How can you tell if you are fully hydrated?

Question

Dr. Lara Butler, MD · Answer

Hi there. Dr. Lara Butler, board-certified dermatologist here to answer the question, how can you tell if you are fully hydrated? Well, when your skin loses moisture and becomes dehydrated, you'll be able to see noticeable changes in the skin. Your skin tone will be a little dull. You'll notice more fine lines and wrinkles. Even the dark circles under the eyes will be more pronounced. So you can also experience things like headache, fatigue, decreased urination. But in terms of skin symptoms, that's what we're going to be talking about today. You can tell if your skin is dehydrated by trying to do a pinch test where you pinch the skin on the cheek or on the chest. And it should retract and not leave a wrinkle. If it does leave a wrinkle or take a while to retract, usually, that means that the skin is dehydrated, and you need to start rehydrating. So how can we do that? Well, we do it from the outside in and the inside out. From the outside, we can start hydrating by drinking a ton of water, 8 to 12 cups a day. And if you can super boost that by adding in a lemon wedge, that just adds some vitamin C, which is an antioxidant that's going to help with collagen synthesis. And that's just going to help to boost and plump the skin even more. In terms of sports drinks, we kind of recommend steering clear of those because they can have a high amount of sugar in them and that can counteract what you're trying to do with hydrating the skin since the sugar can then dehydrate the skin more. In terms of outside in, putting on a topical moisturizer or something with a ceramide, that's the key ingredient you want to look for. Ceramides are lipids, which are basically fat molecules that are going to help to lock in that moisturizer or that moisture. For extra hydration, you can add a serum like a hyaluronic acid. The serum should go in first and then the moisturizer on second. Hyaluronic acid serums are going to help the water bind collagen for that extra plumping. Otherwise, eating a ton of fruits and vegetables that can help to plump the skin with hydration are always a good option. So we get about 20% of our hydration from what we consume. So just be aware of what you're putting in your body, drink a ton of water, use some great moisturizers, and hopefully that will help plump the skin. Take care.

Lauren Link, MS, RD, CSSD · Answer

Unfortunately, there's no easy way, certainly and no kind of foolproof way to say yes, you're definitely 100% hydrated. The easiest way to kind of keep tabs on it is simply to look at the color of your urine. Like I said it's not 100% foolproof but generally speaking the darker your urine is and if it starts to look pretty dark like apple juice color, we know we're definitely not hydrated and we've got a lot of work to do, even if it's more, you know, yellow Like darker yellow. We would still want to try to increase our hydration efforts. We really want it to be light yellow. Like light-colored lemonade doesn't have to be clear, but it should be pretty light yellow. That's a good indication. That were probably doing a pretty good job hydrating. With that said it's not perfect. You certainly could kind of water load and be peeing. Pretty clear and not be fully hydrated. So if you are a heavy sweater or Struggling with hydration. You're cramping. You're fatigued, Etc. You definitely want to make sure you're paying attention to electrolytes to especially sodium. You can include some potassium but especially sodium that's going to help your hydration efforts. And if you're an elite level athlete, who is really struggling with hydration and especially cramping and other symptoms related to dehydration, you might consider testing your hydration status. And there's a few ways to do that, the most well-known and kind of classical. And well researched is urine specific gravity. So, of course, not everybody has that just kind of laying around, but if you're at a training facility or your Collegiate are professional athlete, you probably could get access to that, you might consider it. There's also some newer technology that test your saliva. MX3 is one example of that. You might consider doing that again. None of these methods are perfect. So from just a day-to-day standpoint, I recommend keeping an eye on your year end and just monitoring how You feel how you perform and trying to kind of toy with okay. How much water am I drinking? Maybe I should increase that a little bit, maybe I should try to include more electrolytes and go from there.

Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS · Answer

How can you tell if you are fully hydrated? It's a great question. That doesn't have a good answer. It doesn't have a good answer because we can't on a daily basis. Do any kind of measurement that would actually tell us to what degree we are hydrated or dehydrated. So we're going to have to guess. And you know unless you have a way of working yourself up to all kinds of Machinery, during the day to do a spot check, which nobody does you're going to have to kind of guess and so, I'll give you my Best advice on how to guess if you're hungry all the time. A lot of times. That's that's a desire for the body's desire for liquid. Drinking a lot of water when you're hungry often puts off the hunger and you go, oh, I wasn't hungry after all. So that's the first way. Second way is look at your energy, I think energy is the Undisputed king of self-regulation. I mean, it's always available to you to know if you're having a g or you don't and that's a great clue two. Tell you all kinds of things about your metabolism. So if you don't have energy, if you're always hungry and then the obvious ones. If you feel thirsty, the problem with thirst is, it's a late-stage Q4 what's going on in the body. By the time you feel thirsty, you've already been dehydrated. And the third thing I would say about this, in general, if you're worried about it, or even if you're giving it, some thought and attention, which is a great thing that you're doing, just drink more than you think you should. Almost everybody I've ever seen, who says oh I drink plenty of water doesn't and the latest studies that I've heard from Andrew huberman who I've mentioned before the amazing neurologist over at Stanford is that especially in exercise and in the Heat and even with mental exercise, the amount that you really need to be optimally. Hydrated is like 5 ounces. Every 20 minutes. That's a lot of water. So drink more than you think. Think monitor your hunger monitor, your energy and do the best you can do to guess, and err on the side of more rather than less.

Bob Seebohar, MS, RD, CSSD · Answer

James great question. How can you tell if you're fully hydrated? Well, I'm not quite sure if there's such thing as fully hydrated, but optimal hydration, for sure. Right? So a lot of times we look at the color of the urine but that really doesn't give you a lot of information, especially if you take vitamins and minerals sometimes that discolors it. So you can't really tell the other thing is the frequency of urination throughout the day. So if you're peeing about every two hours or so and it's fairly light, yellow color, pale lemonade color, most likely you're staying fairly Hydrated. A really good way. If you want to get geeky about it and measure it, you can use a USG. So, you're in specific gravity, and pee in a cup. And you can use this little device that will actually measure the specific gravity of urine, and it will show you on a scale, if you are fully hydrated or optimal hydration, that's what I use a lot with athletes in the field and it's a pretty good go to if you want to put in, pull in some quantitative data analysis, hope that helps

Kellsey Frank, MS, RD, CSSD, LDN · Answer

How can you tell if you are fully hydrated? Good question. A common misconception is that your urine should be clear. That's actually not the case. You want your urine to be like a pale yellow color. And the reason being is because it is possible to be over hydrated where your electrolytes can become imbalanced. So easiest thing to do on a regular basis that is very simple is just monitor the color of your urine, make sure it's maintaining like a pale yellow color with the exception of the first release in the morning when you get up. Otherwise, you can always consult with your doctor, maybe have blood work done if there's any concerns. But otherwise, that's a really easy day-to-day way to keep track.

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"How can you tell if you are fully hydrated?"