Necessary to the healthy function of all of your internal organs, water must be consumed to replace the amount lost each day during basic activities. It is recommended that women consume 2 litres daily and men consume 3 litres. This consumption can be through various beverages (80%) or in food (20%). Active people need even more, particularly if they’re exercising in hot weather. You can meet your body’s water needs over the course of a day through a variety of fluids and foods including juices, healthy smoothies, tea,  soups, fruits and vegetables however, the most efficient  commodity is of course WATER.

In one hour of exercise your body can lose more than 1 litre of water, depending on exercise intensity and air temperature. If there is not enough water for your body to cool itself through perspiration, you will enter into a state of dehydration.

In a dehydrated state your body is unable to cool itself efficiently, leading to heat exhaustion and possibly heat stroke. Without an adequate supply of water your body will lack energy and you may develop muscle cramps and headaches. 

To prevent dehydration, you must drink before, during and after any form of exercise and more importantly, consistently throughout the day.
Don’t wait for signs of thirst to appear. Thirst is a signal that your body is already dehydrated. It is important to drink more than thirst demands and to continue to drink throughout the day. You don’t have to carry a bottle of water with you but you should at least have a strategy whereby you drink something like a glass of water every time you leave your house or maybe a half a glass every time you get up from your chair.

One way to check your hydration level is to monitor your urine. It should be plentiful and pale yellow unless you are taking supplements or medications, which will darken the colour for several hours after consumption. If you have a good understanding of the state of your body’s functioning, you will know if you have entered into a state of dehydration. However, don’t wait for signs to appear as it will mean that you have already done some damage!

As you may know, the various tissues and organs of your body are composed of between 75% and 95% water. For example, your brain is made up of 90% water!

This water is used as a way of transporting nutrients and other substances throughout your body. The splitting of the water molecule is one of the ways which your body creates energy in the form of ATP for organic functions.

Transmission of nerve impulses and neurotransmitters is heavily dependent on water. Water also holds the cell membranes together allowing greater efficiency of proteins and enzymes.

Every 24 hours your body recycles the equivalent of 40,000 glasses of water to maintain your normal physiological functions. Within this process, your body becomes short of about 6-10 glasses of water every day. This deficit must be supplied to the body each day. Your body needs upwards of half its weight in grams of water per day - a minimum of 8 glasses.

As far as your body’s chemistry is concerned, water and fluid are two different things. Coffee, tea, soft drinks, alcohol and milk all act differently from water and are not necessarily hydrating. Also, caffeine and caffeine-like substances can ultimately dehydrate your body as they cause you to urinate more than the volume of the water contained in the beverage.
Alcohol causes your kidneys to flush out water and is thus ultimately dehydrating.

Beverages are not the only way of hydrating your body. Foods are also responsible for this essential process. Foods can be divided up into two basic groups regarding their hydrating qualities. The first group is made up of concentrated foods and this includes all proteins, fats and starches. Examples of concentrated foods are bread, meat, cheese, fish, eggs, tofu, pasta, nuts, seeds and beans.

The second food group is watery foods such as fruit and vegetables. Clearly they vary in the amount of water they contain. Fruit like watermelon has a much greater percentage of water in it than an apple. Likewise a squash has more water in it than a potato.
It has been suggested by some nutritionists that the ideal proportion of watery foods to concentrated foods should be 80% watery foods to 20% concentrated foods. Even if you were to narrow this margin considerably to 60% watery foods to 40% concentrated foods it is still drastically different from a typical Australian diet.