What counts as water intake? Do you include coffee/tea/fizzy drinks/milk? Or just water?

[pigeononthegate]

I've been told I should be drinking 2 litres of water a day. I assumed this included all liquids, which would be fine, as I drink gallons of green tea, lots of soup etc, in addition to a reasonable amount of plain water. My only real vice is Diet Coke, which I don't buy for the house but do drink if we go out.

DH reckons I shouldn't be counting anything except plain water when I add up my intake. Surely this is wrong?

You are right. Count liquids (and in fact there's plenty of water in food, as well). Someone will come along in a minute and tell you coffee and tea are diuretics and don't count but this is an urban myth

I don’t drink any water on it’s own and haven’t for most of my 53 years.

Apparently, the two litres of water should include food. It's pretty much any liquid.

I include tea and diet coke in my 2 litres of water daily intake because they are made of water. They are prepared differently and have different flavourings. Just about all drinks are flavoured water of some description.

Glad a pp has remarked on tea and coffee being diuretics as an urban myth.

Doctors don't like to be drawn on whether or not the two litres daily fluid intake should include food. I get the impression they just want people to stay hydrated.

What do you drink then, Soola?

most mugs are 200-250ml, a standard drinks can is 330ml, a teacup 150-200ml, with the liquid in food ( soup and custard obviously have more liquid than sandwiches) 6 mugs of anything a day should be plenty

@pigeononthegate sorry for my short reply!

I drink zero sugar fizzy drinks, hot chocolate, very occasionally coffee, occasional squash, occasional fruit juice, very rarely alcohol and never ever water on its own.

I do buy bottles water which I add to Meritene a health shake type drink.

Soola, me too!!! I'll be 53 by the end of this year and I don't drink plain water either. I find it completely boring. Even flavoured water gets on my nerves.

I drink mainly coffee 4-5 cups per day plus 1 tea, the occasional fresh fruit juice, if going out and driving I might have ginger beer real lemonade or sparkling water I have a couple of glasses of wine a week maybe a cider, but plain tap water not really unless really hot and taking a water bottle out I do not need a drink every 30-60 minutes

Include all of the above plus there are other ways to get fluid in, such as jelly and fruit. There have been studies in nursing homes to boost fluid intake for people with dementia using jelly and fruit...ice-cream too I think.

Like all animals we have a system that tells us when we need a drink. Why would you need to drink when you’re not thirsty?

I agree there is a lot of nonsense about the time you are thirsty you are dehydrated, but our body has ways of signalling needs obviously if you keep ignoring signals you may end up ill
if we are generally healthy, hunger, thirst, tiredness need to go to toilet etc mean there is quite a large window before the first signal and the danger zone, most people can deal with hunger and tiredness for a few hours for a few hours too long and you can start to make mistakes driving tired can cause fatalities in fact it is a factor in 10 times more fatalities than alcohol
obviously some of the elderly don't drink enough because they forget or they are worried about drinking when going out as there may not be a bathroom close or open so they drink less
some medication interferes with things for instance it can alter effects of warfarin if you suddenly drink an extra litre of water a day

sorry my PC messed up and repeated some stuff so it doesn't make complete sense