Weight-Loss Death by Drinking TOO MUCH Water

Weight-Loss
For the weight loss challenge at my office our challenge last week was drinking water and they really stressed that whole DON'T drink too much. Some of the people in my office really didn't know it was dangerous for you. I was suprised that someone really didn't know that.
 
I had know idea, it could be harmful.

Chip
 
I am a BIG drinker of water. I drink any where from 1-2 gallons a day depending on if I go to the gym, running arrands and so forth. the days I drink more than a gallon I increase my sodium intake and will also take a great electrolye supplememt called stamina. Gatorade has too much sugar for me.

Drink for thought
 
I got sick before from drinking too much. I was working at a motorcycle race on the course, like 95 and bright sun. Kept drinking water,, feeling worse and worse. I thought I had heat exhaustion, but after being real sick overnight and seeing a Dr next morning he said too much water(had 3 gallons in a couple hrs) and should of had some gatoraide or something to get my other levels up. Now I mix my water with pedialite or gatoraide inthe summer heat.
Steve
 
One thing to keep in mind....

Before everyone gets too crazy worrying about water, remember there was more to this stunt that was harmful. Not only did she have to take in enormous amounts of water, but she was also not allowed to void any, as in pee for hours. So her body couldnt even naturally eliminate it, which I cant see anyone under normal circumstances doing. Had she been able to pee as her body required, she may have been fine.

All in all a dumb idea but that was the shock value the station was going for. But realistcally not something the average person ever needs to worry about. I would be more worried about drinking too little to the point of dehydration, which is a MUCH more common problem for most people these days. Especially when exercising. Too many people dont realize they are even thirsty yet suffer from the negative side effects of simple dehydration. I know.... Been there, done that...

So dont give up on water yet, just dont go crazy.....

sirant
 
Actually, Sirant, the biggest problem in marathons these days is people drinking too much water.
 
Thats true Tom, However....

TomO said:
Actually, Sirant, the biggest problem in marathons these days is people drinking too much water.
Click to expand...

How many of us are running marathons these days? :) Really.....:rolleyes:

Certainly not me, but I wouldnt mind.... If not for all that damn running. Besides, those people are a breed unto themselves. Marathons races where someone "doesn't" keel over are few and far between. Water related or not, deaths in marathons are an all too common occurence.

But really, aside from the sensationalism in the news, how many average joe blows (like us) would ever even purposefully sit down and drink 2 gallons(or more) of water in one sitting? I doubt very much it is a big issue. I would think sitting down and driking that much beer is much more of a danger, yet I know people who do that all the time. However tell them not to pee..... :)

This woman did it under obligation to a contest, not losing weight or an attempt to rid herself of dehydration. Plus, as I mentioned, she was directly told not to pee, which from what I heard was also a large part of the problem.

My fear from these kinds of sensationalised stories is people will get the wrong ideas. Folks who were never ever in any danger of "drinking water to death" may all of a sudden develop an aversion to drinking water because so much is said about it after a particular, media frenzy. In such case a person could actually stop drinking enough water to remain healthty in the overblown fear it will kill them. I have suffered for years with the headaches, body aches, weight gain and other related issues that come with dehydration, as too many of us in our society have. It would be a crying shame to get everyone on the dehydration bandwagon just because of a radio stunt.

Fact of the matter is, unless you are drinking LARGELY excessive amounts of water in one sitting, to the point of being uncomfortable (which if you listen to the telephone transcript you will see is the case) the average person, not marathon runner or extreme athelete, really is in no danger of impending water realted death, unless swimming of course.

Once I start running marathons I will take it into further consideration, but for now I will still continue to drink my 8-10 glasses throughout the day, and I hope everyone else does the same....

sirant
 
Last edited:
Sirant has a VERY good point. Something like this rarely happens and people use it as an excuse to chug down gatorade or some other sugary drink when all they are doing is going for a walk or sitting at a desk. Drinks like that are for people who are running marathons and playing 4 hour long basketball games. Not the average joe who won't be able to lose weight taking in all that excess sugar :)

~Nicole
 
Last edited:
Is this that "hold your wee for a wii" thing? What a stupid woman, what a stupid game. Now her kids have a games console but no mother, great.
 
sirant said:
Before everyone gets too crazy worrying about water, remember there was more to this stunt that was harmful. Not only did she have to take in enormous amounts of water, but she was also not allowed to void any, as in pee for hours. So her body couldnt even naturally eliminate it, which I cant see anyone under normal circumstances doing. Had she been able to pee as her body required, she may have been fine.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I was going to say. In short it wasn't the fact that she drank the water, it was the fact that she didn't void it out.

