They’re at it again.
For years, the experts have been telling me I need to drink eight eight-ounce glasses of water a day. The obituary section is full of stories about people who defied this advice at their peril.
Ethel Livergood, 96, stubbornly limited herself to six glasses a day, and her heart finally gave out. Clarence Wilmerding, 92, didn’t even keep track of his water consumption, and the autopsy showed that his bladder was down a pint when the delivery truck ran over him. If only they had listened.
Recently, however, I was delighted to hear that the standard had been modified—no doubt by a new group of experts. Upon investigating, I learned that according to someone called the Institute of Medicine (they must be smart!) the new guideline is that people should drink—get this!—when they’re thirsty. Thank God for experts!
But apparently some people have trouble knowing how thirsty they should be, so the IM offers further advice: on average, women should be thirsty enough to drink nine eight-ounce glasses of water a day, and for men, thirteen glasses ought to do it.
Help.
Thirteen glasses a day. Well, it is a nice complement to the thirteen servings of fruits and vegetables I’m supposed to eat every day. Now, here’s the curious thing: some people actually take this stuff seriously.
Okay, I do know from experience that it is possible to consume 13 (or, say, 20) drinks in a day. I did it regularly in college; and, actually, the serving sizes were 50 percent larger. But that came with an incentive. The stuff I drank by the barrel in college made me witty, suave, and irresistible to women. The benefits of 13 glasses of water are less obvious.
For what it’s worth, I believe I follow a fairly healthful diet: lots of whole grains, brown rice, beans and lentils, soy products, and fresh fruits and vegetables. I don’t eat meat except when good manners require it, and my consumption of fats, fried foods, and sweet stuff is limited. True, I frequently break into the beer and chips after dinner, but on balance it’s a commendable regimen, if I say so myself.
To the hydration fanatics, however, I’m a goner. My juice and coffee with breakfast and my single glass of water with lunch and dinner are woefully inadequate. If I don’t want to end up like Clarence and Ethel, I ought to be drinking 72 more ounces of water every day. Over the course of a year, I run up a deficit of about 200 gallons. Yikes! For my adult life, I’m down about 5,000 gallons!
It gets worse. My water shortage is just the beginning. Call me reckless, but I don’t brush my teeth for three minutes at a time. I don’t wash my hands every time I cough, sneeze, blow my nose, or touch a doorknob. I don’t wear protective goggles when I use a hammer. I don’t tuck my pants into my socks every time I walk in the woods. I occasionally insert something smaller than my elbow into my ear. I don’t cover myself with sunscreen when I leave the house on a cloudy winter day. I don’t check my tire pressure every time I get into the car. My family doesn’t have a written disaster plan.
Miraculously, I’m still alive, but obviously I’m a walking time bomb. So I’ve decided to reform. I spent a week recently trying to live my life in full compliance with expert advice.
I started with the recommended 13 glasses of water, and I was soon reminded of something I learned in eighth-grade science class: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I did manage to emerge from the bathroom long enough—barely—to get in my daily 40 minutes of vigorous exercise (plus 20 minutes of warming up and stretching and a 20-minute cool-down) and my half-hour of back exercises. I also took occasional breaks to eat my 13 servings of vegetables, disinfect my telephone, my desk, and my computer, and change the batteries in my 17 smoke alarms.
Apart from those tasks, the cycle of consuming and eliminating water and vegetables, washing my hands, and brushing (and flossing!) my teeth left me just enough time for the essential 8-10 hours of sleep (on my back, with a pillow under my knees).
Of course, I couldn’t stray more than 100 feet from the bathroom, which is fine, because if one takes the experts seriously, it quickly becomes clear that leaving the house is inviting certain death. So I never did make it to work that week. But who cares about money, as long as I’m well hydrated?
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Experts everywhere recommend forwarding The Johnston Papers to at least 13 friends.
