Drinking water in one half of the day- bad or okay?

October 9, 2008 6:30 PM

Is clumping one's H2O intake into one half of the day okay? I'm busy and constantly on the move until about 5 in the evening, and don't really have time to drink water. I still get my 64oz in, usually between 5pm and 11pm. Is this style of water intake detrimental?
posted by thatbrunette to health & fitness (8 comments total)

You probably dont need 8 glasses a day
posted by norabarnacl3 at 6:41 PM on October 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

Water intoxication due to drinking too much water in a short period of time is possible but rare, and it seems like you'd need to drink a lot more than a few glasses over a few hours.
posted by Jaltcoh at 7:03 PM on October 9, 2008

an easy method to keep tabs on your hydration level through the day is your urine color, although i have no scientific data to confirm how accurate this method really is, and it can easily be voided if you take a multivitamin.

i think the answer to a question like this is going to be very specific to your actual daily routine, and less of a generalized rule. for example, if you take a morning run and don't drink water until the evening, i would say that's a problem. if you work out in the evenings, then you're consuming water when your body needs it most, so that's good to go. etc, etc...

depending on your activity level through the day, your water intake may not be optimal, but i can't imagine any plan that involves 64oz of water per day being detrimental. also remember that lots of foods contain water, vegetables especially. so if you have a salad at lunch you're getting some amount of water from that.
posted by bilgepump at 7:15 PM on October 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

it might help to slug a couple of glasses in the morning before you head out for the day, just to start the day hydrated.
posted by thinkingwoman at 7:32 PM on October 9, 2008

I would surmise that humans did not evolve with a bottle of water in hand, taking carefully monitored sips throughout the day.

Drink when you have time and when you're thirsty. Your body is probably pretty good at sorting out the rest.
posted by erpava at 8:31 PM on October 9, 2008 [4 favorites]

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about water poisoning (over hydration). I've only seen one person afflicted with that, and (long story) he was in a contest with another friend to see who could fill up a 5 gallon jug with urine first. He drank lots of water in this attempt. LOTS.
posted by SNWidget at 9:22 PM on October 9, 2008

I'm not going to try to find it, but some study recently found a correlation between risk of kidney stones and the climate of where in the USA people lived. The connecting mechanism is thought to be that in hotter latitudes, people more often have periods during the day where they are under hydrated, compared to people in colder areas. (Dehydration aids the uric crystal formation that leads to kidney stones)

So if you find that you're usually quite thirsty by the afternoon and are holding out for that 5pm drink, or you notice you often have a dry mouth, then you're not getting quite as much water as you body needs, which presumably will be making it harder on your body in various small ways.
posted by -harlequin- at 11:54 PM on October 9, 2008

As norabarnacl3 points out you don't need to drink that much water. My partner, who has had recurrent kidney stones, had been drinking a similar amount recently after her latest kidney stone. She had an appointment with the Urologist two days ago and was told to reduce the amount to half that (1 litre) as the quantity she was drinking was over working her kidneys (and this is someone who needs to drink more water than normal).

I can not speak as to what the consequences might be, but at 64 oz in 6 hours I would be worried about the stress it putting on your kidneys in light of this.
posted by tallus at 4:07 AM on October 10, 2008