I feel like I have a pretty good handle on hydration.  Being a runner really helps because I'm used to the stress on my body, the heat, drinking fluids etc.  But, I thought it interesting that the people at western states run seemed to be putting a lot of emphasis on the scale weight at various checks.  I do know that after my ride last weekend, I ran into some "water availabiliy problems..." and afterward I jumped on the scale ( I was curious).  I had lost 4 pounds since the morning.  Ummmm.....I don't think that was fat burning.....
 
I must admit I have a facination with numbers and trends and I think the scale would be cool just for that reason alone.  No matter what the scale says, I'll drink when I'm thirsty (and sometimes when I'm not).  But I still think it would be cool to track my weight through several different rides, along with montioring the amount of fluids I drink, the number of times I pee, the temperature during the ride, and graph it on huge sheets of paper that I can look at and analyze.....you can see where this is going!  LOL.  You should see some of the statictics I keep on my horse for no other reason than to play around and see if I see any interesting trends or relationships. 

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 10:15 AM, Beverley H. Kane, MD <sensei@...> wrote:

For various reasons, a scale is not the best gauge of your hydration, especially if you don’t intend to weigh yourself butt naked at each stop. Some confounding features are: clothes that absorb sweat that is gone from your body but still registering on the scale; dirt on the clothes; the fact that urine in the kidneys and bladder will show on the scale but is not available for hydration (a serious design flaw in the human body—hello, Maker?).

A better low-tech measurement would be a urine specific gravity w/ a small plastic gravitometer; I think you can also get chemical strips. Also—your skin tenting and your “tilts” --orthostatic blood pressure measured when going from lying down to standing. Most importantly, if you are peeing on the trail and your pee isn’t too concentrated.

Mainly, you should learn to recognize the signs and felt sensations of hydration/dehydration (urination, mentation, etc)  + apply the logical knowledge of how much you have drunk.

Beverley


Someone wrote:

>>>>I'm seriously contemplating bringing along a little portable scale to weigh myself at the vet checks at Tevis to keep an eye on my hydration.