Hydrate or Die!!! (the title is a joke so make sure you keep reading and don't take it as advice)
Have you ever heard that before? “Hydrate or Die!” Sounds intense! Yah, I don’t want to die. It’s about to get warmer and we’re all active. Your kids are in sports and we’re all going to hear this bogus advice on the regular.
But as it turns out, all of what we’ve been told about hydration has come from none other than… Pepsi Co. owners of everyone’s favorite sports drink Gatorade. Consider this. Imagine your company is based around selling sugar water. Easy money, truly. Processed and condensed sugar is addictive, we all love it, throw in some caffeine, also addictive— it sells itself. There will always be a soda industry, just like there’s still a thriving tobacco industry despite the alternatives and the public knowledge of the dangers. So then, how do you sell sugar water to the health conscious crowd? Come up with the sports version of the same product Gatorade and then scare people into drinking lots and lots of it. And actually they didn’t even have to scare us into drinking Gatorade, they just had to scare us into drinking anything. Literally all of the classic guidelines you’ve heard “8 glasses a day” “40oz an hour during activity” etc. has come from bogus science funded by Pepsi.
My favorite, “if you’re thirsty, it’s too late.” I would nod and think, “oh yah, sounds totally logical. Makes total sense.” Stop for a moment. It literally makes zero sense. Without the mechanism of thirst, how would you know to drink? Humans, thousands of years of existence! Thousands of years of eating and drinking driven by… hunger and thirst. Living much much more physically active lives than our modern-selves. Well thank God for Gatorade scientists telling us to ignore our natural mechanisms and to drink ahead of thirst.
Hydrate or Die!? Here’s the rub though. Death caused by dehydration is extremely rare. Not only do the conditions have to be perfect, but there’s also gotta be something wrong with your hormones that regulate thirst. Thousands of years of human history and development, how did we ever survive without 8 glasses a day? Abundant clean water is a modern construct. “Well what about the third world? Aren’t they dying because they don’t have enough water?” Yes, but not from dehydration. Water related deaths or sicknesses happen from drinking unclean water, parasites, bacteria and the like. Actually water deaths that are related to the amount of water you drink, happen from over-hydration. It’s called Hyponatremia. It is rare, but it happens much more than dehydration deaths (they’re basically non-existent). Rare, yes, but caused by the Pepsi/government guidelines.
Our bodies are pretty amazing, you’ll hear us proclaim that over and over again. Think about how hard it is to lose weight. Our drive for preservation is so strong that the hormonal and genetic cards are immensely stacked against us starving and We. Will. Eat. There’s not enough will power (in the absence of serious disorders) to starve yourself. Those same cards are stacked against you dehydrating.
Drink to thirst. Resist your mom/dad instincts (a product of Pepsi/government/buzzfeed/hydration challenge “wisdom”) tell your kids to drink to thirst. If you’re a coach, let your players drink when they want, but don’t force them. For more reading, check out this article, the author also has a great book I recommend that would answer a lot of your questions about other Sportsy-recovery-performance topics like icing, sleep, supplements etc. The book is called “Good to Go” by Christine Aschwanden.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-dont-need-sports-drinks-to-stay-hydrated/?ex_cid=538twitter
And for even deeper reading, check out The Hyponatremia of Exercise on CrossFit.com. it’s a whopping six parts long. If you’re like, “hmm, that’s interesting, I trust Devin, so I’ll take his advice.” Maybe just skim the first article. But if you’re like “I don’t believe you, you’re full of crap. Water all day every day ‘til I die because I’m doing a 6 gallons per day challenge I saw on Buzzfeed.” You should probably consider doing a little more reading from a different perspective.