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Welcome to the 3rd and final week of our mini resolution to stay hydrated! We hope you have been finding new ways to quench your thirst. As you know, we are suggesting 8 cups of water a day and we’re encouraging you to check your urine for hydration status! Here is that chart again in case you need it!
Track Your Hydration! This month, our mini resolution is to drink 8 cups of water per day, as well as to pay attention to the color of our urine. We urge you to stick with all our past mini resolutions, too. Use our new log to to track your progress! Questions? Email your Motivated Mondays Coach Michele at [email protected]. If you are new to Motivated Mondays, you can review the 2025 content here. Signs of Dehydration Know the signs of dehydration—beyond urine color—and grab some water and/or seek medical attention if you think you may be dehydrated: Unexplained sluggishness – if nothing else has changed in your daily routine (sleep, exercise, etc.) then maybe you need some water. When dehydrated, blood pressure drops, decreasing blood flow to the brain inviting fatigue. Palpitations – blood volume decreases in dehydration (it has less water in it) which causes an increase in heart rate to compensate. Headaches – typical dehydration headaches feel like a dull ache or tightening all over the head (like a tension headache), but dehydration can also trigger migraines. Inability to concentrate – suffering from brain fog? It might be your hydration levels. Not only does dehydration result in reduced memory and attention, but it can also increase anxiety and foul moods. Bad breath – dehydration results in reduced body fluid production, including saliva-which serves the very important function of bathing the teeth and oral mucosa in enzyme rich oral fluids. Dry skin – think of the cells in your body as a sponge. When a sponge is dry it is shriveled, hard and dry. When it is wet it is pliable, soft and voluminous. This is most evident in your skin cells. In fact, a test of serious dehydration is called a skin turgor test whereby the skin is pinched and if it doesn’t snap back, if it holds its tented shape then dehydration of a serious nature has set in. Chills – if dehydrated, the body conserves blood flow to vital organs, redirecting flow from the skin causing you to feel more cold than typical. Muscle cramps – water has electrolytes (sodium and potassium), which are necessary for muscle contractions, an absence of electrolytes can force the muscle to spasm involuntarily. Sweet tooth cravings/hunger – if the liver doesn’t have enough hydration, it sends signals to the brain for food (it confuses dehydration with starvation), usually something glycogen rich like sweets Dehydration Devices Wearable devices that detect hydration levels are rapidly entering the market. Here are a few: This watch is strictly for measuring hydration status, it can be paired with an app for logging your water consumption. Have an Apple watch? Try one of these hydration detecting bands, which also measures your body composition. This arm band can be used during exercise but also adds a spot check option using a finger reading. If you get sweaty during workouts and don’t want another band, you may consider this patch that can read your electrolytes and determine your refilling needs. This concludes our hydration mini resolution, but we encourage you to keep up with your progress from all your mini resolutions thus far. As always, feel free to reach us with any questions and we’ll see you next week for a new resolution!
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Welcome to Week 2 of our hydration resolution! This week, we’re exploring why dehydration becomes more common as we age and sharing simple strategies to help you stay well-hydrated!
Track Your Hydration! This month, our mini resolution is to drink 8 cups of water per day, as well as to pay attention to the color of our urine. We urge you to stick with all our past mini resolutions, too. Use our new log to to track your progress! Questions? Email your Motivated Mondays Coach Michele at [email protected]. If you are new to Motivated Mondays, you can review the 2025 content here. Aging & Dehydration From an evolutionary perspective, our bodies were built to be their own portable water source. About 80% of our total body water is stored in our muscles—and as we mentioned last week, the brain is about 80% water too, with much of it held in specialized cells called astrocytes. In essence, our bodies are designed to create water reserves we can draw from when hydration is limited, i.e. when faced with reduced water consumption. Our water reserves also function as thirst centers, informing the brain to drink up! But as we age, the number of astrocytes in our brains diminishes, limiting the availability of water to support brain function. In other words, smaller reserves/thirst centers = less signaling to the brain. The icing on the cake? As we age, these signals to our brains register smaller amounts of water as “enough,” further limiting our thirst receptors. Furthermore, age-related reductions in muscle mass mean a smaller water reservoir from which the body can rely on when consumption is inadequate. This loss of muscle mass is exacerbated by inactivity and low protein consumption. Finally, certain medications can increase fluid loss, either intentionally or as a side effect. It is also common for older adults to take multiple medications to treat various conditions, potentiating dehydration even further. The bottom line is that older adults are unlikely to feel thirsty even when they are dehydrated and thus, as discussed last week, dehydration is a common cause of hospital admissions in the elderly. This is why understanding your own urine is so important! Your urine will let you know if you need fluids before your brain will. Pinkies Up! Creative Ways to Drink More Water Consciously make it part of your day.
