Hydration: Finding the Balance Between Too Much and Too Little

# Hydration: Drinking Too Much or Too Little Can Become the Same Problem

**by Laurent Glatz – for Athletic Carnivore**

You drink three liters of water a day. Sometimes four. Your water bottle never leaves your side. Your urine is almost clear, and you feel like you’ve checked the “hydration” box.

But are you truly well hydrated?

This is where the misunderstanding begins. We have reduced hydration to a matter of quantity: the more I drink, the better my body functions. As if the body were a simple reservoir that just needs to be kept full.

Biologically, the system doesn’t work that way.

Your body doesn’t just need to retain enough water. It must maintain a **concentration compatible with your cells’ function**, an appropriate circulating volume, and a balance between water and various electrolytes, especially sodium.

And this is precisely why two opposite mistakes can become problematic: **not drinking enough, but also drinking far too much.**

Your Body Doesn’t Measure Just Liters

Body water is distributed among several compartments. Some is inside the cells, some outside, notably in the blood plasma and interstitial fluid.

Water moves between these compartments according to osmotic gradients. In other words, its distribution also depends on the concentration of dissolved substances.

Sodium plays a major role here.

When we measure natremia, we are measuring a **concentration of sodium in the blood**, not simply the total amount of salt you have consumed.

This is a fundamental distinction.

Imagine exactly the same amount of salt in two containers. In the first, you add little water. In the second, you add several times more water.

The amount of salt hasn’t changed.

Its concentration has.

The same principle explains why a person can develop hyponatremia not only due to certain sodium losses but also when they accumulate too much water relative to the available sodium. During prolonged exercise, excessive fluid intake combined with insufficient elimination of that water is the central mechanism in many cases of exercise-associated hyponatremia.

Your Kidneys Are Constantly Trying to Correct What You Do

Fortunately, the body has an extremely sophisticated regulatory system.

Your kidneys don’t just let the water you drink pass through. They continuously adjust the amount of water and electrolytes excreted.

One hormone is particularly important: vasopressin, or antidiuretic hormone.

When the body seeks to conserve water, its secretion increases and the kidneys reduce water excretion.

But during prolonged exercise, regulation can become more complex. Exercise, pain, stress, nausea, and other signals can keep vasopressin levels elevated. A person may then continue to drink while their kidneys do not eliminate this water at the same rate.

If intake sufficiently exceeds losses, blood sodium can gradually dilute.

And this is why the reasoning “I sweat a lot, so I must drink as much as possible” can become just as simplistic as “I’m not thirsty, so I never need to drink.”

The Problem: Both Extremes Can Send Similar Signals

Fatigue. Weakness. Headaches. Nausea. Decreased performance.

These signs are often immediately interpreted as dehydration.

But some can also appear during hyponatremia. In severe forms, it can cause neurological impairment with confusion, seizures, or coma.

This is precisely where generic advice begins to show its limits.

A person running for several hours in intense heat, a person doing forty-five minutes of weight training in an air-conditioned gym, and a sedentary person spending the day in an office do not have the same losses.

Even between two athletes performing exactly the same event, sweating can be very different.

One loses a lot of fluid. The other much less.

One produces sweat rich in sodium. The other does not.

So why would they automatically need the same amount of water and salt?

What About Low-Carb or the Carnivore Diet?

This question becomes even more interesting when carbohydrates are drastically reduced.

At the start of a very low-carb or ketogenic diet, the drop in glycogen quickly changes part of the water weight. Glycogen is stored with several times its weight in water, so its decrease contributes to the water loss observed at the beginning of a low-carb diet.

The drop in insulin can also temporarily promote increased excretion of sodium and water. A recent review on initial adaptation to the ketogenic diet describes this natriuresis and diuresis as phenomena observed early in adaptation.

This explains why some people quickly notice differences in weight, blood pressure, energy, or thirst sensation when they abruptly switch from a high-carb to a very low-carb diet.

But this does not mean the logical response is to apply a huge amount of salt or several extra liters of water to everyone.

Again, **the direction can be biologically coherent while the quantity remains individual.**

The Trap Is Not Water. It’s the Universal Rule.

“Drink four liters.”

“Drink before you’re thirsty.”

“Your urine should always be clear.”

“Add a lot of salt.”

“Only drink when you’re thirsty.”

All these phrases can seem reassuring because they offer a simple rule.

But your body doesn’t operate by a single rule.

It responds to your physical activity, ambient temperature, sweating, diet, adaptation to low-carb, certain medications, kidney function, and your own regulatory system.

This is where continuing to copy protocols can waste time.

Because the real risk is not just drinking too much or too little.

**The real risk is correcting the wrong parameter.**

You can increase water when the problem isn’t a lack of water. Add more and more salt when your context doesn’t justify it. Or interpret fatigue, headaches, or decreased performance through a single variable when your situation involves several.

At this point, the real question is no longer how many liters another person drinks each day.

It is to understand **what truly applies to you**.

If your diet, physical activity, or transition to low-carb or carnivore has changed and your sensations no longer match what you expected, the logical step may not be to add a new protocol found on the internet.

It’s to put your own signals back into context.

**Is your body really asking for more water… or are you simply interpreting every signal as a hydration problem?**

**Understanding What Applies to My Case — Athletic Carnivore**

#Hydration #Water #Electrolytes #Sodium #Hyponatremia #Dehydration #CarnivoreDiet #LowCarb #Keto #Nutrition #Sports #Metabolism