Episode 31: Water, Electrolytes & Dehydration: Are You Actually Hydrated?

Water, Electrolytes & Dehydration: Are You Actually Hydrated?

Everyone tells us to "drink more water." But is that really the best advice?

In this episode of Fit Nerd, we're diving into the science of hydration and uncovering why staying hydrated is about so much more than simply drinking water. We'll explore how electrolytes work inside your body, why sodium isn't the villain it's been made out to be, and how dehydration can impact everything from your energy and workouts to your brain, heart, and hormones.

Whether you're an athlete, a busy mom, someone working outside in the heat, following a low-carb diet, or taking a GLP-1 medication, understanding hydration can make a huge difference in how you feel and perform.

In this episode, we'll cover:

• Why water alone doesn't always hydrate you
• The role of sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and chloride
• Signs you're low on electrolytes
• Common hydration myths (including whether coffee actually dehydrates you!)
• Sports drinks vs. electrolyte supplements
• Hydration tips for athletes, ranchers, GLP-1 users, and anyone living an active lifestyle
• Practical ways to know if you're drinking enough

As always, we're taking the latest science and breaking it down into something practical you can actually use in everyday life.

So grab your favorite water bottle (hopefully with some electrolytes 😉), and let's nerd out about hydration.

website link: https://www.healthandbeautybyabbeybell.com/

amazon store front: https://www.amazon.com/shop/ranchwifemamma?ref=ac_inf_tb_vh&ccs_id=a22c21e2-fe60-4e00-a192-8aab4350e1ef

