Health Alert: How much water is too much water?
Last summer I was not surprised to hear that a ten-year-old boy had drowned. Unfortunately, it happens all the time during the warm weather months. The children go swimming and find themselves above their heads. However, this child did not grow while he was swimming. In fact, he wasn’t anywhere near a pool, lake, ocean, or swimming hole. He drowned in the hospital because he had gone swimming in a pool earlier that day and drank too much water. Similarly, a woman in her late thirties died shortly after participating in a radio station contest. The winner was the person who drank the most water.
People have always told me, “Drink more water. It’s good for you.” It is, but not excessively. That is a lesson I learned the hard way. Several months ago I went to the hospital. I was having trouble breathing and thought maybe I was having a heart attack or a panic attack. Instead, my problem was too much water in my body. That explained why she was overweight, and despite constant dieting, she couldn’t seem to keep the weight off when she could lose it. How much water was in my body? I was in the hospital for a week and after being given water reducing pills twice a day, I weighed almost forty pounds less than when I was admitted.
After that experience I had to continue taking the water reducing pills and it was easier to diet and maintain the weight. The key was to reduce the salt. Salt (sodium) causes the body to retain water. Unfortunately, salt is found in almost everything we eat, including sugar. The answer for me was a heart-healthy diet. I started using salt substitutes and eventually cut them out too. The result was better than expected. For the first time I was able to enjoy the true taste of meat, chicken and vegetables. I was amazed and delighted.
After you’ve given up salt for a while, you taste it immediately when you eat something that’s been seasoned. That made me very careful when buying any type of processed food. I learned a lot too. It’s not just the usual suspects like hot dogs, bacon, pizza, and sausage that are loaded with sodium. Breakfast cereals, margarine, most beverages, some candy, many diet foods, sugar, seasoning packets, frozen meals, canned soups, smoked meats, and lunch meats from the deli counter have too much of it. salt, unless they are available in low-sodium forms.
Despite the need doctors and dietitians feel to categorize people, we know our bodies better than anyone. That is why we have to decide how much or how little we eat or drink. The key is to be honest with ourselves. To lose weight, some people have to eat less, others have to eat much less. Eating too little triggers a starvation program in our body that makes it harder to lose weight, so it’s not an option. In order to lose water weight and excess fluid in our bodies, we need to limit our sodium intake and be careful not to get too hydrated.