Wear your helmet. Put on some sunscreen. Don’t swallow the seeds! Of all the standard summer rules, none is more important than staying hydrated. Sounds obvious? It should. Regardless of this age-old nagging rule, most people still don’t know that they’re dehydrated all the time.

Daily, around 10 cups (90 ounces) of liquid should be consumed by the average adult. Solid food accounts for only about a fifth of the recommended intake, so individuals should be drinking around 8 cups (64 ounces) of liquid a day. It sounds excessive at first, but consider this: Daily, you lose approximately 5.5 cups (50 ounces) of water through urination, and another 4 cups (34 ounces) through breathing, sweating, and bowel movements. In addition to the regular expulsion of water, the body also loses another 4 cups of water for every hour of exercise. Think about your personal intake of liquid, and the amount you expel. The heat of the season only heightens the chances of becoming moderately to fatally dehydrated.

Signs of dehydration (Taken from mayoclinic.com):

• Mild to excessive thirst
• Fatigue
• Headache
• Dry mouth
• Little or no urination
• Muscle weakness
• Dizziness
• Lightheadedness

           
So how can you stay hydrated during the hot summer days? Drink often during the day, and drink before you become thirsty, because the body often fails to detect dehydration quickly enough. Aside from meal-time drinks, have a bottle of water, box of 100% juice, or slices of fruit between meals. Stay away from high fructose and high sodium sodas and alcohol, because although some drinks claim to quench thirst, many truly contain dehydrating ingredients. When exercising, drink before, during, and after your workout. If you are pregnant or nursing, or have conditions of illness like fever, vomiting, diarrhea, or urinary infections, extra intake of water is recommended. Inversely, situations of past heart, kidney, and liver failure that impair the excretion of fluids require less liquid intake. An easy way to check if you need to drink more water is to look in the toilet. If your urine is clear and a pale yellow color, you’re doing fine. If your urine is the color of apple juice and even cloudy, then you need to drink much more water. If you have any more concerns, or have personal questions, ask your doctor.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,201004,00.html
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/water/NU00283