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I exercise semi-regularly (2x a wk/~1 hr each session). Run several miles on 1 day, weight train the other day. Once in a while, a 3rd day playing 1 hr of basketball. I try to drink 80oz of water a day.

I'm finding that recently, I started drinking maybe closer to 110oz a day b/c I feel thirsty, even on days I don't exercise. Is this a good or bad thing? I read if you're always thirsty, that's a sign you might have diabetes, although, I don't have the other symptoms of diabetes so I might be an alarmist for no reason.

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  • Just drink water until your urine is clear, and not yellow. It's not necessarily bad for you to drink more, but it's a rule-of-thumb. Besides, it's absolutely impossible for us to give a concise answer, since people's kidneys work at different levels of efficiency. Only your doctor, after a precise set of tests, can give a reasonable upper limit.
    – Alec
    Commented Apr 9, 2015 at 8:48
  • @Alec - not entirely true. Light shades of yellow are ok as well, it's when it starts getting darker and/or thick that you need to worry.
    – JohnP ♦
    Commented Apr 9, 2015 at 21:30
  • @JohnP - Rule of thumb, I said. Of course there is leniency in either direction. That's what rule of thumb means.
    – Alec
    Commented Apr 9, 2015 at 21:34

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It's easy to check if you have diabetes or not, just do a blood test, but 110 oz = 3.25 liters and that's a normal amount of water. Unless you have heart failure or a severely compromised kidney function it's a safe and good amount of water to drink.

The amount of water you should drink to make up for water lost due to sweating is 1.5 times the amount you lost (you need to compensate for the amount that the kidneys will discharge when you drink water). But you should not drink more than about 0.8 liters per hour. So, if you weigh yourself before and after exercise and you find that you lost 1 kg of weight, then you should drink 1.5 liters over the course of the next two hours.

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