What Hydrating Foods Should You Be Eating?
If you’re hoping to reach your hydration goals but can’t imagine chugging glass after glass of H2O, don’t stress. You can lean on water-rich foods to help keep your body hydrated—a vital process that helps regulate your mood and energy levels and generally keeps your whole body running (NBD, right?!). Actually, roughly 20 percent of our daily intake of fluids comes from food, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
You shouldn’t stop drinking water altogether, experts agree. That said, you can (and should!) leverage hydrating foods to help you hit your hydration quota—91 ounces (2.7 L) of total fluid daily for women, per the National Academies Institute of Medicine, and even more if you partake in a good sweat session on the regular. But what really counts as a hydrating food?
Well, unsurprisingly, many types of produce top the list of hydrating foods—with some containing up to 96 percent water by weight. You don’t need to force yourself to plough through a whole head of romaine lettuce if you don’t like the taste, though. You’ve got options!
Excerpted from Women’s Health