XMD peptides: https://www.xmdwellness.com/en/AbbeyBell

Watch episode on youtube: https://youtu.be/ysZAAmXR9j4

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to Fit Nerd. So I want to talk to you guys today about hydration. This is something that us as ranchers in New Mexico deal with a lot making sure our hydration is correct. I am lucky that I am not working outside in the elements every day like my husband and my kids typically are. But I wanted to really dive into this because I find it to be very important for my family. And it's something that I am concerned about with myself often. And I think it affects a lot of us. And I think there's a lot of confusion here. Am I dehydrated? How do I hydrate? What do I do? How do I take care of this? Um, which companies are the best ones to drink? What do I need to look for? So when people say drink more water, is that actually good advice? That's what I want to talk to you about today. Um, in this episode, we're gonna be diving pretty deep into one of a very one of the most misunderstood topics in health, and that is hydration. We live in a world right now where everybody is promoting electrolytes and promoting water, and everybody's carrying around a Stanley cup, or we're now they're carrying around new ones, right? Isn't it like I have an Awala cup because my son said that was like the newer thing, got it for me from Others Day. I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. Anyways, we see people carrying around these cups of water, and we need to know if is it good to be pounding that much water? I mean, I used to carry, if you've known me for a while, I used to carry around a milk jug of water in a plastic thing. Obviously, that's changed for me a little bit because I've realized I don't do well with those plastic bottles, but but I that's what I used to carry around with me, and I used to pound that water. Was that good for me? I want to know. So that's why I dove into this topic. Also, people who are athletes, if you are on GLP1s, if you are ranchers, hydration is gonna affect you differently no matter what. So depending on what you're doing with your body, if you're somebody who sits at a desk all day, you don't have to worry about your hydration as much as somebody who's working outside in 110 degree heat, right? Directly under the sun. But you still need to be hydrated. So let's talk about what hydration does to your brain, to your muscles, to your hormones, to your kidneys, to your heart, to your performance, all of that. We're also going to be talking about some um hydration myths and um hopefully keep it fun so you guys stay interested. Grab your water, grab your Stanley cup, and hopefully put some electrolytes in it. Let's get into this. Hey friends, and welcome to the Fit Nerd Podcast. This is the podcast where faith, fitness, and science all collide. I'm Abby, and I'm here to help you work with the body that God gave you so that you can feel stronger, you can feel healthier, and you can feel happier in your everyday life. Around here, we geek out on all the good stuff. I'm talking genetics, nutrition, training, hormones, biohacking, even the spiritual side of health. Because you are fearfully and wonderfully made, understanding how your body works is one of the best ways that we can honor that design. For me, this isn't just about looking good today. It's about feeling good as I age. I want to be fit when I'm old, and I want to enjoy life to the absolute fullest, which means feeling my best. And I want that for you too. So whether you're lifting, running, meal prepping, momming, or just listening on your drive, let's dig into the current fads in fitness, the truth in science, and the hope that we can find in faith so you can make the best choices for the amazing body that God gave you. This is the Fit Nerd Podcast. Let's get started. So, we hear all the time, you have to drink water because your body is mostly made of water. Is that true? Is that really true? I mean, yes, we are as humans, we're composed of about 60% of water. Um, but that's a little misleading, right? Because the water isn't just like floating around like little pools inside of us. Um, your body is carefully dividing that water into what it needs. Two-thirds of that lives inside your cells, one-third lives outside your cells, and that outside water is gonna be your blood, your lymph, your fluid surrounding your organs, joint fluid, digestive juices, gross, but true, uh, spinal fluid, all of that stuff. Every second, your water is moving between those different types of those different compartments in your body. What controls that movement is dun-da-da, electrolytes, not water. So the more water you push isn't gonna change the way that water moves around unless you're unless you're dehydrated, but we'll get into that. Um, but what is actually controlling that movement is electrolytes. When I grew up, I we would drink Gatorade, right? Now we know Gatorade is terrible for you. It's really bad for you, and it doesn't really have that many electrolytes in it. I can picture my dad, you know, we'd go on these bike rides all the time, or runs or whatever. And my dad would uh sometimes stop at the little store in Corralis. If you're from Corrales, you know. We still call it the little store. It's actually called the Frontier Mart, but we call it the little store, still do. Um, but sometimes we'd stop in, we'd get a yellow Gatorade because that was the only one my dad would drink. I think he, I think it's a little less sweet. So we thought it was better for us. Still not great for us. But but that's that's what I grew up with, you know. And then, and then, you know, for years, I don't remember drinking water. I don't remember us in elementary school having to go drink water. I don't even remember that. You know, kids these days always have to have a water bottle with them all the time. Us parents are always pushing the water, pushing the water, pushing the water. Um, and I don't, you know, do we need to do that? That's something I I wanted to look at. Volleyball. I remember playing, you know, all through high school and in college. I didn't carry a water bottle. Like we went to, we would have water breaks, we'd go into the hallway, we'd all drink out of the water fountain, you'd get 10 seconds. If you took too long, you'd have to run. So that's what we got. You know, now my kids are going to practice. I'm like, do you have enough water? Did you get an electrolyte packet? Did you get your BCAs? Do you get your post workout? Do you get your, you know, do the kids really need all that too? So that's what I wanted to get into today. