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Change Your Body TODAY...SUPERHYDRATE NOW!

By Robert Francis

Instantly fire up your FAT LOSS AND improve your physical condition and performance IMMEDIATELY by the cunning use of SUPERHYDRATION. And I mean NOW...YOU. That's right. Go at once and pour yourself a generous 20 ounce cup of cool water-start drinking and keep reading.

When a prospective personal training student signs with me, it is a matter of routine that prior to their first exercise session I request that they increase their daily consumption of water. Hydration is an absolute essential for life itself and normal function will start failing with water losses of just 1-2 percent of bodyweight. Losses of 7 percent or more can disrupt your delicate internal balance and put you in the hospital on I.V. fluids. Without enough water the body retaliates by retaining the water that it does possess to ward off dehydration. Kidney function becomes impaired and waste products accumulate. This will force the liver to do the work of the kidneys to filter out impurities preventing the liver from doing one of its main functions-METABOLIZING STORED BODY FAT into usable energy. For these, and other reasons I always warn my trainees against the use of saunas, steam baths and hot whirlpools (unless required for injury treatment)since heating the skin leads to sweating and sweating leads to dehydration inducing the body to preserve fat. So even before my prospective client comes into my facility, they have already started on their road to a superior outcome.

QUICK START-FAT BURN

The typically recommended six to eight glasses of water daily are not nearly enough for maximal fat losses and close to irrelevant for ANY meaningful reduction in fat. Large amounts of water needs to be an important first strategy for efficient fat loss. My suggestion to incoming trainees are FOUR QUARTS of water in the 24 hours prior to their introductory workout. That's right-ONE GALLON. Not merely hydration...SUPERHYDRATION!

Water consumption, essential for normal function as it is, in superhydration quantities its effects on both fat loss and exercise performance is nothing short of astonishing. But my prescription for superhydrating also includes another important element for the maximal effect. This water must be consumed ICE COLD. And for a reason that may, at first, not seem so obvious. Water goes into your body at any temperature, but it will always come out at 98.6 degrees-core body temperature. The colder the water you drink, the greater the heat exchange in the body, and remember what a calorie is. It is a heat measurement quantity. One gallon of icy cold (40 degrees F)water will require exactly 123 calories of heat energy to warm it to your core body temperature. And this will be true for EVERYONE since body temperature is a constant and a calorie is the same for all of us.

For most, a gallon of H2O per day sounds like an awesome task and needless to say not everyone is able to get all of it down. That's fine. Setting a mindset in the direction of drinking a full gallon-a-day will make the task seem less daunting, however-and I let all of my clients know this- that the very best fat loss results are always seen in those who drink more, rather than less icy water.

So you think you will have to live in the latrine from now on? At first you will have need to go at a greater frequency. This will change as the body becomes more efficient at eliminating larger quantities of fluid. On the first few nights you will likely be awakened 2, 3 or even 4 times to go, but after the first week you will sleep more comfortably than ever. such are the effects of healthy hydration.

Another word on water and calories. Metabolism, or metabolic rate is the rate at which your body burns calories. Some, but not all, diet research has shown the metabolic rate to actually SLOW DOWN when calories are restricted, but these studies do not consider the hydration status of their subjects. What I mean to say is, do fluids also end up being restricted in a diet? At University of Utah some years ago, after inducing a state of intentional dehydration in healthy volunteers, a significant drop in resting metabolism was noted in every subject. Even worse than that, or as a result of that, the tested subjects began using a higher percentage of energy from carbohydrates as opposed to stored fat. Their researchers concluded that individuals who inadvertently dehydrate may be reducing the effectiveness of current and even future diets by lowering their metabolic rate and altering the fuel source their bodies use for energy.

WATER POISONING

Is it possible to drink too much water? As water has become big business, (Coca-Cola expects their sales of Desani to exceed their soft drink sales in just a few years!)the press, latching onto the current popularity of water drinking and always thinking that we have too little to worry about, have started the warnings against HYPERUREMIA aka; water poisoning. It is claimed that drinking too much water will cause a sharp loss in electrolytes and micro-nutrients making. It can indeed make you very sick and even land you in the hospital. But the few, very rare cases of hyperuremia, have occurred in ultra-marathoners and triathletes in extreme heat conditions who hydrated with water rather than electrolyte replacement drinks. The largest majority of people exist in a state of simple under-hydration not, over-hydration.

If you are engaged in a chronic endurance activity, one lasting more than 45 minutes, a sports drink like Gatorade will keep all electrolytes in perfect balance. Take plain water up to the 45 minute mark and a few ounces of sport drink every 5 or so minutes after.

Warnings like "...you know, it's possible to drink TOO MUCH WATER" are merely knee jerk reactions from the ignorant, yet well meaning who desire to contribute to the topic but their lack of knowledge forces them to fall back on the old saw-"anything in excess is bad." An awareness of the facts reveal that it is virtually impossible to cause hyperuremia in a healthy body that has not been weakened by chronic endurance activity.

SUPERIOR-PEAK PERFORMANCE

When a new student comes to me for personal training and before we ever begin to go over an exercise says words to the effect, "...you know what?...I feel better already!" It tells me that they likely took my advice and started upping their hydration. Like a litmus test it let's me know that this trainee will progress well because they are serious about following their trainer's directions. An easy day for me, and a happy new client who has made an instant association between me and my facility and truly feeling better, and true as it is, feeling better can mean many things. But when my student says she is "feeling better," my response is that, "you are not merely 'feeling better,' you ARE better." Only because it is the truth. Better hydration makes you feel great because all of your body's millions of reactions and processes, which depend upon adequate H2O are made more effortless with healthy hydration.

A better functioning body is ready and able to get the very most from exercise AND just as importantly, will react to that exercise better than a sluggish, under hydrated body which is made even worse from the exercise bout. Muscles produce heat when they contract and with intense exercise the heat must be removed and one of the bodily processes that hamper performance is the body's own effort to remove heat. The cooling effect that icy water has on the inside of the body goes a grand long way in keeping heat from building up and even at the point where the body MUST remove the heat-essential water is in abundance for the blood, kidneys and bladder to do their work without reducing exercise performance. The result? Better and quicker bodily improvements because of greater comfort from exercising at higher intensity levels for longer periods.

MAKING THE MOST OF SUPERHYDRATION

A few very simple new habits can make your Superhydration experience easy. Since the rewards will begin immediately, RIGHT NOW would be a great time to begin. So pour out 20 more ounces of cool water and have it finished by the time you end this chapter. Here are some healthy guidelines for your healthy hydration process;

At this point I feel compelled to add an important note. *Sweat is not the juice that comes from fat. Sweat is fluid drafted from your bloodstream. No amount of sweating will reduce your bodyfat. Dehydrating may make you "lighter" but all that does is make you a SMALLER but FATTER person. Fatter because you lowered body weight and yet did not change the quantity of fat- so you unavoidably increased your bodyfat PERCENTAGE.

SIDE EFFECTS

Certain Other happy things you can expect from Superhydrating.

Best of all. You get instant payback. See how you feel after just a single day of SUPERHYDRATION, you may be surprised and even a little giddy at the thrill of how quickly you can change your body.

About the Author:

Robert Francis has been an Instructor of Nautilus exercise since 1980 and has been a featured speaker for the National Council On Exercise Standards and the High Intensity Training Seminars.

Robert's clientele enjoy a broad range of strength exercise services which can be viewed on his web page, http://www.StrengthCraft.com