By Rob Archangel
And rounding out this weekend’s guest posts outside of 180 is this gem from Matt,? Pee All That You Can Pee? How Much Should You Drink? This one is brought to you by Krista Scott-Dixon over at Stumptuous.
In it, Matt talks about the fundamental but seemingly dumb idea that how often we pee impacts how we feel, and that we might do better paying attention to it. And that, rather than overthinking and trying to outflank our internal cues, that heeding them will serve us better. Crazy talk, I know.
Anyway, head on over here, and go check it out.
I’m first…BAM! I’ve always had a liquid intake problem…For years as a teen I tried to be healthier and “detox” myself by drinking tons of water. My uncle would even advise to drink a bunch of water if I was hungry to lose weight. Wow did that screw me over…Probably one of the reasons I started receding and thinning at such a young age.
I am doing better now..Still not perfect though. I love to drink things. I’m winning the battle though. Slowly but surely my urine is more consistently darker.
I already feel like I am getting some good results after less than two weeks of tightening up my fluid intake. There are times when you feel like you can’t resist downing a whole glass of water. If your really craving it down to your core, do it. Trust your body , if your dehydrated it will let you know. If your out working or exercising hard in the ninety degree heat stay ahead of the curve and drink a little more than your thirst dictates. In those extreme situations, thirst isn’t always the best indicator of dehydration and its better to be safe than get heatstroke. Most of the time though I’ve realized that I wasn’t really thirsty, I was just drinking because my mouth was dry. Now I usually just rinse and spit. I’m also only taking a few sips when necessary at meals. I used to pound at least two glasses of water with every meal. I have always over hydrated as far back as I can remember. Once I developed health issues and began searching the net for advice as well as consulting with two somewhat expensive nutritionists in the last year, my water intake went through the roof and so did my health issues. They tell you that you have to flush toxins out of your body but I’m starting to feel like all I was doing is flushing out the good stuff and like Matt points out, creating a bad imbalance at the cellular level. You know it dawned on me this week as I was seeing some nice yellow pee in the toilet, that the toxins are leaving my body as fast as my body will allow, regardless of how much I drink, hence the darker pee. I think the true thing that will help your body remove toxins faster is a faster metabolism. I’m also getting up less at night, so hopefully with better hydration practices and a little more sleep I’ll continue to see some progress.
Oh my god, that picture is so gorgeous and funny. Where’d you find that, Rob?
Wish I could take credit for it, but I got it from Kari’s site- she put it at the footer of the article.
does anyone here have dry earwax? more on that below.
i’ve never been a thirsty person. my mother is not either. we are sort of like camels! we hardly sweat either.
in fact, i’ve often told the younger people i know that i think it is strange that people have to walk around with drinks all day, when in the olden days we just had a drink with each meal and that was enough.
i have, in the past, had lots of trouble keeping warm when exposed to cold. i can’t wait to see if i’m warmer this winter when i really give myself permission to hydrate only to the level of thirst. i do sort of feel like the guideline of “a drink with each meal” is wisdom that has been handed down. and you know what? that drink was typically NOT water. it was milk, juice, coffee or tea (with sugar and cream), beer, wine.
anyways, have you ever heard of dry earwax? some people have the gene for it. i definitely have dry earwax.
https://www.23andme.com/health/Earwax-Type/
in the past (when turning over a “health” leaf) i’ve tried drinking more. i always failed at it miserably and intuited that it was very wrong for me.
the hydration belief is so ingrained in people! once, i was talking to a young chiropractor and she asked if i was hydrated enough. she stated that not being well hydrated was like living in a cess pool. omg…
i almost wonder if people with this earwax gene need even less water and are genetically sort of “water sparers”. there is this statement on wiki, another interesting conjecture: “Wet-type earwax is associated with armpit odor, which is increased by sweat production. The researchers conjecture that the reduction in sweat or body odor was beneficial to the ancestors of East Asians and Native Americans who are thought to have lived in cold climates.[10]”
i’m not sweaty. turns out that women with this gene also make less colostrum. i wonder if we water sparers just make more DENSE breast milk? were ressearchers just comparing ounces? was the “wet earwax” colostrum just more watery?
