Benefits of not drinking water

[swjohnsey]

After you get the not drinkin' thang down you can tackle the not eatin'. I think the not poopin' will take care of itself.

[Pedaling Fool]

And if you stop breathing you can save the planet

[10-K]

I think a lot of you totally missed my point.

I'm not talking about being stupid and dropping dead from dehydration. I'm talking about pushing past your comfort zone - whether that just toughens you up mentally or actually changes physiology - I don't know - but I think there is some value regardless in being able to press on during those rare times when something might go wrong and you find yourself in an uh... awkward situation.

p.s. I love you anyway.

[swjohnsey]

If it makes any difference, I was taught in survival instructor training that in a survival situation to hold off drinking for a day to allow the body to go into the water conservation mode. Your body will produce minimum urine and extract all the moisture it can from feces.

[bamboo bob]

I don't think you can acclimate physically but mentally if you know you're good for another XX miles without water it can help you plan. For me I always thought the liter in my bottle and one in my gut was not a real thing. The liter in my gut just means I stop to pee more frequently.

[TheYoungOne]

Supposedly we are suppose to be drinking 64 oz of water a day to be "Healthy" but plenty of people have drank a lot less with no ill effects. Like someone mentioned ealier, the old GI canteen only carries a quart/32oz and usually only one was carried.

I have a 100oz bladder that I hike with , and even though I try to force myself to drink when its hot and humid in the summer, Its still usually half full when I'm done for the day. I don't think there is anything to "training" yourself to not drink water. You can go hungry or thristy for so long, at some point you reach a limit and you will drop. I would just make sure you drink when your pee gets real dark, you get headaches, or feel dizzy.


Other than that, have a sip when you get thirsty.

[Starchild]

I think you can train to withstand the 'pain' of it, and perhaps the body switched to a water conserving mode but...

The body works less efficiently without proper hydration, making things harder and using more energy.
...compared to...
Being dehydrated would make you weigh less + you carry less or no water with you, so have less weight in the pack so that should make things easier and use less energy.

My guess would be it would be fine to do it for a plan for a day - IF you have days to recover if you slip below some critical level of dehydration, but it would not be a good idea for a day after day plan such as a thru. I've had backpackers dehydrate on a hot day and they needed to evac the next day, even though they were rehydrated at the campsite the dehydration took it's toll and they could not continue - but then again these people didn't have your training in this.

Peace

[pnkwolfe]

After you get the not drinkin' thang down you can tackle the not eatin'. I think the not poopin' will take care of itself.

+1 on the not-poopin' thing. Doubles as a spiderbite-in-the-nards protection strategy.

[Raymond James]

You cannot train your body to do without water. Lack of water will affect your judgment. I thought the days of conditioning without water or reduced water were over.

Please ask your physcian before attempting to train to use less water.

[squirrel bait]

If I ever meet one of you Texas waddies who ain't drunk from a hoofprint, I think I'll....I'll shake their hand or buy em a Daniel Webster cigar.
Rooster Cogburn

[Deacon]

You cannot train your body to do without water. Lack of water will affect your judgment. I thought the days of conditioning without water or reduced water were over.

Please ask your physcian before attempting to train to use less water.

+1. I agree

[magic_game03]

I acclimate to dehydration by chugging a tall boy at the start and then shot-gunning another every 2.125 miles. This way I ensure that I am completely dehydrated throughout the day. It makes me faster because I save the 151 for camp. Gotta stay UL ya know. It also helps to stick rocks in all your friends packs, just be sure you hide your camp shoes, they always seem to be missing in the morning.

[Feral Bill]

Colin Fletcher has a couple of sobering stories of the effects of dehydration on judgement in The Complete Walker ​(all editions). It's worth reading.

[fcoulter]

Ditto on kidney stones. Had four attacks. Increased (significantly) my water intake. No more attacks.

[bfayer]

You cannot train your body to do without water. Lack of water will affect your judgment. I thought the days of conditioning without water or reduced water were over.

Please ask your physcian before attempting to train to use less water.

100% agree. As it was stated earlier, the military spent a lot of your tax money doing studies on this issue, and found in every case water deprivation causes a significant reduction in performance and judgement, and leads to significant health problems.

Some good reading if you have the time:

http://www.nata.org/sites/default/fi...orAthletes.pdf

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc...c=GetTRDoc.pdf

[colorado_rob]

Most of you all are missing the point entirely. OF COURSE YOU DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO EVER BE DEHYDRATED. But unfortunately, sometimes, hopefully rarely, the situation will rear it's ugly head. If you have experienced dehydration before, in a controlled environment, chances are you'll be better able to handle it when you need to, meaning you won't freak out and do something unsafe, or worse, just give up and rely on others to save your butt.

