Caffeine, Alcohol, The High Desert, Hydration
As told previously, when my dad had cancer, my parents calculated how much fluid intake he needed daily and their rule was caffeinated drinks DO NOT COUNT. Alcohol also doesn't count but my dad had given up alcohol about two decades earlier.
I don't know how strict you need to be about this. Some drinks are more caffeinated than others and weather conditions matter, among other things.
I drink diet coke and tea regularly and count those towards hydration under normal circumstances, though I wouldn't count them in the same way in extreme temperatures or at high altitudes. They have a lot less caffeine than coffee or energy drinks.
My husband was in the army and at one time he was stationed at NTC -- the National Training Center. His job was playing the bad guy in training scenarios for visiting troops.
It's in the High Desert. It's at 3000 feet above sea level and gets only 6 inches of rain annually.
Altitude is also a factor in hydration. As the air thins, the body starts shunting wastes through the kidneys that it can't breathe out and the result is you pee more. This has knock on effects because it means you are dumping electrolytes as well.
The only time I drink Gatorade is at altitude or during heat waves in excess of 105 degrees Fahrenheit. So hydration is not just about fluid intake. You also need electrolytes and may need the right carbs and fats.
You can overdo it. If you drink too much, you can die of water poisoning, so more is not always better.
My recollection: A liter of fluid per hour is the approximate maximum the kidneys can handle.
I learned to stay hydrated while living in the High Desert and learned to keep my kids hydrated. You have to work at this in summers there because it can be 112 degrees daily for two weeks.
One training session, my husband was training part-timers -- National Guard or something. They were drinking cola drinks all day and alcohol in the evening and being medivacced out at shockingly high rates due to dehydration and heat-related diagnoses, interfering with the training exercise.
Growing up, there was a neighbor a few doors up who had cancer. She smoked heavily and drank a lot of coffee.
She had one incident where she was rushed to the hospital out cold. I don't know the details, but at some point she came to and told the guy "I'm constipated" and they dealt with that somehow and that resolved her issue.
Constipation can be caused by dehydration. She lived on coffee.
The other thing is caffeine has medicinal uses, including opening up the airways. If you normally consume a lot of caffeine, you likely do so for some reason and stopping suddenly may cause problems.
So improving hydration may be a process of gradually adding more water and fruit juice and making other changes. (I like Juicy Juice -- it's real juice, not a lot of fillers and sweeteners.)
I mentioned earlier carbs and fats. My genetic disorder involves misprocessing fats and I used to CONSTANTLY have a drink in my hand. I was always thirsty.
Historically, they made canteens with oiled leather. Oil helps the body retain fluids.
The right carbs do too. Aloe vera plants are desert plants and are a source of good carbs.
Aloe drinks are super hydrating. So is coconut water and watermelon.
Be careful adding super hydrating drinks and foods, especially at first. They all promote diarrhea.
Have a LITTLE and see how it goes. You can always have more later.
After moving out of one 100 year old building and into another, my exposure to mold and god-knows-what was reduced and I had constipation for months as chemicals left my system. Carbonated water helped.
I would have one or two cans a day on top of my usual drinks of diet coke, fruit juice and tea. I typically drink half tea, half lemonade mixes.
You can buy the bottle marked that way or add lemonade to tea. I do both, depending on what I find and given the chronic supply chain issues here lately, how I handle it depends partly on what I can readily get.