on the other hand, hubby is a heavy sweater with wet ear wax who drinks TONS. he has low metabolism and the jowlyness associated with it.
anyways, as i’ve said, i’m fifty and not fat. so chalk up another possible reason why?
other matt like things i’ve been doing all along: cheap fats have always made me puke and i learned to avoid them by age 12. “nightlighting” and fertility awareness for a decade. brought up my basal temp, but i did it with a daily kelp pill over several years.
i have been 97.4 pre-ov, 98.4 post ov for a long while, but with “eat the food” mentality i’m seeing a raise up of about .4 degrees. do i have to apply for hot mama status?
I still pee clear even though I drink little and eat a lot of the 4 ‘S’s !
Queenbee
I find that so funny. My husband is Japanese and is truly proud of his dry ear wax! I didn’t read the article closely, so I may have missed it there, but he said the gene for dry earwax also makes one have less smelly sweat which he is also rather proud of! He rarely sweats (or drinks, apart from with meals) and when he does, it truly doesn’t stink! I, on the other hand, as he likes to point out, have sticky ear wax and stinky sweat! I’m very glad if the trade-off means I have more colostrum as I breasted three babies. Fortunately, my daughter has the sticky wax and the stinky sweat so when her baby-growing time comes, she’ll produce plenty of that liquid gold. And the boys, well, their dad is very pleased that they have dry earwax and aren’t at all stinky!
well, i would bet “dry earwax” people have the same amount of nutrition in the colostrum, just not the same amount of water… just a guess… i could be wrong.
i am not asian, but both sides of my tree contain people who are acadian–and i’ve read that stock is 11% native american. i sure don’t look it. in fact, i seem to have a lot of recessive traits… a real weirdo, very gollum-like.
i can get stinky with nervous sweat. i think it probably is because i so often don’t sweat that when i do it is kind of toxic. he he i do horribly in our sauna and have given up on ever getting benefits from it. i overheat–probably because i don’t sweat!
I just don’t buy it… Telling people that they drink too much water is ridiculous. First off, most people don’t eat enough fruits to be getting their fluid in ways other than that. Put that with the fact that the general population consumes way too many caffeinated beverages that diuresis them at the same time probably has their sodium levels within the normal. If your sodium levels are low your friends will probably know it before you when you start becoming confused or having seizures. I don’t think it’s worth sacrificing they kidneys either. I’m curious as to see what people’s BUN/Creatinine levels are after a while of following this protocol. In addition I would imagine it would be even worse for the kidneys in the long run for those people on diets with higher protein intake such as the paleo diet.
I don’t “tell people” they are drinking too much water. I do tell people who are specifically cold and urinating clear and frequently that they might want to try eating foods with a lower water content, more salt, and go lighter on the fluids to the point where urine returns to a normal yellow color.
People who consider Matt’s advice and/or think for themselves probably aren’t doing stupid things like paleo diet… :) If you researched further you may come to realize that he doesn’t exactly advocate for drinking lots and lots of diuretic beverages, and advises (not “tells”, advises) that people don’t over-dilute themselves by flushing themselves with water, for the same reasons. And considering most of the dieting community DOES oversaturate with water, and much of his advice is targeted toward people who are learning to live rather than diet themselves to death, it is very appropriate and certainly not ridiculous to help people wake up from the bathtub, metaphorically speaking…
How yellow?
Hello Matt
Im struggling with a litle low temp and pulse. And my pee is always clear even tho i always drink to thirst, and i get really thirsty with meals esp if i eat food with low water content. Anyway i try my best to decrease fluid and also increase salt but i get so thirsty and even if i drink little i pee clear. I also struggle with some water retention so it all makes sense that i should just SMASH down salt and decrease fluid and increase sugar aswell.
I was wondering how much have your clients and yourself experienced with in terms of salt amount everyday? and how long did it take before you noticed anything? like how much salt and how much water etc