Becky...I never said that this was optimal or even a good idea, really, just that this is what I did for years (probably 20 or more) prior to low carbing. I hated water and drank other things instead (primarily coffee, iced tea and diet pop). Even now, I can find you references that state that any fluid is fine in place of water (note I don't agree with that, but it IS out there). During those years where I rarely drank water, I did not wind up in the hospital or die from dehydration nor did I get sick more often than the national average. There are many rules of thumb as far as how much water a person needs, but I'd like to point out that none of them are backed by any scientific research and all of them are based more or less on opinion and what is commonly thought to be best. Let's try not to present things as if they were written in stone and irrefutable. Yes, drinking water is good for your health and necessary for fat metabolism. Yes, we should drink at least eight glasses of water per day. Any more than that, we cannot say with any certaintly and as Kristine pointed out, even the eight glasses of water recommendation isn't backed up by anything other than common sense.



No, I wasn't. You may want to go back and re-review your book. Dr. Atkins states that fat remains our primary energy source thoughout OWL and often into pre-maintainance as well because our bodies have been trained to prefer fat for energy. If you were to go back to eating a high carb diet again, then the body would switch back to being a primarily carb burning system.



Actually, it's 64 oz. plus 8 oz. for every 25 pounds that you want to lose which in my case is about another 35 pounds or another glass and a half. Again, it's not a hard and fast, written in stone rule but a recommendation. What I'm doing must be working because I've lost 70 pounds so far.



What would happen is that they would get a ton of recommendations from other members of the board to up their water intake.




Ummm..Becky...I've been in ketosis for 2 1/2 years as my plan never allows me to go over 30 grams of carb per day. As you pointed out, the body has other ways of disposing of extra ketones besides urination (breathing and sweat), although at this point, I'd say there aren't a lot of extra ketones floating around in my system as it has become pretty efficient at using them as my primary energy source. You'll have a lot of extra ketones when weight loss is rapid or when your body has not yet completely adapted to burning ketones as its primary energy source, otherwise your body uses most of them and there aren't a lot of extra to be excreted (one of the reasons why some people note that their strips stop changing color after a while even though they're still losing weight).



I have to correct this just from a medical standpoint, although it's an example of posting something as fact that is actually incorrect. Cholera is not caused by dehydration, Cholera results in dehydration through severe diarrhea. Cholera is actually caused by bacteria ingested through drinking contaminated water.