Water, Water

I just finished dinner and my wife and I cleaned the kitchen. I stopped eating before I "felt" uncomfortably full, but probably should have stopped earlier. Usually right after dinner I want something sweet - cookies, candy, something. Figured I try water instead since I didn't have anything to drink with dinner.

It's not uncommon for me not to drink anything with a meal, be it lunch or dinner. Is that odd? Googling the subject leads to a variety of answers none of which sounds definitive. Some opinions are that it dilutes the digestive juices and can lead to digestive problems. Other opinions say a little water with a meal isn't a problem, but that substituting water for food doesn't help. Your body knows when it's thirsty so drink if you feel thirsty during a meal.

One item I ran across was that sometimes when you "feel" hungry, you're actually thirsty and that it's not uncommon to substitute food for water. I've often wondered about that.

So just how much water is recommended per day for the average adult? Is it 8 - 8 oz glasses as I've always heard? I turned to my favorite "myth busters" site Snopes:

The best general advice (keeping in mind that there are always exceptions) is to rely upon your normal senses. If you feel thirsty, drink; if you don't feel thirsty, don't drink unless you want to.

A good read. Basically the "8x8" rule is overblown. The food you take in has "fluid" in it that helps to replace what you're loosing. At "most" your kidneys need 1 liter of water per day to function normally, which is about 4 - 8 oz glasses of water, which coincidentally is about what you get from food per day. So if you're overeating, like I am, you're probably getting more fluid than you actually need. If I eat at a normal level, I may need "some" fluid and if I under-eat (ya, like that'll happen), I'll defiantly need fluid.

So I was a bit thirsty after dinner, but what I really wanted was something sweet. As I've written this I no longer crave sweetness and actually feel, well.. full.

I still need to investigate this "sweetness" craving and perhaps how overeating might increase foot/ankle swelling (from all that excess fluid)... humm..