Signs You’re Not Drinking Enough Water

Next question is from Luke Colestios. What are some signs you're not drinking enough water? You're thirsty a lot. It's probably the biggest one. Actually, isn't, uh, technically the, the, if you are thirsty, it's already the sign. Right. It means you're already technically, uh, dehydration. So here's the problem with that. Is that true? Yeah. Well, you get, okay. So here's the problem. There's people in the fitness and performance space that say, for example, they'll give this arbitrary number. It's not necessarily arbitrary, but they'll say you need to drink a gallon of water a day. Then you get like the science people and we'll go, no, that's not true. You need much less water. And then the fitness people will say, well, if you're thirsty, it means you're already dehydrated. And the other people will say, no, you're not dehydrated. Okay. There's optimal water intake for maximum performance. And then there's just the amount of water you need to be okay. And if you have that much, you're not going to get negative detrimental health effects. Optimal is typically more than the, than the minimum required for, for no negative effects. So I think we should talk about optimum and not necessarily, because if you just drink when you're thirsty and you pay attention, you're not going to necessarily have these negative health effects, uh, from not having enough water. Or maybe you do. You're just not recognizing that. Yeah. Or maybe it's like over a long period of time. Right. But if you want optimal performance, a little bit more water makes a big difference. You'll feel it in your workouts. You'll see in your skin, you'll sleep better. Like there's a lot of things that you notice. Well, there, there's, there are different things. And one of the ones I remember, I heard, I heard Justin talking about this one time and, uh, I had never thought about it for like low energy. Uh, sometimes people come in and they train and they haven't really had much water at all for the day. And they're, they just, they're just low energy. And making sure that they, you know, chug a glass or two of water pre before their workout could make a difference on their energy levels. I noticed a difference when I started to make a conscious effort in that. I also noticed something that, and I, I'm going to, I'm going to totally destroy this. Like, and maybe you guys can help me put to words exactly what was going on. But I went through this phase where I wasn't drinking very much water at all. And I kept, um, I kept hearing this whenever I'd squat heavy. Um, I'd get, I remember you telling me this. Yeah. I get like this pop in my quad and it would hurt. It would like, it would drop me to the ground. Like after I would freak out, it would feel initially like I tore something or something happened and then it would feel, it would feel really bad for at least a couple of days. And then it seemed to get better and I'd be okay. So I know I didn't tear anything. It wasn't anything major like that, but it happened to me enough times that I could start. I started to connect the dots like, Oh wow. Every time I don't make a conscious effort to drink at least a quarter of a gallon of water in my, in my day before I got to these leg routines, this would happen to me. And so long as I always stayed really hydrated, it would never happen no matter how heavy I went, no matter any other combination of things. And I couldn't quite figure out what it was. All I knew is it was connected something to me being hydrated that was causing something that, and I don't know if like things weren't lubricated very well. And so they got hung up and then they would, that, that popping feeling would happen. Yeah. I can't really, you know, add to that, but in terms of like joint pain, I definitely have seen a massive difference in terms of being hydrated, not being dehydrated and having that nagging, achy, chronic kind of you know, arthritis kind of feel when I'm, when I'm not drinking enough water that, and my clients as well, I've seen it with them. And once they're focused on that too, it's, it's definitely helped alleviate a lot. Yeah. For me, it's, um, the color of my urine will tell me a lot, right? So unless I've had B vitamins, which B vitamins always turn your urine super, but it's a different kind of yellow. It's like, like it looks like it's glowing. But if my, if, if my pee is like a light yellow that I know I'm getting enough water, if it starts to get really dark, usually means I'm not drinking enough. And here's one. What about blue? Blue's pretty good. The hospital or red, right? Yeah. Or you're awesome. Yeah. Or, but so one thing to keep in mind though is if you're somebody that works out often and you don't eat a lot of processed food and let's say you suffer from like eye twitches or muscle cramps or heart palpitations, which a lot of times people will say, Oh, that's related to not being hydrated. So you just drink more water and it doesn't go away. This is something I figured out for myself. It wasn't that I needed more water. It was that I also needed more sodium. So because sodium helps, it's, it's an electrolyte, right? It's part of how muscles contract and the body works. I would just drink a lot more water. And sometimes some of these things wouldn't go away. And my, my urine was super clear and I'd still get certain issues. And then I realized, uh, I need more sodium cause I, I don't need process. Even though I salt my food, it's not a lot of sodium. So I, when we started, when we started working with LMNT, that made a huge difference. And I put that in my water and then boom, had none of those issues. Yeah. It's interesting bringing that up because that's something I found out even in athletics. So I had never played in a humidity before, and this was a massive, uh, adaptation I had to figure out because, uh, I would be so fatigued and I would, I would be gassed by like halftime and I couldn't figure out like, and I would hydrate, you know, days prior to that. Making sure, and this is all that they would tell me is like, and they'd weigh you in and everything to make sure that you're replacing your water, replacing your water. But I just never seemed to be able to get, you know, energized, like consistently to, to be able to play in that environment other than probably to play it more often and adapt, you know, naturally. But you know, the electrolytes have started introducing more, uh, and adding like pinches of salt into my water. And I, I was able to sustain my energy way long. Yeah. My, when I would train endurance athletes, uh, that was a, that was a big one for me. It was like maybe 10 years into my career. And I started getting, I got one, you know, it is you get one client and then they'll refer a few friends and they're all in the same ----. And so I had these clients that were triathletes. Uh, and one, uh, guy was, uh, competed in Ironman. So it's big deal. And that's what I did with them. I'd have them put a pinch of sea salt in their water and it made a huge difference. And why? Because they sweat so much and they don't eat a lot of processed food. And if you do the math and you look at their sodium versus how much they're excreting, even though they salt their food, it wasn't enough. And so I'd say add some. And I remember the first guy I told that to, I said, try adding a little salt to your water. I was like salt water. I'm not, I'm like, well, not like the ocean, but add a pinch in your water each time and see if you notice a difference. And he came back. He's like, dude, it was, it was crazy. He's like, I was like, I felt like a completely different person. So something to keep in mind, because if you're like really fit and health minded and you're drinking a lot of water and then you have these signs of dehydration and you can't figure out what the hell's going on and you drink more water might make it worse. You may actually need some electrolytes or in particular sodium.