How to Increase My Water Weight Percentage

Water is an essential element for human life. It replenishes your muscle and fatty tissues and transports vital nutrients throughout your body. Water constitutes approximately 75 percent of human muscle tissue and around 10 percent of fatty tissue, according to the American Council on Exercise, but these figures are not always consistent in every individual. Your water weight percentage fluctuates as a normal process, but a low percentage becomes dangerous, as it can indicate dehydration. It is critical to increase your water weight percentage, so that your body can function.

Instructions

• 1

  Drink 8-ounce glasses of water 8 times per day. This comes to about 1.9 liters of water. According to MayoClinic.com, consuming 2 liters of water per day is an adequate and healthy amount in order to restore the water that you lose from sweating, urinating and breathing.

• 2

  Increase your water intake when you workout. The American Council on Exercise says that you can lose over one quart of water during one hour of exercise, depending on the intensity of the workout. During workouts you will sweat more, and therefore lose more of your water weight percentage. ACE explains that in order to stay hydrated, you should drink seventeen to twenty ounces of water two to three hours before exercising, drink water during your workouts and drink another 8 ounces of water within thirty minutes of exercising.

• 3

  Choose water over other types of beverages whenever you can. Soft drinks, juice, caffeinated tea and coffee can add calories to your daily intake, as well as dehydrate you. Tea and coffee that are caffeinated can act as diuretics and cause you to urinate more frequently, thereby decreasing your water weight percentage. Avoid alcoholic beverages, as these too, cause your body to lose water weight.

• 4

  Eat salty foods and carbohydrates. Increasing your sodium and carbohydrate intake allows you to retain water in the body, so that you can increase your water weight percentage. With sodium present in the body, re-hydration can occur faster.