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about what electrolytes are actually doing. If we need them, if we don't need them, what's up? So electrolytes, what are they? They are minerals that have an electrical charge. That's where their name comes from. So they that charge allows our nerves to fire, muscles to contract, our heart to be able to beat, our brain to be able to think. So without them, nothing really works. So we need those electrolytes. I mean, if you are somebody who has ever gotten a muscle cramp during an athletic performance, or if just on a hot day or whatever, that is because you are missing some key nutrients, some key electrolytes there. Your muscles were not able to fire correctly, and um they kind of short out a little bit, is what it feels like. So let's let's talk about the dream team here. Which electrolytes do we need to be looking for in our ingredients and what do they do and how do they work, why they matter? So, first one we're gonna talk about is sodium. I do think that sodium is the most important of all of them simply because if you are somebody who sweats, if you work outside a lot, if you work out a lot, if you are a young kid running around, you are losing sodium in your sweat. So you do have to replace it. I remember being younger at a horse show. I will never forget this. There was a mom who got her daughter some chips and told her, you have to have these. These have salt on them. You need to, you need to eat this. And as a kid, I was like, why? Why do we need to replace salt? Where I don't understand. And so I remember I asked either the mom or the girl, and they said, um, because you're losing salt, you need to replenish your salt. Um, so that was my first interaction really with understanding sodium. Um, sodium is really, really important in our bodies. Okay, so if you have poor sodium, if you have low sodium, it's really, really bad for your body. Like literally, you will die if you don't have enough sodium. It controls your blood pressure, controls your blood volume, your nerve impulses, muscle contractions, your water balance, how the water moves in and out of those compartments, like we talked about. It also transports nutrients into your cell. And sodium is the manager of your body's distribution company. So without sodium, the water has nowhere to go. Um working with that, so this is tapping into my biology days of college, um, is potassium. So um, within all of your cells, you have sodium potassium pumps, and it's what basically allows water to come in and out of your cells. So without sodium, without potassium, the second guy, um, those pumps don't work correctly. So potassium works opposite of sodium. They work, um, they're a team, but they're working opposites. So if sodium stays mostly outside the cells, potassium stays mostly inside the cells. Together, they this they create this electrical gradient that allows those nerves and those muscles to fire off. No potassium, no heartbeat, no muscle contraction, no movement. We need both of those guys big time. I remember when um my kids were little, they caught a flu that uh depleted their potassium, is what the doctor said. They got out of bed one morning, Briggs had it first, and literally his legs did not work. And he was probably five years old and he yelled from his bedroom because he tried to get out of bed and his legs didn't work. I of course thought it was something way worse, you know, rushed him, rushed him to the doctor, which was three hours away, and um was just terrified, you know. All he needed was some potassium. Gave him some pineapple and he was good to go. And then we knew what to do the next day when Raleigh got out of bed and also couldn't move her legs. So um that's why it's important when you have the flu, you got to replenish with electrolytes. People talk about pediolite and everything else. And it's because a lot of times those flus deplete those, um, especially if you've had a fever, um, your body depletes a lot of those minerals out and you need to replenish them. So third in line is magnesium. I truly think the majority of our country is deficient in magnesium unless you are not actively supplementing with magnesium. It is responsible for over 300 enzymatic reactions. So there is also studies that suggest that it is responsible for over 600 biochemical reactions. It helps with producing ATP. You know I love ATP, relaxing muscles, helps your sleep, reduce cramps, support insulin sensitivity, DNA repair, stress regulation. Most Americans do not get enough of it. If you are struggling with sleep, muscle cramps, uh, not going to the bathroom enough, um, you probably need magnesium. Also, a really cool thing about magnesium that I learned um most of the time kids when they have growing pains, it's truly not a growing pain. It is actually magnesium deficiency. So if your kid struggles a lot with that, supplement with some magnesium and uh or some Epson salt baths, should it should help. Make sure you're hydrating though with it, not just by itself. Okay, the next one is calcium. So calcium everybody thinks goes back to your bones, which is true, but that's just a part of the story. With calcium, it's essential for our muscle contraction, blood clotting, hormone release, nerve transmission. Your heartbeat literally depends on calcium. So that guy's pretty important too. Chloride is another one. Chloride, nobody really talks about chloride very much, but it's like the forgotten electrolyte and it works with sodium to regulate that fluid balance and to help make stomach acid. So if you're somebody who um has gallbladder issues, you think you have gallbladder issues, I would start with supplementing chloride. See if that helps your digestion is what suffers when you're low in chloride. So imagine that like every one of your cells has like this little tiny battery, and electrolytes are what charge that battery. Water is simply just the liquid that those batteries are sitting in, but without a charge, nothing happens. So you do truly need those minerals, those electrolytes in there, not just the water. You don't need just the water. And water alone will not hydrate you. And I know this surprises a lot of people. Drinking water does not automatically hydrate your cells, but hydration isn't about what goes into your mouth, it's about what goes into your cells. Hydration is not, I think I used to think that like you're drinking water and it like had places that it was essentially going to. Um, but that's not true. It gets absorbed by our cells. Our cells are what determine how much water gets in and out. But sodium is