The importance of water to our body should be obvious to anybody. What is of concern to me is how some people come to the conclusion that it can be bad for you. I have being involved in exchanges where I got stumped by the ridiculous assertion that water makes people fat. Imagine that!
Seriously, an adult human being with all faculties intact will come up with talk like that. I really get blue in the face with pent-up frustration anytime I hear such baseless talk. They claim it fills up their stomach and make it bloated. So on the basis of that, water is fattening. For people like that, a good weight-loss program must involve a radical reduction in water intake.
In the first place, water is just Oxygen and hydrogen in the right mix. So what part of Oxygen and hydrogen would be converted to fatty tissues. Secondly, on average, 60% of the human body is made of water. Going by that insane logic, we should all be obese since we have so much of it in us. It can only be harmful if you take too much. Just like everything else.
By not taking enough, one is directly killing the body slowly, in small doses. The harm is cumulative, and adds up to something worse later in life. The watchword for anybody interested in staying healthy is to drink adequate water everyday. And how would you know you are not drinking enough? These are the signs to look out for.
Dry and Patched Mouth
This might sound obvious to all, but the thing is, many people instead opt to drink one carbonated drink or the other to deal with dry and patched mouth. Which is a bad habit as far as solving the problem of dry mouth is concerned. That is not to mention the negative health implications of taking too much carbonated drinks to quench thirst.
Drinking water ensures that the mucus membranes in the mouth and throat are well lubricated. This in turn ensures the mouth is never dry or patched due to the saliva produced.
Dry Skin
There are so many tips on how to ensure a smooth and healthy skin out there. You want your skin to remain that way or else, all that hard work would be wasted. One way to sabotage your awesome skin is lack of enough water which can show up in dry and flaky skin.
Lack of water means the body cannot produce enough sweat to remove toxins, dirts and oils from the skin. The result is dry unhealthy looking skin. The simple solution is to drink enough of it.
Dry eyes Due To lack of Water
Before you rush out to buy expensive eye drops for you dry itchy eyes, perhaps a little diagnosis will indicate that inadequate water in your system is the cause. In the eyes, it serves like a lubricant, so the eye balls can roll effortlessly in their sockets.
Tell Tale signs in the digestive System
Taking the digestive system as a whole, that is from the stomach to the large intestine, inadequate water intake can be the cause of these problem;
- hunger – this is one problem obese and over weight people can relate to. Sometimes, the feeling of hunger is just the result of not taking enough water. So instead of eating something to satisfy the fanthom hunger, drinking it would simply solve the problem. This mostly happens between meals and at night time during sleep.
- digestion – its importance in digesting food cannot be overstated. In inadequate amounts, it can lead to serious disruption of the digestive process. In the stomach, its inadequacy can result in serious consequences due to the action of acid on the stomach walls. Think heartburns and indigestion.
- Constipation – Constipation is the result of the large intestine using the little water in your digestive track. This leaves the small intestine with little or nothing to work with. The absence of this important variable causes constipation.
Pains in the joints
Water constitutes about 80% of our joints, cartilage and spinal joints. Too little of it in the system can cause pains. This is because it acts as a lubricant between joints. Little of it means less lubricant. So the joints grind painfully against each other as your move about. Maybe, the aches and pains you intermittently experience could just be your body telling you to drink water.
Longer Recovery Time from Sickness and Fatigue
Yes, you read that right. Water is an important part of how organs like kidney and liver work to flush out toxins from the system. Not enough of it means these organs would have to source it from the blood and cells. This causes sickness or inability to recover fast from sickness.
And because there isn’t enough in the blood, the function of moving oxygen efficiently to produce energy is seriously affected. You find yourself getting sleepy and tired easily.
Other signs that you are not drinking enough can be seen in the fact that your skin ages prematurely; reduced muscle mass and urinating too few times in a day (leading to urinary track infection). Also, passing out solid waste in the toilet can be very difficult if you don’t drink enough water.
I enjoy drinking water a lot. Sometimes for no reason at all, I just drink it. That is why I easily get frustrated with people who have wrong notions about water. I mean, whoever coined, “Water is life” knew exactly what they were saying. Please, if you have some compelling things to make people start drinking it, pour it all out in the comments section. You just might save an ignorant life.
