Day 11: Rest Day + Hydration
It’s another rest day! These rest days are essential. We are going to have a lot of them in this Cardio Party.
On this rest day, I want to talk about another topic that is essential to healthy cardio: hydration.
Typically, people who do cardio think that if they drink a big glass of water (or sports drink) after a workout, then that’s all the hydration they need. That is further from the truth! Exercise makes us thirsty, which prompts us to drink water. And this is good. But- we actually need to be drinking water each and every day- even when we aren’t doing any exercise. This is actually part of the cardio prep routine.
You see, if your body is properly hydrated, then it is better prepared for pain, injury and flare-up free exercise.
The typical hydration recommendation is that we are supposed to drink our half our body weight in water each and every day. Most of us don’t do that, and many of us don’t come even close to that. (Coffee doesn’t count.)
Here’s how to calculate how much water you should be drinking. Take your body weight (or estimated body weight) in lbs and divide that number in half. That number is the number of ozs you should be drinking daily. For example, if a person weighs 150 lbs, they should be drinking 75 oz of water a day.
Hear me on this though: if you are not drinking the amount of water you need (or even close to it), that’s okay. I don’t want you to feel badly about it or talk negatively to yourself about it. I also don’t want you to go and inhale tons of water to meet this goal today. If you aren’t drinking that much, I don’t recommend that you attempt to switch to drink that much. You’ll be peeing all day! What I do want to encourage is a change of mindset and little baby steps towards making this a new and focused habit.
So, here’s what we are going to do. You know your water goal now. Write down your goal water intake somewhere (alongside your steps perhaps). Then, for the next few days, I want you to pay attention to how much water you are drinking. That’s it! No new change just yet- but paying attention and noticing is the beginning of a new focus, which leads to new habits.
And then when you are ready, I want you to add an extra glass of water. Let your body adapt to that new add for a week or two, then add another glass- and so on. That’s how we slowly increase. (Don’t worry, this will come back around in the Cardio Party, so we can do it together. I just want you to know where we are headed)
Baby steps, Autoimmune Strong style- even when working on hydration.
So… let’s talk about water. Are you drinking it each and every day? How much?? Have you been focusing on your hydration before this or is this new to you?
Can you add an additional glass of water to your daily hydration routine? You can add electrolytes too- either in the form of coconut water, watermelon water, or these nuun tablets that I like.
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