Stay Hydrated
Build a simple drinking routine that keeps pace with daily life, exercise, and heat.
Ask Murph to help
What to do
- Drink with meals and after waking.
- Keep a bottle or glass where you already spend time.
- Start exercise normally hydrated instead of catching up halfway through.
- During long, hot, or very sweaty sessions, drink to a plan based on your own experience. Food or an electrolyte drink can replace sodium when losses are large.
- After exercise, go back to normal meals and fluids. Most ordinary workouts don't need a special product.
If you keep finishing long sessions much lighter than you started, weigh yourself before and after under similar conditions to estimate your own sweat loss. Don't borrow someone else's sweat rate.
A simple plan
Spend the first week watching. Notice when thirst, headache, dry mouth, or rushed drinking tends to show up, and whether long meetings, commuting, exercise, or avoiding bathroom breaks keeps cutting you off from fluid.
For the next two weeks, use three anchors: drink after waking, with each meal, and around exercise. Pick a bottle or glass size you know and refill it when convenient, but don't turn the container into a quota you have to force down. Put the bottle where the behavior happens: the desk, the gym bag, or the travel checklist.
For exercise in ordinary conditions, start hydrated and drink by thirst and experience. For sessions longer than about an hour, hot environments, or heavy sweaters, test a more specific plan. Weigh before and after a representative session in minimal dry clothing. A loss of one kilogram is roughly one liter of net fluid loss, though the estimate has to account for what you drank and any urine. You're not trying to finish heavier than you started.
Let normal meals replace sodium after most workouts. During prolonged exercise or heavy sweat loss, an electrolyte drink or salty food may help. Test it in training rather than copying a generic sodium number.
In week four, look at evening intake. If drinking late disrupts sleep, shift more fluid earlier. Keep the routine that prevents catch-up drinking without constant clear urine or needless bathroom trips.
