Too Much Water?

[Tafman]

wondering if drinking too much water is bad. i just got back from the gym and over 2 hours (no cardio) i drank 2 gallons of water. i was doing back and chest and took really long breaks inbetween sets (also to go piss 5 times).

earlier in the day i already had drank about 1.5 gallons of water.

now im eating some cottage cheese and drinking more water. so about 4 gallons just today, in the last 13 hours. is this ok or not healthy? i drink alot bc i love water and i had a kidney stone once, and i take creatine so i dont want anymore problems.

-also my gut has been getting rounder and bigger like a beer gut, can water do that?

 

[Brat]

wondering if drinking too much water is bad. i just got back from the gym and over 2 hours (no cardio) i drank 2 gallons of water. i was doing back and chest and took really long breaks inbetween sets (also to go piss 5 times).

earlier in the day i already had drank about 1.5 gallons of water.

now im eating some cottage cheese and drinking more water. so about 4 gallons just today, in the last 13 hours. is this ok or not healthy? i drink alot bc i love water and i had a kidney stone once, and i take creatine so i dont want anymore problems.

-also my gut has been getting rounder and bigger like a beer gut, can water do that?

You might be getting too much water...it is possible...it's called hyponatremia, which is basically a condition where your body is not getting enough sodium...

Here's what Runner's World says about hyponatremia:
When you saturate your body with water, you can develop a life-threatening condition known as hyponatremia, a shortage of sodium in the blood. It occurs when runners sweat excessively, lose too much salt, and then drink excessive amounts of water -- which dilutes the blood's sodium content even more.

This imbalance can cause fatigue, weakness, cramping, nausea, vomiting, bloating and puffiness in the face and fingers, dizziness, headache, confusion, fainting and unconsciousness, pulmonary edema (fluid in the lungs), seizures, coma -- and sometimes even death.

Read the whole article here: http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,5033,s6-78-0-0-438,00.html

Just be careful with how much you're drinking, especially during your training time...Drinking water is great...Drinking too much can be dangerous...But only you can really determine if it's too much...

 

[Tafman]

alright thanks. usually il drink 2 gallons a day. today i just drank a lot more, dunno why. i dont think i lost that much sodium, i didnt do cardio and sweated not that much lifting.

 

[mjdav]

You should be fine. That is an extreme situation. It usually effects people who sweat for long periods of time and do not replenish their body nutirents. The condition is also known as overhydration. A few people die from this each year, but it is very difficult to get there.

 

[hammer53]

marathon runners have to worry about this, but as long as you intake some sodium (like in a gatorade or cottage cheese) no need to worry. Drinking lots of ice cold water is an excellent way to burn calories. Your body has to expend heat energy (calories) to raise the temperature of that ice water to body temperature (think of the expression "piss warm"), hence expend and burn calories by literally doing nothing but drinking water...

 

[mjdav]

I went to a Sports Nutrition Symposium within the last year. One of the guest speakers was Alberto Salazar who was the last great American marathon runner and trainer for our Olympic team. He brought up a good point. Back in the 80's when he ran, we did not have the knowledge we had now about hydration and nutrition. Back then, there few to no stations set up for water. Now, with all our advances, we have not been able to get any better when it comes to competing against the rest of the world.

 

[BronzedGoddess]

I'd only worry about it if you sweat a lot during the day. When I was in basic we'd sweat so much there was white salt rings all over our BDU's and back then they thought over hydrating was the best thing to do. A few kids died in Benning because of it.