Water Update

I feel I need to point out that I have not been recording absolutely everything that crosses my lips, as I have not been tracking my water intake. The first reason for this is simply logistic. I keep a water bottle with me most of the time, whether it be on my desk while I’m working or by the couch when I am watching TV. I sip it throughout the day and top it up at least once. I felt it was simply too difficult to keep track of exactly when I started and when I finished a particular bottle, as it’s not like a meal with a defined start and finish time. Plus adding all the glasses of water would add at least 3 extra lines in the food diary. The second reason is that one purpose of this food diary for me is to track my food choices with an eye to losing weight. Water has no calories and no specific nutritional value so I didn’t see it as relevant. On the other hand, tracking the amount of tea I drink is relevant because it has caffeine and antioxidants.

It’s also worth noting that the recommendation of eight to ten cups (2 to 2.5L) of fluid a day is a little outdated. The new formula is your bodyweight in pounds x 10.36 for women, and bodyweight x 9.176 for men. So that means I should be getting about 1450mL of water a day. Going over my food diary, I’m already getting that without adding the extra water bottles! Naturally if you exercise you should get a bit more, but unless you run for hours in the hot sun, 500 to 750mL per hour of exercise is usually enough. This can come from all sorts of beverages, not just plain water. And it has recently been proven that, contrary to popular wisdom, caffeine is not a diuretic (making you go to the toilet more frequently) so you get as much hydration from plain tea and coffee as water.

So I don’t think I need to worry about dehydration anytime soon!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
1874.87	104.14g	233.24g	59.88g	0	34.68g
	22%	50%	29%
Calories burned through exercise:		473

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
07:45	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold tap water	200mL
	Whole scrambled eggs	2 eggs
	Genius brown bread toast	2 slices
	with Flora Light	8g
	and St Dalfour Raspberry jam	27g
	Sainsbury's orange, mango and passionfruit juice	200mL
09:00	Black tea	500mL
10:15	Workout - resistance training
	Citrus Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	500mL
11:30	Total Greek yoghurt	125g
	Sainsbury's frozen mixed blueberries and strawberries	100g
	Sponser chocolate Recovery Shake	20g (1 scoop)
	mixed with skim milk	150mL
14:00	Homemade chili	300g
	Merchant Gourmet tinned puy lentils	100g
	Sainsbury's Blackcurrant Fruit Dairy Split	60g
14:30	Green Tea	250mL
17:45	Brazil nuts	8g
	Cashews	15g
	Apple	about 80g
20:15	Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself Pork medallion	69g cooked
	Roasted potatoes	127g
	Roasted Beets	92g
	Roasted Carrots	50g
	Roasted parsnips	45g
	all brushed with olive oil (and herbs)	10mL
	Colman's Bramley apple sauce	1 tbsp
21:30	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.