I think it's regarding daily drinking needs, and not other uses for water.
The metric I am familiar with is the average person should consume 8 cups of water a day, so 1.5gal of drinkable water would support that need.
The metric I am familiar with is the average person should consume 8 cups of water a day, so 1.5gal of drinkable water would support that need.
> About 15.5 cups (3.7 liters) of fluids a day for men
> About 11.5 cups (2.7 liters) of fluids a day for women
> These recommendations cover fluids from water, other beverages and food. About 20% of daily fluid intake usually comes from food and the rest from drinks.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
(Of course you can survive on less, but it's not ideal. A quick test to see if you're hydrated enough is to go pee. It should have the slightest tint of yellow to it. If it's clear you're drinking more than you need. source: first aid class I took)
But taking it literally it would then say to drink;
12.4 cups for men. 9.2 for women.
But yes, if you are self supporting you would need water to make those things at home so the problem doesn’t change much.
It may seem like splitting hairs, but the OP's comment was regarding 1.5Gal of water not being enough for a single person. Using the 8-cups of water a day, 1.5gal of water does meet that requirement.
But most days when I’m out and about, I’m drinking about a gallon. And if it’s hot, it’s more.
There was a short and dumb period where I started buying plastic waste bottles and I was blowing through like 6-8 plastic bottles per day.
Can I ask how tall / heavy are you? Gallon is almost 4 litres of water, I can hardly imagine anyone being able to drink more in a day, and even that sounds like a lot.
After a long ride I’ll drink nearly half a gallon of water. Likely excessive but it tastes really good.
It’s likely there is a very large variation in the water people need to consume. During college, I knew individuals that would drink merely a glass or two all day (minus before/after going to the library). Very small water bottles. Though these individuals looked to be <100 lbs.
I remember drinking half of a 1 gallon plastic water jug in an hour changing a tire in the middle of a desert when it was 110°F.
If your pee is clear stop drinking. That’s how I rehydrate after a workout. That’s how a lot of actually healthy people do. Over time I’m growing more fond of the habit of calling people who aim for the trappings of a discipline without following it as cosplayers or LARPers. The people carrying the quart bottle of water are LARPing.
> If your pee is clear stop drinking.
Why? A person has to drink a lot of water for it to be a problem, far more than someone out and about with a bottle is going to consume. More water probably won't help anything if your pee is already clear, but it won't hurt anything either and most people drink too little water as it is.
Getting mad a people for carrying a water bottle around just seems weird. Depending on the area, it's not always easy to get a drink any time you want one. I guess if people are bragging about how hydrated they are it would be annoying. Bragging about how healthy your habits are is douchey in any context, but I've literally never seen someone act like that because they drink enough water.
if you do develop this habit, your kidneys adapt by eliminating water faster. this is usually not dangerous in today's world, but it's inconvenient to need to carry around a water bottle and frequently find a bathroom. occasionally it can lead to mild dehydration if your access to water is interrupted for a few hours
also, inevitably, you do lose some salts with all that urine, which you have to replace, so drinking too much water mildly increases the risk of, in particular, hypomagnesemia (hypocalcemia and hypokalemia are much rarer, and you really have to be pounding the water bottle to get hyponatremia; on the plus side, you don't have to worry about being in acute hyponatremia for more than a few hours). these are a little more dangerous for the type of food faddist who believes things like 'drinking more water is good for you' because they're disproportionately likely to also believe that salt is bad for you
drinking extra water can be really dangerous for people with renal insufficiency, because they can get hyponatremia from fairly mild overdoses of water, but generally they're already aware of this problem if they have any access to proper health care at all
so basically it's an addictive habit with mild negative health consequences, similar to eating a low-fat diet, drinking coca-cola, or injecting heroin
under unusual conditions, like going to the black rock desert, continuing to drink when your pee is already clear is actually a good idea, because then you actually can get dehydrated without any urge to drink. but you should probably be drinking stuff with salt in it, like gatorade, though homemade oral rehydration solution is enormously cheaper
And I agree that "constantly carrying the bottle" has become as much about the fashion as anything - there's a guy at work who always has a metal bottle on him, taking it everywhere. But they rarely use it - they've never refilled it at work, and less than 1l (I've never seen it less than half full, but assuming it is used over the day) over 1/3 of the day doesn't feel like theyre over hydrating.
One of the sign posts of addictive behavior is when you allow your affectations to have negative consequences on the rest of your life.
Here's one fairly famous(ish) example of over-hydration being fatal: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna16614865
but the reason for my previous post is because the upper limit for serious harm by over-hydration is quite high (it's difficult to drink that much water without urinating which was the key factor in that woman's death), whereas the lower limit for serious harm by under-hydration is not that low (not that difficult to hit)
so I would disagree that both can "easily" do harm
Easily enough but you're 100% correct that there's a fairly huge difference between the two extremes in how easy (or hard) they are to reach. Dehydrated to a dangerous point is most assuredly typically easier to achieve. Certainly easier by far to die from, too, as evidenced by how often the one happens compared to the other.
please don't burst my bubble