the key player there because it's the one who determines how the water gets in and out, when the water gets in and out. Um, athletes who only drink plain water during endurance events can sometimes even make themselves sick because we need more than just water. Um, it's not because they were lacking water, but it's because they diluted their sodium. So too much water can actually lower your sodium count. And this is called um hyponeatremia. And it's when you can get a headache, confusion, vomiting, seizures, brain swelling, even death if you have too much water. Um, you know, you hear about some of those athletes that have those endurance athletes that said, Will I drink enough water? Well, no, you need the electrolytes too, because too much water made your sodium not be able to do its job, too. So let's talk about dehydration, um, what that means. So your body loses water all the time, um, just from simple processes like breathing, sweating, of course, going to the bathroom, even while you're talking, you're losing water. So you're losing roughly two to three liters every day, and that's without exercising or without being exposed to extreme heat. Once dehydration occurs, your blood volume will actually decrease. And your heart has to work harder, your temperature rises, your kidneys try to conserve water, your brain notices these things, your hormones shift, and everything changes. So mild dehydration is still dehydration. A loss of just one to two percent of your body weight from fluid can impair your memory, your reaction time, your mood, your exercise performance, decision-making, focus. Um, if you're a student trying to concentrate, a rancher, a hairstylist, a mom chasing toddlers, all of that matters. Being dehydrated can drastically affect the way that your body is functioning. And your body knows that you're dehydrated because your hypothalamus is constantly monitoring your blood. It isn't watching how much water you drink, it's watching the concentration. It's watching the sodium concentration, it's watching how it rises or lowers. And your brain says, hey, you need to go drink. That's when we get that thirst. It's because your your hypothalamus has told your brain, we're, we need some hydration here. At the same time, when that happens, it releases a substance called ADH, which is an antidiuretic hormone. ADH tells your kidneys, hey, save some water, stop wasting it. This makes our urine darker. And that's pretty amazing that our body can do this, right? Um, but the problem is, is it can play a, it can put a big hindrance on our kidneys. And sweat, when we sweat, it's not just water, it also contains sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride. And some people lose double or triple the amount of sodium of others. So that's where genetics comes into play, right? You know how I love that component. You might not be the same as the person sitting next to you on how you sweat. Um, I know playing volleyball, there were those of us that were super sweaters. Those of us who are not, um, you know people who sweat more, but the concentration of someone's sweat, you don't know. You don't know how um how different people sweat, but it is different depending on who you are. Um that's why some runners might finish a marathon smiling while other ones are cramping at mile six. You know, you never know. Um, but you do know if you've done your genetics or if you know your body, if you're somebody who needs more hydration. Um, so signs that you're low on electrolytes. Let's talk about that. How would you know? Well, you're gonna your body's gonna give you signals. You're gonna have things like headaches, fatigue, muscle cramps, dizziness, brain fog, rapid heartbeat, poor exercise performance. You're gonna crave salt, you feel thirsty all day, low blood pressure, or you stand up and you feel a little dizzy. Those can all be symptoms of having low electrolytes. But let's talk about something that is very interesting. My husband doesn't listen to my podcast, thank goodness, because I'm gonna keep telling him the opposite of this. With researching this, I found that coffee doesn't actually dehydrate you quite like we thought. So that is actually a big myth. Caffeine has a mild diuretic effect, but coffee is mostly water. Regular coffee drinkers end up adapting, and uh it still contributes to your hydration. So your morning coffee does count. So, but I'm not gonna tell my husband that. He drinks coffee all day, every day. I might actually tell him, like, because I do tell him everything. So I'll probably end up telling him, but coffee all day, every day, he was told by doctors, can be really hard on his body. Well, what we found out is actually it's actually not that bad on your body. You still do get, it's just a mild diuretic. You do he does need to still have electrolytes, mostly though, because he works outside in the heat. That is a big reason why he needs to. But let's let's so talking about drinks, let's talk about sports drinks. Are they good for you? Are they bad for you? So a lot of sports drinks were marketed to say they're designed for endurance athletes exercising for very long, hard periods. Um, they're not necessarily designed for somebody who sits behind a desk. They most of the time contain artificial colors. They most of the time have high amounts of sugar and only a small amount of electrolytes. So if you are doing an easy 30-minute workout, plain water is oftentimes more than enough for you. But if you're sweating heavily, or if you're working outside, if you run long distances, if you're ranching in the summer, if you're spending hours at a tournament or at the lake or at the beach, adding electrolytes usually is gonna make more sense for everybody. Um, if you've ever started like a keto or a carnivore diet and you felt awful, um, a lot of times, you know, like we did keto for years and you hear about the keto flu. The keto flu is actually just being dehydrated. So um insulin drops, your kidneys release more sodium. Water follows sodium out of the body, so you're losing both at the same time. Um, you end up with headaches, fatigue, brain fog, weakness, muscle cramps. You know, you feel, you feel terrible. It's because you are um, you're just dehydrated. You need to be, you need to be drinking some electrolytes in your water. Um, but also another side of that is GLP1s right now. This is a topic that doesn't get enough attention. People taking a GLP1 medication, such as semaglutide, trisepatide, retotite, retitrutide, um, they often eat and even drink less simply because you aren't as hungry or you're not as thirsty. It does work