If you find water boring, spruce it up.
Eat your water! Roughly 16% of our daily water intake comes from food. Choosing foods higher in water content can be a better option when trying to stay hydrated. Some options include:
Are you feeling thirsty yet? We’ll see you next week to discuss signs of dehydration. Until then, drink up! By the way, if the safety of your water is a concern, you can visit the Environmental Working Group’s webpage, input your zip code and utility company and they will advise you of common contaminants in your water supply, and make recommendations for the type of water filter to purchase. We hope you had a nice weekend! We are ready for July’s mini resolution and next up, we have water on tap—pun intended!
This month, our goal is to stay well-hydrated by drinking 8 cups of water per day and keeping an eye on our urine color & odor as a simple indicator of hydration. Ideally, well-hydrated urine should be the color of lemonade or light beer, with only a mild odor. If it’s noticeably darker, has a strong smell, or if you’re urinating infrequently, dehydration may be setting in. Optional: For those who want a more scientific approach, you can use urine-specific gravity test strips to assess hydration (you can search Google or Amazon for a kit if you are so inclined!). Track Your Hydration! This month, our mini resolution is to drink 8 cups of water per day, as well as to pay attention to the color of our urine. We urge you to stick with all our past mini resolutions, too. Use our new log to to track your progress! Questions? Email your Motivated Mondays Coach Michele at [email protected]. If you are new to Motivated Mondays, you can review the 2025 content here. You might be wondering what staying well-hydrated has to do with cognitive decline. As it turns out, quite a lot! HYDRATION AND BRAIN HEALTH The brain is about 80% water, and even a modest reduction in total body water—just 1–2%—can impair cognitive performance. This effect is even more pronounced in older adults. In fact, dehydration-related delirium is often considered in the differential diagnosis when an older adult presents symptoms resembling Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or dementia. This is especially significant given that adults over 65 account for 35% of all hospital admissions for dehydration—a number that has been increasing by 6% annually. (Next week, we’ll explore why older adults are particularly prone to dehydration.) DEHYDRATION What about those who are chronically dehydrated? This may include people who are physically active, take multiple medications, spend time outdoors, live in warm climates, or simply don’t enjoy drinking water. Whatever the cause, chronic dehydration increases the risk of long-term cognitive decline that may not be reversible even after rehydration. Research shows that dehydration can contribute to the buildup of misfolded proteins (such as amyloid) in the brain, which disrupts communication between brain cells. Dehydration may even accelerate the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. SO, HOW MUCH WATER SHOULD I BE DRINKING TO MAINTAIN DAILY HYDRATION? The National Academy of Medicine’s (NAM) general recommendation for adults is 13 cups a day from both fluids AND food. However, individual needs vary significantly. Variables impacting how much water an individual needs (more or less) to consume each day vary according to:
WHEN TO SEEK MEDICAL ADVICE It’s also important to remember that overhydration (AKA hyponatremia) can impact cognitive function, just like dehydration. That’s why becoming familiar with your urine—its color, frequency, and odor—is such a helpful tool in gauging your hydration status. For any personal medical concerns, we always encourage you to reach out to your concierge physician. Now that we’re paying closer attention to our urine, here are some signs that may warrant medical attention:
If your urine is consistently darker than expected, there may be a range of contributing factors. Keep in mind that urine can also appear red, brown, purple, or green due to foods, supplements, medications, or infections, not just hydration status. See you next week to explore aging and dehydration! We have covered several impactful brain brawn mini resolutions this year! If you are new to Motivated Mondays, you can review the 2025 content here. This week, we're taking a moment to recap our mini resolutions at the halfway mark to reflect on our progress, celebrate small wins, and realign our focus before diving into the next one.
