Why doesn't coffee, tea, lemonade, koolade etc. count as water. This has never made sense in my mind. It all seems like flavored water to me. If I drink a glass of water and eat something that contains a spoon full of instant coffee it would count. But if it is mixed tigether it doesn't?
I'm sure this sounds like I am joking...But I really am that stupid and maybe some others are also...but won't ask...I really don't understand. Could someone carify this?

fwiw i count anything that does not have calories or caffeine as my water... that means my herb teas count as water and i do count my crystal light as water and before folks tell me I'm wrong both my doctor and my personal trainer have agreed with this. in fact they are the ones who suggested it as I never get enough water....

i am a very very thirsty person! i think the first week i started this WOE, drinking enough water was the only thing i did "right!"

i think that a lot of people count their water based beverages for their daily water intake. i think everyone probably does it differently, but i count my water, iced tea, and chrystal light (cause its so low cal - which is why id check into calories in the kool-aid and sweetened lemonade) towards my total.

usually i drink at least 64oz of water a day, so the tea or chrystal light is either above the total or just to make up a little i might have missed. all that just to say that i have heard that people only count those other drinks towards half tehir water reqs a day. like 32 oz of water; 16 oz of iced tea; 8 oz chrystal light; 8 oz coffee = 64 oz water.

hope that helps and good luck!!

The phrase is supposed to be fluids, not necessarily just straight water. That also happens to include fruit that has a high liquid content.

I friend of mine who is a personal trainer thinks that the "water myth" is a conspiracy propogated by the bottled water industry to sell more tap water priced higher than we are even paying for gas now.

If your lips and nose feel moist and aren't drying out, you're doing just fine.

Your body has to remove the additive - coffee, crystal lite, etc. from the water before it can use it. So I think that is why they recommend at least 3 cups of plain water a day.

Wow. I didn't know there were so many different points of view on this topic. I'm glad I asked...but more confused than ever!??!

I believe that caffine actually dehydrates the body and therefore it doesn't "count". In fact, you should drink MORE water to make up for it, according to some sources.

Eating veggies & fruits is another way to "get" your water in. Cucumber, watermelon, greens, tomatoes are just a few on the high water content list.

I have read that this is not true. Depends on what you read I guess. Here is a link to an article about this.

http://www.ific.org/foodinsight/2002...hydnbfi402.cfm

Yes, there certainly are conflicting views out there. I don't know who to believe. I personally drink sugar free drinks, caffinated drinks and plain ole' water and eat lots of fruits and veggies. This way, I've got all the bases covered.

Caffeine dehydrates the body. It's a drug, so it gets metabolized by the liver and broken down into three different molecules. One of these molecules increases urine output. I dunno about you guys but when I drink an excess of caffeine I feel really bloated because of all the extra water I'm retaining to compensate. Caffeine, like alcohol, is definitely a diuretic.

The article murphmitch posted seems to agree with the fact that caffeine is a diuretic and that the degree to which it affects you depends on your tolerance...like any drug. I usually have one cup of coffee in the morning and feel fine...but on days when I'm really tired and drink 3 or more I feel gross. It's the same reason some people need two or three cups of coffee in the morning to get going while someone else, who never drinks coffee, could have one cup and be bouncing off the walls all day. It's all about your tolerance.

I've read several articles over the past year or so that state that coffee is not the diuretic it has been thought to be. What I get from the article that murphmitch posted is that coffee is as much of a diurectic as water--i.e., both will make you pee more if you drink enough of them. If you drink a lot of any beverage, you're going to go to the bathroom more. Plus, it is now thought that coffee may have a number of health benefits, including possibly the prevention of diabetes, heart disease, and Parkinson's Syndrome.

My most recent issue of Nutrition Action newsletter including an interview with a doctor that has authored several textbooks on kidney function and water balance (unfortunately the article isn't available online, but it's in the June 2008 newsletter). He agreed that coffee is not a diuretic in the amounts that people normally drink (same thing for alcohol, incidentally, if you limit yourself to a cocktail or two). He also agreed with Operator265's trainer that the advice to drink two liters of water a day is a myth that has been exploited by the bottled water industry. His advice was to drink what you normally drink with meals and drink in between meals if you're thirsty.

And not only do just about all fluids, flavored or not, count towards your water intake, but so do most foods. Almost everything we eat has some amount of water in it. Even bread has water in it and that water counts towards your daily fluid consumption. One article that has info on this is "Fluid Fundamentals," which appeared in a recent issue of Cooking Light.

I do think that beverages can be helpful in terms of making you feel full and I generally try to drink an 8 to 12-oz beverage with most meals and snacks, for this reason alone. But I definitely still feel like I'm properly hydrated if I don't do this.