Eclectic Red Barn: 4 Simple Ways to Stay Hydrated

Thursday, September 15, 2016

4 Simple Ways to Stay Hydrated

Most of us realize that drinking water when it is hot, is essential. However, we need to drink water all the time, not just when the temperatures are high. Water is the key nutrient for the body. You can go many days without food, but only a few days without water.

70% of Americans are living in a chronic state of dehydration. Proper hydration is key to your overall health and protecting yourself from dehydration. This is crucial, because dehydration can seriously impact not just physical well-being, but mental well-being as well.

Are you dehydrated? Learn 4 Simple Ways to Stay Hydrated.

Eclectic Red Barn: 4 Ways to Stay Hydrated

1. Water: The Essential Nutrient
Water is the main component of the human body. You need to keep hydrated. The amount of water you should drink is between 25 percent and 50 percent of your body weight in ounces of water daily. So if you weigh 160 pounds, you typically want to try to get between 40–80 ounces of water a day. Adequate and regular water consumption has numerous health benefits. As an added bonus, it has no calories, fat, carbohydrates or sugar.

2. Eat Water Rich Foods
    Although it is essential to drink lots of water, getting more fruits and vegetables in your diet will have positive impacts on your hydration status. Some of the most hydrating foods include: celery, watermelon, cucumber, kiwi, bell peppers, citrus fruit, carrots, pineapple, iceberg lettuce, radishes. tomatoes, cauliflower, berries, broccoli, and spinach.

In addition to their water content, fruits and vegetables are packed with electrolytes like magnesium, calcium potassium and sodium, and you need to get those good, quality electrolytes in your system because they are key components on how to stay hydrated.

3. Exercise
      If you want to stay properly hydrated, you want to increase circulation throughout your body, and any form of exercise can support this, whether it’s cardiovascular training, burst training, weight training or just going out and walking. Movement increases circulation and can really improve your overall electrolyte levels and actually can help circulate and get more nutrients into your cells.

4. Consume Sea Salt
    The third thing you want to do is get all-natural sea salt — either Celtic sea salt or Himalayan salt — and sprinkle a little bit on your food as well. The benefits of sea salt all center around hydration, because when you drink water, you also need sodium and potassium.

Hydration is so important to our bodies, since it can affect performance decline in sports, sleep quality, mood swings, weight management, memory, poor test results and many others. Maintaining good hydration can be difficult. I know I don't always drink enough water, but what if there was a way that you could monitor your hydration?

BSX Technologies has announced its newest product – the LVL Band (pronounced “level”), the first and only wearable hydration monitor to accurately measure hydration in real-time.

You can learn more about the LVL hydration tracker on Kickstarter. This new technology measures:

hydration
heart rate
sleep quality
activity (steps)
calories burned

The uniqueness about the LVL tracker compared to other wearables that use green light, is that the LVL uses red light (near-infrared light - NIRS). The green light devices measure heart rate and has limited accuracy.

On the other hand red light is used in hospitals and medical applications because of its accuracy. Red light can look 10x deeper into the body than green light and measure 10x as many physiologic signals.

I am so excited to try this amazing new technology and be able to obtain and maintain a more accurate picture of my overall health.

Would you like to learn more about the LVL tracker?

Check out their Kickstarter page!