I'm pretty sure it's strictly a mental preparation thing, but again, perhaps there is some physiological aspect to it.

We use this deprivation technique very successfully in high altitude mountaineering, and the two climbing doctors I personally know embrace it. There is simply no way you can climb most high mountains (high meaning above ~20,000 feet) without becoming significantly dehydrated. You do the best you can, but in a typical summit day, call it 12-18 hours, you might be able to throw down a couple liters, max. That's not nearly enough to stay properly hydrated.

This same kind of situation carries over, for me at least, to ultras. And I have been there on thru hikes as well. Like you thought there was a water source up ahead, turns out it's dry and you have another 7 miles before the next one. Ouch. Sure you could have done better and avoided this situation. but perhaps you just screwed up? What do you do? Suck it up and get there. Easier to do if you've experienced this before.

No sense in trying to push this idea any further. Y'all just don't get the point, or at least what I thought 10K's point was.

[10-K]

Oh my God!!!!!!!

Somebody finally understood what I was talking about.

Thank you Colorado Rob.

[magic_game03]

The problem with you not getting the answer you wanted to hear 10-K was probably the way you started your OP.

...One of the things I did when I was training was purposely not drink water thinking that my body would acclimate...

I do that still - I walk a lot (5-10 miles a day) and never carry a water bottle. Many times I get very thirsty and instead of stopping...

In this respect you said that you did this while "training" and "Many times." Your explanations are understood by me as a constant reoccurring theme that you practice. I don't think Colorado Rob really backed up your initial question with a good response. He explains the issue with his experience on summit days, not as a "training" method or something he does "Many times" like you do. Also I think his response is mixing apples and oranges. Hiking is no more like mountaineering than it is like marathoning or rock climbing. Yes they have similarities but they are not the same. Although he makes it seem the same by boasting that he goes up to 20,000 feet and they all dehydrate, going up to 20K is not training, you go up to 20K for a singular purpose and dehydrating happens because of the stress, like trying anyone trying to do a marathon does not intentionally dehydrate during the marathon. It happens because it is stressful and your body rejects almost anything you try to put into it, at a certain point in the marathon, if you are pushing a hard pace.

Don't miss understand my position thought. That being stated above does not mean I disagree with your premise altogether. Actually I reserve the right to admit you have a very valid argument in your question about dehydrating.

[Deacon]

The problem with you not getting the answer you wanted to hear 10-K was probably the way you started your OP.



In this respect you said that you did this while "training" and "Many times." Your explanations are understood by me as a constant reoccurring theme that you practice. I don't think Colorado Rob really backed up your initial question with a good response. He explains the issue with his experience on summit days, not as a "training" method or something he does "Many times" like you do. Also I think his response is mixing apples and oranges. Hiking is no more like mountaineering than it is like marathoning or rock climbing. Yes they have similarities but they are not the same. Although he makes it seem the same by boasting that he goes up to 20,000 feet and they all dehydrate, going up to 20K is not training, you go up to 20K for a singular purpose and dehydrating happens because of the stress, like trying anyone trying to do a marathon does not intentionally dehydrate during the marathon. It happens because it is stressful and your body rejects almost anything you try to put into it, at a certain point in the marathon, if you are pushing a hard pace.

Don't miss understand my position thought. That being stated above does not mean I disagree with your premise altogether. Actually I reserve the right to admit you have a very valid argument in your question about dehydrating.

Thanks Magic, after 78 posts, it took your explanation for me to understand what the heck this thread is about. Guess I'm thick headed.

[Praha4]

[QUOTE=10-K;1336906]As long as you're suffering.

But seriously, I guess what I'm talking about most is called "exposure therapy" in psychology.

The premise is by exposing yourself to circumstances you'd otherwise avoid you condition yourself to be able to better handle them (that is a very simplistic definition).

>>>>>10-K is describing exactly what is done in some military training: special forces, BUDs, Rangers, SEER, and others... subject the trainees to adverse and stressful conditions... lack of sleep, lack of food, hypothermia, dehydration, etc. When the trainee is subjected to these conditions in a controlled environment such as a school, it is supposed to help prepare the individual for future similar conditions, it helps the individual learn his "limits", mental and physical, and instill a certain mental and physical toughness and confidence. Knowing the actual symptoms of dehydration and hypothermia from experience does help if you know the early stages and can take steps to prevent both from progressing to the later stages and consequences.