I drink at least a gallon of water a day. My skin looks better, I'm more regular, it's helping me lose weight, ect... I think this whole "water is bad" thing is kind of ridiculous. I would imagine if you chug down 3 gallons of anything over a very short period of time it would be bad for you, your body isn't meant to handle that but I would also think that would be common sense. I also don't buy the main problem for marathon runners is drinking to much water. From what I've heard, they have more problems from not drinking enough.
 
Yes, it's possible.
We shouldn't drink more than 4L of water per day...
If we drink more than that, we'll be as my nutrition teachers say "drunk with water".
Our blood gets dissolved, we're really harming kidneys cause they are not used to manage so much water and it can lead us to kidneys disease later, our brain suffers too (because the blood is dissolved)... Our blood pressure gets high... Well it's really dangerous... So, I'd say 2 to 3 L per day is great... more than 4 I wouldnt recomend, what's the point of caring with your body if you're harming it this way?

Edit: of course if you pee a lot too, you wont get high blood presure, but you are still harming kidneys...
 
Last edited:
This might help clear some things up....

I took this quote form About.com which summed it up pretty well in the last parpgraph. If you want to read the whole article, click here.

"It's Not How Much You Drink, It's How Fast You Drink It!

The kidneys of a healthy adult can process fifteen liters of water a day! You are unlikely to suffer from water intoxication, even if you drink a lot of water, as long as you drink over time as opposed to intaking an enormous volume at one time. As a general guideline, most adults need about three quarts of fluid each day. Much of that water comes from food, so 8-12 eight ounce glasses a day is a common recommended intake. You may need more water if the weather is very warm or very dry, if you are exercising, or if you are taking certain medications. The bottom line is this: it's possible to drink too much water, but unless you are running a marathon or an infant, water intoxication is a very uncommon condition."

Dont stop drinking water because you think you will die people. Just dont drink gallons of it in a sitting.

sirant
 
Also from About (Same article)

It's Not How Much You Drink, It's How Fast You Drink It!

The kidneys of a healthy adult can process fifteen liters of water a day! You are unlikely to suffer from water intoxication, even if you drink a lot of water, as long as you drink over time as opposed to intaking an enormous volume at one time. As a general guideline, most adults need about three quarts of fluid each day. Much of that water comes from food, so 8-12 eight ounce glasses a day is a common recommended intake. You may need more water if the weather is very warm or very dry, if you are exercising, or if you are taking certain medications. The bottom line is this: it's possible to drink too much water, but unless you are running a marathon or an infant, water intoxication is a very uncommon condition."

Water Intoxication & Hyponatremia
 
Last edited:
I drink 3 - 4 litres of water a day. I didn't realise I drank so much until I checked exactly how much our glasses hold, and it's a lot more than I thought. My problem is that I don't very often feel thirsty. My first sign that I haven't drunk enough water is that I start to get a headache, so I have to make sure I keep drinking regularly throughout the day. I get the same problem (headaches) when I haven't eaten enough as well, and the headache usually starts before the hunger gets strong enough for me to want to bother doing something about it.

I find I need to drink a lot more water during my TOM. Not sure if any other ladies here have the same problem?

I used to work in a hot kitchen, and I made sure I drank at least one of the standard 250ml/8oz glasses of water every hour. During my TOM I had to increase that to one every half hour, and that didn't always totally keep the headaches at bay.
 
Kaika said:
Also from About (Same article)

It's Not How Much You Drink, It's How Fast You Drink It!

