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What Happens if You Drink Too Much Water?
You want to drink water to lose weight, but can you go overboard? What happens if you drink too much water?
Will you still lose weight? Or are there other problems, too?
What Happens if You Drink Too Much Water -- Water Intoxication
The main danger in drinking too much water is that it disturbs the balance of electrolytes in your body.
Electrolyte is a fancy term for salt ions in the body: They are what your body's cells use for "electricity" to pass fluids between cell membranes, and to transmit nerve impulses (like muscle contractions of the heart).
What happens if you drink too much water is that the electrolytes become unbalanced. Nerve impulses can become erratic, and in extreme cases, lead to death.
How Much Water is Too Much?
It's not so much how much in a single day, but how much you drink at a time. Water drinking contests are the main culprit here. In these contests, people try to down gallons at a time. This is how they end up with water intoxication -- their electrolytes are thrown way out of balance, rapidly.
But you can also upset the delicate balance of electrolytes in your system by sweating heavily and not replacing them. For example, the sports drink "Gatorade" is famous for how it was developed -- for a football team that had to practice during the summer heat. Instead of just water, they needed to replace electrolytes lost by sweating heavily. And Gatorade was born.
If you'd like to learn more about water intoxication and what happens if you drink too much water, check out the article in Wikipedia.
Drink Water to Lose Weight
You do need to drink plenty of water in order to lose weight. But when you're doing this, it's spread out over an entire day, and you are consuming food in the meanwhile (therefore replacing electrolytes).
However, if you are at all concerned, you can try drinking 8 ounces of a sports drink a day. Be careful, though -- it has calories, so you don't want to go overboard!
Do all things in moderation, and listen to your body.
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All information presented on this site is for educational purposes only, and is not meant for anyone under 18, pregnant, nursing or under supervision of a physician for a medical condition.
For specific weight loss and fitness questions, or for medical advice and treatment, always consult your medical practitioner.