Hydration

Hydration is the body's ability to absorb water, the vital liquid it needs, and is based on how much is available to it. Every cell, tissue, and organ requires fluid to perform functions such as maintaining temperature, disposing of waste products and etc...

About 70% of an adult body is made up of water. We all need water to survive, yet there are many misconceptions about this basic element of life.

The primary mechanism by which we maintain our hydration is thirst. Thirst is a powerful emotion that motivates us to eat and drink. Thirst is actually serves two functions in our body.

• It regulates the concentration of salt and electrolytes in our blood.
• It regulates the overall volume of water in our body.

The other mechanism that regulates fluid in our body is urination. Urine color is actually a pretty good measure of the hydration state of your body.

Another way our body loses water is through sweating. sweating primarily is a mechanism to regulate body temperature, but it involves excreting saline from our sweat glands.

What about myths?

Average human needs to drink 8 glass of water everyday

This myth originates from food and nutrition board which calculated the average water need for average adult with average activity and environment. And they came up with this result. However in the same report they also noted that most people get 20% of their fluid intake from food. Even if you need 8 glass of water, that doesn't necessarily means it has to be pure water.

By the time you're thirsty, it's too late. It means you are already dehydrated

Being thirsty != dehydrated

In general, you can actually rely on your thirst emotion. Because you will become thirsty long before you are actually dehydrated. Thirst works and you don't have to force fluid when you don't feel like drinking.

Vitamins & Nutrition

Should we take a multivitamin every day, or can we get all the nutrition they need from the food they eat? Vitamins are those nutritional substances that are essential to health in tiny amounts but that an organism cannot manufacture in sufficient quantities itself. Therefore, you have to get vitamins from food.

So how do we can get optimal nutrition? There is general agreement in scientific community that the best way to get good nutrition is through a well-balanced diet. A healthful diet should emphasis on the following:

• You should eat about 2 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of vegetables per day. Try to pick from the different subgroups of vegetables, including dark green vegetables, orange vegetables, legumes, and starchy vegetables.
• You should get 3 or more ounce equivalents of whole grain products per day, with the rest of your carbohydrates coming from either enriched or whole grain products.
• You should have 3 cups per day of fat-free or low-fat milk or equivalent milk products.
• To round out your diet, you should get protein from lean meats as well as eggs, nuts, and legumes.

So do we need to take vitamins every day? In fact, most of the people can live a healthy life without routinely supplement. But keep in mind we are talking about the general population, subpopulations like children and pregnant women are different situations. Of course it's still better to fulfill the nutrition needs of a growing children by foods, but i know how hard it is now days.

In general, the best advice is, take it easy! Don't get overwhelmed with different types of nutrition advices. Eat variety of foods and you are probably fine. But keep in mind that, getting vitamins from food is generally preferable, but there's nothing inherently wrong with taking vitamin pills when needed.

Weight loss and dieting

You don't want to involve in some kind of elaborate scheme that you are not going to be able to really maintain that in long term. I refer to something like calorie counting. It's better to use something that is simple and easy to follow to keep general track of how many calories you are eating. This can include writing down what you eat.

How many calories does a average person needs? This is highly dependent on number of variables like age, weight and level of activity. An average man need about 2500. An average women around 2000 calories. But of course, somebody with a very high degree of activity like running a marathon, may need to eat as many as around 3000 calories per day.

Weight management simply comes down to calories consumed versus calories expended(forget about things like late night eating and blah blah). To weight loss, you need to consume fewer calories than you burn. But how much? Most people can sustain about 500 of calorie-defict quite easily.

What about exercise? Well, exercise definitely burns calories, but no as much as you can effect with your eating habits. We are definitely not advising against it. Exercise is great for health(and for get in shape as you weight loss). But it can't be so much effective for weight loss if you don't combine it with calorie control.

Natural is always better

The belief that "natural is always better" is a common misconception, known as the naturalistic fallacy. For example, a vitamin C molecule from rose hips and one made in a lab are chemically identical—there’s no test that can distinguish between them, and the body uses them in exactly the same way. This shows that the label "natural" doesn’t necessarily mean something is safer, more effective, or superior.

In reality, the term “natural” is often used more for marketing than for scientific accuracy. Many natural substances can be harmful, while many synthetic products are safe and life-saving. What truly matters is the evidence behind a product’s safety and effectiveness, not whether it came from nature or a laboratory.