The kidneys of a healthy adult can process fifteen liters of water a day! You are unlikely to suffer from water intoxication, even if you drink a lot of water, as long as you drink over time as opposed to intaking an enormous volume at one time. As a general guideline, most adults need about three quarts of fluid each day. Much of that water comes from food, so 8-12 eight ounce glasses a day is a common recommended intake. You may need more water if the weather is very warm or very dry, if you are exercising, or if you are taking certain medications. The bottom line is this: it's possible to drink too much water, but unless you are running a marathon or an infant, water intoxication is a very uncommon condition."

Water Intoxication & Hyponatremia
Click to expand...

Do you have an idea of how much blood kidneys filter in a day?
When they say you can filter 15 liters a day, they dont say it's fine to drink too much water... Kidneys can filter a lot of water so you dont die, but it doesnt mean they like it...
If you're going to google it then dont choose just what calms your mind, read it all...

"Whenever you disregard your sense of thirst and strive to ingest several glasses of water a day just because you have been told that doing so is good for your health, you actually put unnecessary strain on your body in two major ways:

1. Ingesting more water than you need can increase your total blood volume. And since your blood volume exists within a closed system - your blood circulatory system - needlessly increasing your blood volume on a regular basis puts unnecessary burden on your heart and blood vessels.
2. Your kidneys must work overtime to filter excess water out of your blood circulatory system. Your kidneys are not the equivalent of a pair of plumbing pipes whereby the more water you flush through your kidneys, the cleaner they become; rather, the filtration system that exists in your kidneys is composed in part by a series of specialized capillary beds called glomeruli. Your glomeruli can get damaged by unnecessary wear and tear over time, and drowning your system with large amounts of water is one of many potential causes of said damage."
 
Polka said:
Do you have an idea of how much blood kidneys filter in a day?
When they say you can filter 15 liters a day, they dont say it's fine to drink too much water... Kidneys can filter a lot of water so you dont die, but it doesnt mean they like it...
If you're going to google it then dont choose just what calms your mind, read it all...
Click to expand...

Thank you for injecting some sanity into the whole discussion about water. Everywhere you go on the net, people are proclaiming that water is the new miracle cure for losing weight. They're claiming that we need to drink pure water, that the H2O in food and other beverages doesn't count, that we're constantly dehydrated, etc. All this, with nary a shred of scientific evidence to back it up.

No one's disputing that water's important. You DO need to get enough of it. But I find this idea that you have to walk around with a water bottle all day long or else you'll get dehydrated to be utterly ridiculous.

On top of that, it puts a lot of pressure on people who can't go an pee every 30 minutes. What if you're a teacher? You can't be leaving the classroom all the time. Even if you're a regular office worker, your boss is likely to look askance if you're getting up to go to the bathroom twice an hour.

The fact is, the vast, vast majority of people are NOT dehydrated. They will be just fine if they drink when they are actually thirsty. Not only that, they will lose weight, too, if they have an energy deficit.

The mythology about water is just like that about the "thermal effect of food." Yes, the thermal effect of food is a real thing, but if you plan your entire weight loss regimen around it, you are in for a real surprise.
 
Carrying around water with you all day isn't going to hurt you either. If you ingest a rather large amount if one sitting, of course it will make you sick, just like anything else.

Polka said:
Do you have an idea of how much blood kidneys filter in a day?
When they say you can filter 15 liters a day, they dont say it's fine to drink too much water... Kidneys can filter a lot of water so you dont die, but it doesnt mean they like it...
If you're going to google it then dont choose just what calms your mind, read it all...
Click to expand...

First of all, I did read it all and second, my mind didn't need calming to begin with. I know how much water to drink.

My point is, is people are getting paranoid about this water thing, that and you have to ingest a rather large amount in order for it to be detrimental to your health. Water is good for you plain and simple. Like I said before, too much of anything isn't good. It doesn't take a genius to know that if you drink gallons of water in a short period, it's going to make you sick just like anything else would.
 
I do agree with both sides here. Everything in moderation. Water is definately needed, but not needed to be overdone. There's no point in arguing about water, the only thing that's important is to make sure you get enough water. Sure you get water from things you eat like fruits and veggies, but a lot of people don't eat enough, so drinking water is necessary. The only thing is to do it in moderation, don't drink gallons in one sitting. Basically like with anything, including food and exercise, just don't over do it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top