CLICK OR TAP THIS WEEK’S LOG TO VIEW + DOWNLOAD! Remember, these mini resolutions build habits that, if maintained throughout the year, contribute to optimizing lifestyle actions that are beneficial for building brawny brains. We urge you to stick with these resolutions, and we help you do just that with our comprehensive logging calendar each month! FEBRUARY • SUGAR In February we resolved to remove added sugar from our diets. A diet high in added sugar promotes neuroinflammation, damages blood vessels in the brain, reduces the integrity of the blood-brain barrier and promotes the development of amyloid, all of which lead to injury and even death of brain cells. We provided tips for recognizing added sugar on food labels and recipes and meal ideas for dining without added sugar. MARCH • SLEEP In March, we covered a lot of ground, discussing sleep, its architecture, and highlighted sleep performance measures including sleep debt, latency, pressure and efficiency. We provided sleep hygiene tips and the rationale behind them. We discouraged the routine use of crutches such as naps and sleeping pills. Sleep is a “magical” time—during sleep our glymphatic system is activated which flushes metabolites from our CNS and our memories are consolidated (filed and stored). Sleep loss ravages one’s health. All body systems are affected by chronic sleep loss, and the brain is particularly vulnerable. Sleep is so critical that it is considered an important preventive strategy and therapeutic intervention for Alzheimer’s disease. Sleep and sugar have a bidirectional relationship. A diet high in added sugar can impair sleep latency (the time it takes to fall asleep) and lead to frequent nocturnal awakenings due to frequent urination or restlessness, resulting in low sleep quality due to incomplete sleep cycles within the architecture of sleep. Failure to achieve quality sleep or adequate sleep duration can affect hunger hormones, leading to increased consumption of sugary snacks during the day (an estimated 500—600 calories more per day!). APRIL & MAY • EXERCISE In April and May, those without an exercise habit resolved to start exercising, and those with an exercise habit resolved to optimize the intensity to include activities with a cumulative weekly MET of 1200. Exercise is unequivocally one of our most powerful tools in the toolbox to help fend off cognitive decline and neurodegeneration. We provided tips, tools and suggested gadgets to help members make that happen. We also cautioned against sedentary behavior; one could be considered sedentary if they are “fit but sit”—meaning the value of an hour of exercise can be undermined by consecutive hours spent sitting. You may recall that exercise boosts the production of myokines, chemical messengers secreted by muscles—the best known myokine is BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, also known as Miracle-Gro for the brain! Exercise also benefits the brain much in the same way it benefits the heart—with blood flow that delivers O₂ and nutrients. In addition, exercise “uses up” excess blood sugar which is linked to Alzheimer’s (so much so that Alzheimer’s has been referred to as Type 3 Diabetes). People who exercise have bigger brains, in a good way! Sleep and exercise are also bidirectional! This means those who exercise sleep better and those who sleep better have the energy to exercise. In addition, both sleep and exercise have a positive impact on how the mind responds to stressful situations and also the body’s resilience to stress. Chronic stress is a risk factor for cognitive decline. (We have a future resolution around stress!) JUNE • FnVs In June we resolved to eat 7 servings of fruit and vegetables (FnVs) a day to optimize our nutrition and build brains that are resilient to degeneration. Studies show that by reaching beyond government recommendations, greater consumption of FnVs in stepwise fashion staves off cognitive decline. FnVs are chock-full of micronutrients, water and fiber which either outright prevent neurodegeneration or slow disease progression once it has initiated—by fighting inflammation and oxidation preserving neurons (brain cells), fortifying the blood-brain barrier, enhancing communication between neurons and, in some cases, even repairing DNA damage. Another benefit of eating more FnVs is it crowds off the plate less healthy foods, such as UPFs. We provided recipes and fresh ways to incorporate more FnVs into one’s diet We’ll see you next week for our NEW resolution but, in the meantime, we ask you to email us with any feedback you have so far:
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MICHELE MCCAMBRIDGE, MPH, MSMichele is the Senior VP of Membership Development at Concierge Choice Physicians. She is also a professional in the areas of nutrition, fitness and wellness. Archives
November 2025
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