Can You Count Tea With Your Daily Water Consumption?

[Wildest Bill]

I mean that is all it(tea) is anyway is water with some tea leaves in it for flavoring. So can you count it as daily water cosumption or can you?

You see I am drinking a gallon of water a day and water gets old after a while.

Also how does drinking alot water make you lose weight? It seems like it would put more weight(at least water weight)on you?

Thanks.

[Ice Wolf]

Just some idle thoughts ...

As tea contains an active diuretic, you'd probably end up pumping out more than you take in. Try drinking cordial -- sans sugar if you're trying to lose weight.

[beagledave]

Well some teas have caffeine in them..which makes you pee more..I would suspect those (and coffee and Pepsi etc..) would probably not equate to the equivalent amount of plain water.

[dr hermes]

If the tea has caffeine in it (and it usually does), you will end up having to drink more water to make up for the tea.

Caffeine is a diuretic, causing you to urinate more, and you have to drink more water to replace the loss. It's like drinking salt water, in that you end up losing water and make things worse.

People who drink a lot of soda, coffee and tea are usually dehydrated to some extent.


How about seltzer or club soda, both carbonated but free of caffeine or artificial coloring?
Also, many of my friends enjoy those packets of Emergen-C {TM?}powder which fizz, add flavor and a heap of needed vitamins and help you to hydrate yourself up.

[DoctorJ]

Caffeine is a diuretic, but I don't think the diuretic effect is strong enough to make you lose more fluid than you took in with the tea.

I'd say you can count it as water, but not 1:1. How much tea=how much net water probably depends entirely on your own metabolism.

Dr. J

[handy]

It's been talked about before, it was never the amount of water per day but amount of fluids. How about some nice no caffeine tea WB?

[Gut]

Originally posted by Wildest Bill

Also how does drinking alot water make you lose weight? It seems like it would put more weight(at least water weight)on you?


IANAD but I believe the reason is that if are not drinking enough water your body will try to store as much of what you do drink that it can. So drinking a gallon a day means your body doesn't have to store any water. Your body uses what it needs for various body processes and lets you piss out what it doesn't need. I don't believe you can count the tea towards your water intake. This is for bodybuilding right? Anything I've ever read about the gallon of water per day rule says other liquids do not count towards the gallon of water.

[SSgtBaloo]

I'm not an expert, and only post the following in the hopes that someone else read the article to which I refer and can provide the reference which escapes me.

ISTR reading a recent article on this very subject. It basically stated that the belief that diuretic drinks would dehydrate you was largely false. People who habitually consumed significant amounts of caffeine adapted to the caffeine. In other words, the expected increase in urine production due to caffeine consumption did not appear in persons who habitually consumed caffeine. Their bodies "learned" not to overproduce urine when stimulated by caffeine.

Something like that anyway. Sorry I haven't a clue where I ran across the article. (I searched the SD archives, but drew a blank there.)

~~Baloo

[BobT]

Snopes covered a lot of myths about dehydration:

http://www.snopes2.com/toxins/water.htm

[dr hermes]

I find it doubtful that being in a toxic state from habitual caffeine consumption would lead your body to adapt and not produce more urine.

What's going on there is that your body is not receiving enough wter and your urine will be thicker, darker and more filled with waste. Ideally, urine should be almost clear and odorless.

Last March, I contracted pneumonia and was dehydrated enough to spend two days on an IV> The change from dark yellow to clear urine corresponded exactly with my feeling better.

I working in a health care center and have asked the registered dietitians and doctors about this. Drinking caffeine-containing beverages and not drinking plenty of water strains your kidneys and means you will never feel your best.

[Chronos]

Except for strong alcoholic beverages, pretty much anything you drink is going to be 90+ percent water. If you drink a cup of Kool-Aid, it's no different than drinking a cup of water, and then eating the sugar mix. Ditto for most other beverages, except we're not used to seeing the water separated out from the other stuff.

[dr hermes]

If you drink something, don't its contents get into your blood stream much more quickly than if those ingredients are in food, which has to be digested first?

Kool-Aid, with its electrolytes, is a good remedy for the nausea of being exposed to a little too much sun. A useful tip.