on those same pathways. Um, but some people, if you're experiencing nausea, diarrhea, constipation, all of which can affect that fluid electrolyte balance too. Um, hydration becomes, hopefully you're not having those symptoms. By the way, if you're having those symptoms, your dose is probably off. But if you are having those symptoms, um, then your your fluid intake, your fluid and your electrolyte balance is a little off. So um hydration becomes especially important when you're on a GLP1 because dehydration can often even worsen those side effects and contribute to more dizziness and increase the risk of kidney problems. So people who end up with kidney problems from a GLP1, if they say, I took a GLP1, I ended up with kidney problems, it's probably because they were not drinking electrolytes and their dose was too high. Um, so if you're taking one of these, don't wait until you're thirsty to hydrate. Um, carry electrolytes around with you and drink them. Um, so when you work out, let's talk about what hydration does while you're working out. You can lose as little as 2% of your body weight and sweat, and it can reduce your endurance and make exercise feel so much harder. And your heart has to beat faster in order to circulate a smaller amount of blood volume. So your body struggles to cool itself even more. You might not actually just feel worse, but you could be performing worse too. So replacing fluids and sodium during long or intense sessions can help maintain performance. Let's talk about how you are you actually drinking enough. It's not like a magic number. You can't just um like the whole idea of like you have to drink this many ounces of water a day. That's completely different for everybody. There's not just say one size fits all when it comes to hydration. Completely depends upon your body size, the climate, the humidity, your activity level, your diet, um, your hormones, whether you're pregnant or breastfeeding drastically changes this because your blood flow, illness, altitude. So a good starting point is to drink consistently throughout the day and increase your intake when you're sweating more or when you're losing more fluids. Um, rather than forcing gallons of water, like I used to do, pay attention more to your thirst. Also, your your pea color, pale yellow urine drant during the day is a good indication that you're hydrated. If you feel like you have normal energy levels, minimal dizziness, and you feel like you recover well from your exercises, you're probably hydrated just fine. I saw somebody on social media a while ago that said they were frustrated that everybody was buying electrolytes when you could just get your electrolytes from proper food intake. Um yeah, I think that that's that's fantastic. If you had um, you know, a plethora of those foods just laying around. We don't always have that luxury out here in the boonies. So um, but let's talk about the foods that are high in those natural minerals and um and water levels. So options are watermelon, cucumbers, oranges, strawberries, tomatoes, celery, broth, milk, coconut water, also avocados, leafy greens, potatoes, bananas, pumpkin seeds, yogurt, beans, pineapple. Those all contain good minerals. If you're eating a ton of those types of things, plus drinking water, chances are you're mostly doing pretty good. So usually some electrolyte supplementation is a good idea. Okay, so I thought this would be kind of fun. Let's talk about some myths and let's talk about whether they're true or not. So, myth number one, uh, clear urine means perfect hydration. Not always. Constantly crystal clear urine can simply mean that you're drinking more water than you need. Number two, salt is always bad. For most healthy, active people, sodium is actually essential. So I get frustrated when people say they're avoiding salt. Don't avoid salt um unless you have been told to because of medications or medical conditions. There's certain medical conditions like uncontrolled high blood pressure, heart failure, kidney disease, and cirrhosis that might require an individual to um to have to alter their salt intake. Um, but for the most part, we all need salt. Um myth number three everyone needs a gallon of water a day. No. Hydration needs are very different, dependent upon the person. Next myth muscle cramps are only from low potassium. No. Cramps are complex. You fatigue, training load, nerve function, sodium losses, hydration status, and electrolyte balance all play a role. So here are some tips, okay, as we close up here. If you're active, you need to be replacing both your water and electrolytes. If you work outside, you need to drink before you're thirsty. If you're sick, you need to drink fluids and electrolytes. If you're on GLP1 medications, make hydration part of your daily routine. If you're on a low-carb diet, don't fear sodium unless you have a medical condition. And if you're carrying around a gallon jug just because TikTok told you to, maybe ask yourself whether your body actually needs that much. If you're drinking that much because of cues it's giving you, or if somebody just told you to do it. So water isn't just something that we drink. It um it's the environment where life happens and every heartbeat, every thought, every muscle contraction, every nerve impulse depends on keeping water and electrolytes in balance within our body. So hydration isn't about chasing a number of ounces, it's about giving your body what actually it needs in order to function. So the goal should not just be more water. The goal is better hydration. So there you go, guys. Hopefully that helps. Um, I will say on my website, I have linked my favorite electrolytes. I also created a blog post this week about um different electrolytes that we've tried. I know there are some in there that I have not tried yet, um, but I want to. Um, but yeah, you can go on my website and see which ones they are. Check out my website for more information on electrolytes and for more information altogether. And reach out if you guys have any questions at all. Thanks for listening, guys. See you later. Thanks for hanging out with me today on the Fit Nerd Podcast. I hope that you leave a little encouraged, a little smarter, and ready to honor the amazing body that God designed for you. If you love this episode, would you do me a quick favor? Hit subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And share this podcast with a friend who's on their own health journey. And remember, you are fearfully and wonderfully made, so stay curious, stay consistent, and keep nerding out on your fitness. Until next time, this is the fit nerd.