23 September 2008

haven't drowned yet

okay, this morning i drank 2 16-oz bottles of water during a 2-hour meeting. and left the meeting thirsty. this was after drinking 16 oz of hot chocolate before the meeting. with my lunch, i drank another bottle. and now, after lunch, i have drunk 2 more bottles.

let's tabulate ... that makes ... 6 16-oz bottles ... which is 96 oz of water today ... which is equal to 12 8-oz glasses.

how many do they recommend? nutritionists recommend 8 8-oz glasses per day. so far, during a period of 8 hours, i have had 12. that's 150% of the recommended. and ... since the water at home doesn't come in 16-oz bottles, i have no idea how much more i will have before the day is through.

yesterday i had 3 bottles before heading home, plus my 16-oz morning hot chocolate and 2 glasses of water with lunch. last week was pretty much the same about 3 bottles a day plus hot chocolate and whatever i drank at lunch.

and the interesting thing is that i don't feel like i am getting too much water: i'm not sick of pouring it down my throat. in fact, i only really notice how much i am drinking because of all the bottles i put in the recycle trash at the end of the day. and the number of times i get up throughout the day to grab more water bottles from the break room. and the fact that our socal audit practice leader (yeah, he's pretty high-up) made fun of my empty water bottles after the meeting this morning. yeah.

my questions are these: how much water is too much? am i going to drown from all this drinking? and would i know it before it happens? are there warning signs? and why can i not stinkin' get enough water in my body?

you know when you reach that point where you're just like, "oh, i cannot drink any more water"; when it just almost tastes gross because you have had too much? yeah, haven't reached that point yet. glug, glug, glug ...

(p.s. -- for all you eco-friendlies out there ... my firm actually just installed a water machine today. so i won't be filling any more landfills with my water bottle waste.)

7 comments:

Em and Ms said...

Whoa, that is a lot of water! I think your body will tell you when you've had too much, or even enough! Meanwhile, drink away! Oh-and you live in CA--you get paid to recycle your bottles! Start cashing in :)

Elise said...

Way to go...I'm always proud because you give 150% to all you do and this, apparently, is no exception. Not sure if you can drown...cha cha will know...better ask before you continue your boozin' :)

Marianne N Doug said...

You can drink too much water...it is called Water Intoxication. Marathoners are familiar with this fact. Since I took up running, it talks about it in every running book I've read. If you drink too much water, you can thin out your blood and not get the electrolytes that you need. That is why athletes usual drink gatorade or vitamin water because they need to replace the sodium in their bodies along with the water they've lost.
(I do remember that you do not like to excerise so that shouldn't be a problem for you but..)
I remember a story of woman who drank water for a radio contestant and then ended up dying the same day. I seemed to remember that she had a really bad headache. Good luck!

Jared said...

Just recycle. No worries.

KTLADY said...

Hey! Sister Bangerter told us about this. Yes, she agreed that you should drink Gatorade like once a week or something to keep your electrolytes balanced. But what do I know? I just admire you for not being a bed-wetter. Or at least I hope you're not a bed-wetter. I sure as heck would be!!! They don't call me "Tiny Tank" for nothing!

Ames said...

I usually follow the similar but a little more flexable rule of drinking half your body weight in water a day. I'm pretty sure you don't weigh 192 lbs, so that still doesn't explain the excess. But really, water isn't bad. If you start peeing TOO MUCH thats when you should slow down. Ethan would be able to tell me what that is called. Something about needing more salt or electrolites. If you don't have a balance of water and those little goodies you'll just pee all the benifit right out of your body.
I think its wonderful that you drink so much water. Not enough people drink enough (or they drink a lot of the opposite dehydrating soda). Its amazing what simple health issues can be improved by drinking more water and adding a little excercise.
Do you feel good? Then keep it up, your body probaby LOVES it!

christianna said...

yeah, it's funny because i haven't become a bed-wetter at all. in fact, i'm not really peeing that much at all, considering the exorbitant increase in water i'm taking in ... hmmm ...
anything think that's a problem?