The advantage to drinking straight water is that it doesn't have to carry impurities with it as it goes through your system. Coffee, cola, beer-a good amount of the fluid intake is used transporting the toxins while straight water can pick up and remove impurities from your system as it goes its water out of your body.

This is something where an experiment could be useful. A week of drinking plain, prerferably distilled water and cutting out caffeine. You'd have a headache for a day from the caffeine withdrawal but see if you feel noticeably more clear and fresh a week later.

[capacitor]

I have a friend who had kidney failure. AS part of his treatment, he has to really restrict his daily intake of liquid. Tea, juice, syrup, and content of liquid in foods all count towards the total. I am not sure how I can live like that.

[Cyn]

Originally posted by capacitor
I have a friend who had kidney failure. AS part of his treatment, he has to really restrict his daily intake of liquid...... I am not sure how I can live like that.
Probably be living with it on dialysis.
Anyway...get some decaf tea, add a little fruit juice to flavor the water,add ice---water is much less boring ice cold. You wont go into fluid volume excess drinking a gallon of water a day if you're healthy and active. And don't have end-stage renal failure.

[Sue Duhnym]

Originally posted by handy

It's been talked about before, it was never the amount of water per day but amount of fluids. How about some nice no caffeine tea WB?

handy has a good point. It's very easy to find caffeine-free tea bags. Just brew it in a coffee maker and stick it in the fridge!

[Enola Straight]

A gallon of water a day sounds good, but DON'T drink the gallon at one sitting.
Some kids get the idea that drinking massive quantities of water will flush out their systems, in an attempt to beat a drug test. You'll be flushing out vital electrolytes.
So be sure to ingest a electrolyte supplement. Orange juice and a banana is just fine.

[Kyomara]

As far as why drinking lots of water can help you lose weight...

I read this in one of those forwarded e-mails that gets tossed all over the internet, so beware. But according to this e-mail, water acts as a kind of fuel for your metabolism. In other words, if you aren't getting enough fluids, your body can't burn calories properly. Thus you are more likely to gain weight from the same meal if you are well hydrated.

Can anyone confirm/deny this?

[Wildest Bill]

Man guys thanks for all the great replys and answers. I really appreciate it. If caffeine make you pee more, forget man I am going every 20 minutes.

[handy]

There are certain things that make you pee more, they are soda, citrus drinks & caffeine. All stimulate the bladder to make more urine.

[Guinastasia]

In the summer time, make sun tea! Just put the tea bags in a big glass ice tea pitcher with water and sit it outside in the sun...when it's brewed, pour it over ice-mmmmm...that is the BEST thing in the world!

Also, Kool Aid makes their own berry tea flavors-lemon, strawberry and mixed berry. Yummy.

[SSgtBaloo]

Originally posted by Guinastasia
Also, Kool Aid makes their own berry tea flavors-lemon, strawberry and mixed berry. Yummy.Yep! Ever read the label?"This product contains no tea."Cracked me up to read that, yes indeed!

~~Baloo

[Guinastasia]

Ah, so what? They're sooo yummy!

Seriously, though-decaf sun tea. The best thing since unsliced bread.

[rowrrbazzle]

http://www.urbanlegends.com/medical/eight_glasses_of_water.html

[Markxxx]

I just read in eiher Time or Newsweek,basically stating caffine effect on dehydration is minimal and after awhile your body will adjust.

Alcohol was the only beverage shown to cause you to dehydrate.

It also stated the average person takes in about 4 cups (8 ounces) of liquid a day and most people could get along well without water, though they don't recommend it. The question was where did they get the 8 glasses of water a day.

The article went on to say there is nothing wrong with drinking a lot of water (water poisining is possible but you would have to really try hard to achieve this)

I can say from my own personal experience I was a heavy coffee drinker and have been caffine free now for 4 months and haven't noticed any diretic effect. I go the same now as I always did.

[handy]

Well Markxxx, everyones body handles things their own way. Water makes me pee too, but coffee makes me pee more than the amount of water in the coffee itself.

If one drinks two big glasses of water before sleeping, they can avoid a hangover.