How Do You Tell If You Are Dehydrated?

It’s Easy — Loose skin

When you are young and spry, your skin mostly stays where it needs to be. You wake up in the morning, and everything is where it is supposed to be.

It’s a different story as you get older, and your skin naturally begins to sag. I am talking about major wrinkles. The first I saw any wrinkles in my twenties were crow’s feet. I didn’t count them as wrinkles because they are a sign of laughter. Happy wrinkles.

When I got to be forty, I noticed more of them, ten years on, more and more. Until now, at 68 years old, I’ve got a boatload of wrinkles. Hanging upside down is not going to help us here. What I am faced with at this point are ice cubes or just a cold washcloth sparingly applied in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon. Doing that also serves as a nice pick-me-up.

However, fat people don’t really have wrinkles. It’s when you start losing weight that you are going to notice them more.

But you can get creepy skin when you are a young person, the same as can happen when you are older. I’m not talking creepy like a horror show. I’m just talking about walking wrinkles. Wrinkles that creep.

I actually learned about this from a veterinarian. One of my cats wasn’t her spry self, and I took her to the doctor to see what was wrong. This cat was very young and had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. The vet pulled back my kitty’s lips to show her gums which were very, very pale. She said to me, “Ah, she’s got fleas.” I was horrified. Evidently, a young cat with fleas can be in grave danger more so than an older cat.

Then, the vet grabbed a handful of skin at the back of my kitten’s neck. It stayed there. Not for long, and it quickly settled back to where it should be. The vet said to me, “Ah, she is also dehydrated.” She showed me, using the backs of our hands, just what was going on minus fur. Sure enough, I was dehydrated too. The veterinarian’s skin snapped right back.

The vet gave my kitten a flea treatment and an injection of fluid. I took her home and flea-treated the rest of the cats, vacuumed the house, and drank some water.

Roughly speaking, you can say for most people that 60% of their body is water. Even your bones have water, about 30%. Your muscles have more water than fat. As people get older, their bodies don’t have as much water. Your brain, however, has between 80% and 85% of water. You could say that the more hydrated you are, the better you can think.

Conditions will change that too. Like if you are diabetic. Being well-hydrated helps to break down higher glucose levels so that they can be released through the kidneys. It is consistently high blood glucose levels year after year that will eventually lead to organ failure. Like sores that don’t heal, loss of eyesight, first toes and then feet being cut off. Did I scare you? Yeah, drink water.

Oh, and here’s another way to tell if you are well-hydrated — the color of your pee. Your pee should be a very pale-yellow color. Or even almost without color. The darker and more orange it is you know you are not drinking enough water.

The warmer the temperature is outside, the more water you need. And the older you get, the more water you need.

Does coffee and tea or other drinks count? It used to be that because tea was a natural diuretic that helps with water retention, it did not count as a one-to-one replacement for water. Now, I’m not too sure. I did see out there on the Internet that a cup of tea was equivalent to ¾ of a cup of water. Also, my sister argued long and hard that for every cup of tea you drink, you need to drink an extra glass of water. I’m not too sure about that either.

So, paying attention to how your skin is doing and noticing what color your pee is are important signs in determining if you are drinking enough water.

I have a special water cup I keep around just for drinking water. It holds 16 ounces of water, so 2 cups. I try to drain it at least three times during the course of the day. I don’t remember to do that every day, but I try.

Something else I noticed about drinking water. Years ago, I decided to go on a fast just to see what it was like to be hungry. It turns out I wasn’t hungry during the three days I did not eat. I also didn’t lose any significant amount of weight, but I drank water throughout the three days.

Drinking water tricked my stomach into thinking I wasn’t hungry. It was the strangest thing, but ever since then, when I am actively on a diet, I will go into overdrive drinking water. It just helps.

Oh, something else about the fast. I believe I must have cleared my body of toxins. The three days I did not eat, my eyes got bright. The whites of my eyes were the whitest I had ever seen them. My skin also got baby soft. My teeth were the whitest I’d seen in years. My teeth also got loose. But I never got hungry.

Why did I break the fast after three days? I missed chewing. Did I stop the fast in a gradual manner like was recommended with super diluted orange juice? Nope. I had a hamburger with no adverse effects. The whole experience of the fast underlined the importance of water in my life.

Thanks for reading.