How much water should you drink each day?

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Every day you lose water through your breath, perspiration, urine and bowel movements. For your body to function properly, you must replenish its water supply by consuming beverages and foods that contain water.

A couple of approaches attempt to approximate water needs for the average, healthy adult living in a temperate climate.

Replacement approach. The average urine output for adults is 1.5 liters a day. You lose close to an additional liter of water a day through breathing, sweating and bowel movements. Food usually accounts for 20 percent of your total fluid intake, so if you consume 2 liters of water or other beverages a day (a little more than 8 cups) along with your normal diet, you will typically replace the lost fluids.

Dietary recommendations. The Institute of Medicine advises that men consume roughly 3.0 liters (about 13 cups) of total beverages a day and women consume 2.2 liters (about 9 cups) of total beverages a day.

Even apart from the above approaches, it is generally the case that if you drink enough fluid so that you rarely feel thirsty and produce between one and two liters of colorless or slightly yellow urine a day, your fluid intake is probably adequate.

[Perfection]

Thank you for the nice & useful info.

I normally drinks 3 to 4 litre water a day. On a hot day at outdoor one has to consume 4 litre plus water/liquid. To compensate the loss of minerals due to perspiration, one has to take ORS (salt-sugar mixture in water) . Otherwise the severe dehydration will cause health problems.

When walking at high altitude, one will not feel thirsty. Still drinking of plenty of water is advised.

[buslady]

lets not take into account that you also eat things full of moisture...fruit and veggies also count for water intake.