How Much Water Should I Drink? (and an aside on bottled water)

So I was listening an episode of the podcast Skepticality regarding bottled water... Their take on bottled water is similar to mine... I drink it sometimes more as a convenience factor than anything else... I'll take it in with me to a baseball game when I'm not going to want sugary or alcoholic drinks, If I don't have a water bottle handy I'll get one for the gym, etc. But it's naive to think that bottled water is necessarily from a "better source" than any other water... indeed alot of it's from municipal water sources anyway. Rarely is bottled water any purer than regular old tap water, especially if you filter it in a pitcher. And the price of bottled water is often ridiculous, especially when you consider that it's just water. Not to mention the environmental impact of the millions of plastic water bottles Americans use every year.

As the old saying goes, Evian is just "naive" spelled backwards.

But this is all a digression.... What I really want to talk about is how much water I should drink on a given day. Swoopy, one of Skepticality's co-hosts, said she has a jug that holds 54 ounces, and she drinks at least that every day because that's what she's supposed to drink.

I did some searching for other recommendations... Some sites state the "8 x 8" rule... Drink eight 8oz glasses of water a day, for a total of 64 ounces.

But then I found more sites that recommend even more.... divide your weight in half, and drink that many ounces a day.... At 190 pounds, that means I should drink 95 ounces a day. But I figure some people are more active, weather conditions vary, etc, so I don't really like a one-size-fits all measurement.

I like this calculation because it takes more into account. Drink (in ounces) 50% to 75% of your body weight (in pounds), depending on how active you are. Add 16 ounces each for dry climate and strenuous exercise.

So here's how that works out for me. I figure, even though I have a sedentary desk job, I probably walk more on a given day than the average person, so I'll put myself right at the middle.... 62.5%. 62.5% of 190 is 118.75 ounces.

DC is a very humid climate, even when it's hot, so I'm not adding anything for dry climate. When I go to the gym I drink at least 16 ounces anyway, so the gym pretty much accounts for itself and I'm ignoring the gym and the water I drink there in my equation.

So I have a 34 ounce water bottle at work. If I fill it up three times a day, that's 102 ounces. That leaves 16.75 ounces, which I probably get naturally from food and/or drinking water with dinner, etc. So I think I'm set if I drink my water bottle three times a day.

Drink up!