. Or conserving it. It's all about drinking it.

I'm not great at drinking water the way I've been told I should. I'm much better than I was years ago. But I'm not where I need to be. I most likely average 4 glasses a day. A gradeschooler could tell you that you should be at 8 a day. I need to be at like 10-12 for weight loss from what I hear. Dear heavens! On days when I'm really good and have say 6 glasses I can hardly stay out of the bathroom. How in the world would I double that?? I overheard someone say that their trainer told them they should be drinking 1oz for every pound of their weight. 120 lb woman, 120oz water. If your glass held 8oz, that 120 woman would need to drink 15 a day! And the 200lb woman? That would be 25 glasses a day. After hearing all that - I decided it just could not be right. (So much for trusting an overheard converstation) So I looked it up and guess what I found from my favorite friends at Snoops? Even experts have no idea where the 8 glasses a day came from.

So I googled "drinking water each day for weight loss" (without quotes around it) and here are some of the other web-bits I found.

- Body building site said you should drink at least a gallon of water each day.

- This writer swears that eventually you will stop peeing every 10 minutes. I'm not sure that I believe her. But maybe it's just because of the name of the web site.

- While about.com would not normally be a sited spot, I had to appreciate that article is both balanced to say how it's healthy to drink more water - but that that there is also a danger in drinking too much water. Some folks forget about that and go too far - with dangerous results.

- A guy with an MD and who uses fancy words like isotonic and thermogenic says that most adults should drink 1 glass of water with each meal and 2 additional glasses through the day. I think I like this guy.

- I don't like this guy. He uses formulas that don't work in my favor at all. 1/2 oz per pound + more if you are in a hot climate + more if you are athletic. I'm fat. I'm in Phoenix. 2 out of 3 right now. One of these days it might be 3 out of 3, but 2 is bad enough. He even details what your hourly water intake should be. Based on his handy dandy table I should be drinking 8.25 oz of water every hour based on being awake 16 hours. I think not.

So, no magic solution out there I'm sure. But I'd like to get to a point where I consistently did 8 glasses a day. Even if they can't all decide why it's important, it's important. I know it.

I'm just so tired of running to the bathroom.