Speaker A [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the Paralysis Nutrition Podcast, where changing your eating habits is the key to losing weight, improving bowel health, and feeling your best. I’m your host, Fatima Fakouri. I’m a registered dietitian who’s married to a quadriplegic and specializes in nutrition for paralysis. Get ready to be inspired, educated, and motivated so you can take control of your health using the power of food.
Speaker B [00:00:25]:
Let’s get started. This is the Paralysis Nutrition Podcast. Hi, everyone. On today’s episode, I want to talk about hydration. It is such a challenge for people to drink enough water. And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that everyone with paralysis that I work with has to cath to pee. And so it makes it harder to drink a lot of water when you have to cath. Right.
Speaker B [00:00:57]:
You have probably some sort of schedule. So how can you drink enough water and coordinate peeing? Right. And there’s a couple of things I want to go over. One, how much water do you actually need to be drinking? I recommend to my clients at least 2 liters of water per day. 2 liters of water is 64 ounces. And what is included in that 64 ounces water? Seltzer, herbal tea, anything that is not caffeinated. So soda does not count, coffee doesn’t count. I guess if you wanted to count milk and juice, you could.
Speaker B [00:01:40]:
I don’t recommend, you know, drinking entire glasses of juice. You know, milk is fine. You know, lower fat is a better option, but basically you want to be drinking mostly water. Okay, two liters of water. If you are in a larger body, you will probably need more water than that. So gold standard is to drink half of your body’s weight in pounds in ounces of water. So if you are 180 pounds, divide that by two. That would be about 90 ounces of water.
Speaker B [00:02:21]:
Why is water so important? Because your body needs water to perform its daily functions. And for the purposes of my, you know, coaching clients, mostly they’re there to lose weight and to improve their bowels. You are not going to have an easy bowel program if you don’t drink enough water. It makes it so much easier for you to poop when you drink enough water. Also, you don’t want to confuse thirst for hunger. So if you’re not drinking 2 liters of water a day and you’re tracking your meals and you’re going over your calories, it could be that you are dehydrated and you’re looking to fill yourself up with food. And so, of course, Eat when you are hungry. I’m not saying drink water instead of eating.
Speaker B [00:03:13]:
I’m saying make sure that you have enough water so that you are not mistaking your thirst for hunger. So that’s the first part of what I wanted to discuss today is how much water do you need? The second thing is how can you coordinate drinking this water with your daily schedule? Now, I’ll share for my husband. He works from home, so he doesn’t have to time it that much. He definitely wants to time it for bedtime. You know, he’s not chugging tons of water at night. Cause that’s gonna make it hard to sleep through the night. But because he works from home, he’s able to just drink whenever and then pee before he leaves the house, right? For people who have, for example, a 9 to 5 job, this is what I recommend. This is what I tell all my clients, because most of them do work, right? If you have to be at your office at a certain time, you need to get up and drink water.
Speaker B [00:04:17]:
The first thing that you do so that before you leave the house, you can pee, right? We don’t want to be drinking water five minutes before we get in the car, because then you might have to pee. Depending on how long your commute is. If you have a short commute, makes things easier. If you have a long commute, I would say don’t drink water while you’re driving to work. And if you’re thirsty, drink towards the end of your commute so that when you get to work, the first thing that you can do is go to the bathroom. So this is something that I think doesn’t get talked about, but it gets talked about in my. In my groups. But if you feel shy or weird about having to use the bathroom at work, we need to figure that out.
Speaker B [00:05:09]:
I had a client who is an attorney, and she got a new job. And her office was. The office that they wanted to give her was quite far from the restroom. And she felt awkward wheeling down the hall, going to the bathroom several times per day. Like, the idea of that was, like, not appealing. And so we talked about it, and she advocated for herself. And it happened to be that they had a different option for her in terms of office. So she talked to her, you know, it was probably HR or something, human resources, and said, you know, it’s really far for me to go to the bathroom from that office that you propose that I have.
Speaker B [00:05:56]:
And they gave her a different office. You don’t get anything in this world unless you ask for it. So don’t be shy. You know, to advocate for yourself. People don’t know these things. People don’t know that it’s hard for you to push your chair down the hall and you know, back multiple times a day because you’re going to the bathroom. So ask for what you need. Another thing is to sort of be on a schedule.
Speaker B [00:06:21]:
Like you need to, you do need to think about it because for example, if you work till five and you have an hour long commute and you’re not going to be home till about 6, I would stop drinking water around 4 o’clock. Now, it might be sooner or later for you because of the way that you, you know, the way that your body holds water. But I wanted to just talk about scheduling and planning things because many people, I think have challenges using the bathroom outside of the home. So drink while you’re home, pee before you leave. Like these things are very, very important to keep in mind. Right. And don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself. Right.
Speaker B [00:07:03]:
People don’t know what they don’t know. If you don’t tell people, you know these little things, you’re going to like quietly suffer. Right. And that’s, that’s not good. That’s not okay. And what was the other thing? Ah, so I hear this a lot. Water goes right through me. Water goes right through me.
Speaker B [00:07:25]:
Is that like I drink and I have to pee right away? Okay. If that is the case, you need to work on your electrolytes. You are not absorbing any water. If you are drinking and it’s going right through you, you are not absorbing that water. Your colon cannot absorb the water. So I have a couple of supplements that I recommend and I’m going to do an episode on supplements for sci and paralysis. Probably the next episode that I do will be about supplements. Don’t quote me though.
