Water – The athlete’s most important nutrient
Robert Reisz, Contributing Writer

Forget about every other question you have about nutrition until you’ve figured out how to stay hydrated. Being smart about water intake can separate good performance from great performance.

You are mostly water. In fact, if you took the water out of a 180-pound lean body, there would be about 55 pounds left. Because your muscles, your brain, your blood and your sweat are mostly water. Your body does not work like it should when it does not have enough water. You don’t think as clearly, you lose endurance and your heart works harder.

When you’re severely dehydrated, sweating stops and your body overheats. The result is fatigue, weakness, dizziness, collapsing or worse. In fact, every year, deaths in young healthy athletes are linked to severe dehydration.

Sweat it out
Sometimes you don’t even see sweat, like when you swim, but you sweat whenever your body heats up from working out. Sweat is your body’s cooling system. Evaporation of sweat from your skin cools you down. When you sweat, you lose water from your body and the water must be replaced. Replacing the water takes a plan.

Don’t rely on thirst
You might be thinking, “What’s the big deal? Won’t drinking when I’m thirsty guarantee that I’m hydrated?” Surprisingly, no. During exercise, for reasons not totally understood, humans don’t drink enough to prevent dehydration. You need to drink before you’re thirsty and keep drinking after you no longer feel thirsty.

Drink it in
Forget about the old rule of drinking eight glasses of water per day. You probably need more than that on most days. Counting how many glasses you drink is only one way of keeping track of what you need. A better way of making sure you’re hydrated is to check your body weight before and after practice. For accuracy, weigh in minimal clothing if there’s privacy, and afterwards change out of the sweaty clothing before you weigh yourself. The weight lost during practice or competition is not fat, it’s water loss.

One pint of water weighs one pound. To replace the water, drink one pint of fluid for every pound you lost (one pint = 16 ounces = 500 milliliters = 0.5 liters). It is critical to replace the water lost as quickly as possible. Before your next workout, your weight should be back up to normal.

If you cannot check your weight, pay attention to your body for sign of dehydration. Your mouth should not be dry. Your urine should be lemon-colored most of the time. More than one episode of dark yellow urine is a warning sign that you don’t have much water in reserve. The exception is vitamin supplements since they can turn urine yellow-orange, even if you are hydrated. Loss of appetite, stomachaches and muscle cramps can be other warning signals of dehydration.

When?
Drink water before, during and after working out. Drink a pint or so of fluid a few hours before exercise. This will help make sure you are hydrated and give you enough time to urinate if you need to beforehand.

Keep drinking during exercise, and don’t worry about getting too much fluid. If you’re sweating your body needs constant supple. Your stomach might gurgle, but your body will absorb and use the fluid. Feeling sick and cramping have been blamed on too much water when in fact stomachaches and muscle cramps are usually sign of not drinking enough fluid.

Drinking fluids after workouts is extremely important. Even when drinking fluids during a workout, many athletes become dehydrated. Athletes working out in the heat for several hours can lose 10 pounds. That’s more than one gallon of water.

What should I drink?
Your body needs water, but remember water comes in all sizes, shapes and colors. Milk is 90 percent water. Juice and most soft drinks are 89 percent while sport drinks are 94 percent and pizza is even 50 percent. It all counts as nearly everything that passes your lips provides water for your body. In fact, research shows that most hydration happens at meals from the combination of food and beverages. Research also shows that we tend to drink more if the fluid is flavored and if a variety of fluids are available.

When you have figured out how to stay hydrated, especially when you sweat heavily, you have accomplished the single most important performance - enhancing aspect of nutrition.

Water Content in Common Foods and Drinks
Diet Pop – 99 percent
Tea – 99 percent
Coffee – 99 percent
Sport drinks – 94 percent
Milk – 90 percent
Soup – 90 percent
Pop – 89 percent
Juice – 89 percent
Yogurt – 80 percent
Corn – 76 percent
Baked potato – 74 percent
Cooked rice – 73 percent
Cooked pasta – 66 percent
Taco – 59 percent
Chicken – 54 percent
Ground Beef – 53 percent
Pizza – 50 percent