Michelle Rupp: Joining me now is Jayme Mayo. Jayme, thanks so much for coming in. We are going to talk about how do you know when you’re hydrated?
Jayme Mayo: That’s a great question. It’s really, really important right now. Of course, as we’re in the summer, most people, they think they’re drinking enough. They say, well I’m drinking water all day and I’m drinking. I call them, I call it sugar water. So, it’s Gatorade, Squencher …
MR: So, how do you know what to drink and then when to drink it and then if you’re having enough?
JM: I use a couple of tools to do that. One is we weigh. So, if we’re out, whether we’re working or exercising, we’re in the yard and we weigh and then when we come back in, we weigh again, and the number of pounds we lose, we drink 2 to 3 cups of water per pound. So, if I lost three pounds, I would have, you know, 6-9 cups of water or fluid to replenish that. Another way, and it sounds kind of yucky, is your urine. It’s to look and and sometimes smell. I call it stinky pee. The urine has different colors and those different colors signify some things that are going on in the body. The darker the urine, the more concentrated it is and the more dehydrated you are. To make sure that you’re really giving your body what it needs, of course, make sure that the color of your urine is more like lemonade. Clear means you’ve really, really diluted it and you’ll lose a lot of electrolytes that way. So, if you can have kind of a lemonade color, that’s really the best. When it looks like orange juice and like cola, that’s a no go.
MR: Yeah, I would suspect at that point there’s some damage perhaps being done there.
JM: Potentially, sure, your kidneys, they’re working hard. They’re working way too hard. So we really want to keep it down on the clear to the lemonade color.
And there’s one last way we like to use. When you can take your, your skin, you can pinch it and if it stays tinted or pinched, you know, at the top, if it stays there, then you don’t have enough fluid. So if it bounces back, you’re good.
Those are some tips that you can use when you’re out to know if you’re hydrated or not
MR: That’s really good, and I guess that’s universal. I mean, can you take those same tips and apply them to smaller kids, young children?
JM: Absolutely. And we talk about it in the summer because that’s when we’re most familiar. But even in the colder months, you forget to drink because you’re not, you don’t feel like you’re sweating as much. So that’s why the color of the urine and then the pinching the skin are great tools to use any time of the year.
MR: Sometimes I just get tired of drinking water. Can I eat watermelon? Can I eat cucumber? What are some of the foods that would still be hydrating, that I could maybe get some of those benefits without just constantly drinking glass after glass?
JM: Another great question. Any of your fruits are going to be great options, especially if water is in the word. Watermelon, melons are always perfect. Honeydew, cantaloupe. Your berries are really good, strawberries, blueberries, cherries. I love a good peach or a plum. So, if there is juice running down my arm dripping off my elbow, then I know that is a great fruit or a vegetable to use.
MR: Okay, well that’s great Jamie, this is all very, very fascinating information and stuff we need to know to. So, thank you.
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