Speaker B [00:07:58]:
Sometimes I get an idea for something and the order goes out the window. But your electrolytes are likely off. So number one, don’t be afraid of salt. People with sci have higher needs for salt. You should not be afraid of salt, especially if you’re cooking at home. So I really recommend that you invest in some high quality salt. So the Celtic salt, I don’t know if it’s Celtic or Celtic. I think it’s Celtic.
Speaker B [00:08:26]:
C E L T I C salt and pink Himalayan salt. These salts have trace minerals that will help you absorb this water. When you hear electrolytes, don’t go running for some sports drinks, that’s not what you need. Those sports drinks have sugar. They have Artificial colors. They have baked sweeteners. We don’t want that. There are some very good electrolyte mixes, like powders.
Speaker B [00:08:54]:
There’s one called adrenal cocktail. I really like that when it has some potassium, it has some, some salts in it and it’s very, very good. Also, you’ll want to make sure that you’re getting enough magnesium. So I do recommend most of my clients look into a magnesium supplement because most of us are not getting enough magnesium. But what you really want to do is look at your diet and say, like, am I getting enough of my minerals? Am I getting enough salt? You know, that will really, really help you help your body absorb the water so that you’re not peeing immediately after you drink. Now some people are going to say, oh, if I have too much salt, it causes edema. I’m talking about higher quality salts that have minerals that are going to help you absorb water, not retain water. And if you are noticing that you’re eating salty food and it’s making you swell up.
Speaker B [00:09:58]:
Yeah, that makes sense because that’s the, you know, the table salt, the sodium that does not have these other minerals to help you really absorb that water. So check your electrolytes, make sure that you’re getting enough high quality salt. I think the number one thing for hydration is to just get on a routine. So for example, I’ll share my routine. My routine is kind of boring, but it works for me. So when I wake up in the morning, I drink a small cup of water, room temperature. I have it on my nightstand. So I drink that first thing in the morning because it’s been eight or nine hours since I drank anything.
Speaker B [00:10:39]:
Then I go downstairs, I have a cup of coffee. Now most days I go to drop off my kids at school. On the way to school, I drink 20 ounces of water. You better believe that by the time I come home. Cause it’s, you know, it’s a whole ordeal to go drop them off, come back, all this, I have to pee, that, but it’s okay because I timed it right. So I come home, then I have my second cup of coffee. After that I switch to water. I have a 20, I think it’s 26 or 28 ounce straw bottle, straw cup.
Speaker B [00:11:12]:
And I fill it up and I bring it upstairs. I drink most of it through the morning and then at lunchtime I refill it. And I do work from home, right. So that makes it easier. And so I get in. Most days I’ll get around 60. Now I am a smaller Person. I am petite and I don’t need as much water as, say, my husband, right? He’s a lot bigger than me.
Speaker B [00:11:37]:
You know, he has neurogenic bowel. He needs to drink a lot of water. He probably drinks. He drinks a lot of seltzer too, which we both drink seltzer in the evening. It’s kind of like a nice dinner thing for us that we make a. We have a machine that makes seltzer. He probably drinks about 80 ounces of water on a regular day, but he really should be drinking closer to 90. So if you are struggling with drinking enough water, here are some quick tips.
Speaker B [00:12:04]:
So I often will put a couple of drops of lemon into the water. I also like lime. In the summer, I will put some herbs from the garden. It just makes it feel so fancy. Get a cup that you like. I do so much better and my husband does so much better with a straw. It just makes it so much easier to drink water. And also another thing that I started doing in the winter, I drink warm water.
Speaker B [00:12:33]:
I don’t want to drink freezing cold water from the fridge. My husband will drink cold water year round. I like to heat my water up. It’s not boiling hot, it’s not. It’s not that hot. But it’s room temperature or warm. And I really enjoy that. I also have discovered a love of green tea.
Speaker B [00:12:50]:
Green tea is wonderful. It has a little bit of caffeine, a little bit. So I do still count that towards my water intake. I don’t make it strong, you know, I use one tea bag for quite a large mug of water. I found this really, really nice pomegranate green tea that I’ve been enjoying in the afternoon. And so experiment, get yourself a nice tea. I also really like hibiscus tea. It’s this lovely pink color.
Speaker B [00:13:23]:
And so try something new. Put something in your water. In the summertime, my kids like sliced grapes in the water. It’s kind of nice frozen, frozen, sliced grapes. They love that. So whatever it is that you like, put it in the water, drink the water, get on a routine and make sure that your electrolytes are balanced so that you can actually absorb some of that wonderful refreshing water. So that’s today’s episode. Thank you guys so much for joining me and I will see you next time.
Speaker A [00:13:57]:
That’s our episode for today. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed it and that you learned something new. Remember, if you want to lose weight with paralysis, improve your bowel health and feel your best you can. It’s possible you just have to change your eating habits. If you need inspiration on how to get started, check out the paralysis Nutrition Cookbook 101 Recipes to Help you lose.
Speaker B [00:14:19]:
Weight and improve bowel health.
Speaker A [00:14:21]:
The cookbook comes with a bonus 30 day meal plan and is the perfect way to start eating healthier. You can find it online at paralysisnutrition.com cookbook I’ll talk to you again soon.
