Excerpted from an article on www.nzherald.co.nz 

Providing you have sufficient liquid in your system the chemical ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is turned into ADP (adenosine diphosphate) during exercise and helps your muscles contract. That process is impaired if you're dehydrated. A good way to find out if you're drinking enough is to look at the colour of your urine after exercise. If it's dark, you're probably dehydrated.

If you're really worried about hydration and dehydration then weigh yourself before and after exercise. You shouldn't lose more than 2 per cent of body weight in fluid during any exercise session or your performance will decrease.

One of the big mistakes people make when exercising is only drinking when they are thirsty. Another is to assume you need sports drinks - which are sometimes packed with calories.

Unless you're exercising at really high intensity for an hour or more a day you probably don't need sports drinks to replace electrolytes such as sodium and potassium.

If you're exercising for more than 90 minutes the rules change; in that case consider drinking one cup of electrolyte drink every 15-30 minutes.

Parents have a responsibility to ensure their budding athletes drink enough when exercising. Younger athletes do not control the build-up of heat as well as adults so need to drink more regularly.

Children may not understand the need to keep hydrated, although they tend to be better than adults at responding to thirst, says Rush. Whenever children are exercising adults should offer them water during breaks.

No-one is the same. But there are some general guidelines for drinking and strenuous exercise:

Before: Drink about two to three cups of water a couple of hours before exercising and then about one cup around 15 minutes before.

During: Drink one cup of water if necessary every 10-15 minutes.

After: Have a larger drink after exercise. It's essential for recovery, ensuring that you can exercise tomorrow and the next day rather than feeling too tired to do anything.

For the full article, go to: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10765335 

I was asked the other day if we had considered marketing a zazen Alkaline Water System with a glass bottom tank.

I went on to answer the question by explaining how the zazen Alkaline Water System worked emulating Mother Nature's water cycle, producing a clean and balanced water with a broad range of essential alkaline minerals ideal for the body’s hydration needs - and therefore in this balanced state would not leach chemicals to balance itself.

It was at this point he exclaimed!......"Oh, I get it he said… so zazen Water is not hungry!”

What a great description “hungry water”. So I thought to myself, "note to self....use this description going forward!"

So if zazen Water isn’t hungry  - what water is hungry?

Simple, any water that is acidic (lower than 7.0pH). Did you know that rainwater can be as low as 5.7 pH (acidic) and up to 7.0 pH (neutral). Why? Because it has not collected any alkaline minerals from earth yet and therefore not alkaline but acidic to neutral.

Many of the bottled waters in plastic bottles are hungry! Water created by the distallation and reverse osmosis methods create hungry water! They will leach minerals from the drinker in order to get absorbed or will leach chemicals from containers where possible.

PS. The zazen Alkaline Water System is BPA free. EVERY part of the system is BPA free - the filter cartridge housing; seals, tap and tanks – are all BPA* free.
It is important to remember that it is not just the tank that the water sits in but also ALL parts that water comes in contact with you should consider. 

What is BPA?
Bisphenol A is a chemical used in cheaper plastics which helps harden the plastic – it is a chemical which is described as an endocrine disruptor and the body takes in BPA, if it is present, thinking it is estrogen. BPA is called a “false estrogen”  and the body cannot discern any difference. Studies show endocrine disruptors have been associated with cancer.

I played basketball for many years at a top level and was constantly suffering from headaches and sometimes severe migraines (which were debilitating). I am going back 25 years now – and back then drinking water was not a part of a daily regime for many people including many athletes! Today of course with better access to information online etc. this is changing but not fast enough!

Imagine how dehydrated we must have been and the additional stress this placed on our bodies! Other than a constant headache other symptoms included constipation and stiff muscles, slow recovery and soreness – much of the lactic acid build up from the strenuous exercise did not get flushed though our systems as quickly as it could have due in part to dehydration!

Recently the New York Times reported a study, also published in Neurology, where scientist’s recruited migraine suffers and divided them into two groups. Group one were given placebo medication to take regularly and group two were told to drink 1.5 litres a day in addition to their normal intake (this is about 6 cups).

At the end of two weeks the researchers found that those in group two (increased their water intake on average by 4 cups a day) – but they experienced on average 21 fewer hours of pain and also experienced a decrease in intensity - than those in the placebo group, during the study period.

I recommend, as do many health officials, that we drink approx. 4 cups of water for every 25kg of body weight; and more if you are ill or exercising. I have found this to work for me and those I love.

Sounds like a lot doesn’t it! So I did some more extensive research on water and health. Two key things I thought would happen and be a potential problem when I started this routine, was I was going to feel really bloated (because this was a feeling I had experienced in the past trying to drink a lot of tap water and bottled water) – and I would be going to the toilet all day long .

I started drinking a high quality alkaline mineral water and what I experienced was that I didn’t have that bloated feeling ever! And as I built up my water intake over 6 weeks, I immediately started to feel better and better – my stiff, achy and creaky joints stopped, I stopped crawling out of bed slowly needing to warm into the day and I no longer experienced any headaches. In fact I no longer suffer from headaches or migraines at all! If I feel a little light headed I simply reach for a glass of quality water.

I also found out that health professionals will tell us we should actually urinate at least 6 times a day - it is good for us and this is the body flushing toxins etc and helps to flush the kidneys! And our urine (other than first thing in the morning) should be a light colour without strong smell.

In a great book – Your Body’s Many Cries for Water by Dr Batmanghelidj - the key thing I learned and have applied every day now - was that the body actually loses its “thirst mechanism” and we over time mistake the thirst craving for a craving for food! So we end up thinking we are hungry when in fact we are thirsty! And what do we do is we eat more and drink less water! My body now tells me it is thirsty and I now recognise that and act on it by giving my body what it is asking for – because our bodies instinctively know what is good for them (we just need to learn to listen to it again).

Recent current affairs television segments have explored spring waters with magnesium added and the reported health benefits. Some of these bottled waters are marketed as “unique water” simply because of the addition of magnesium (used to enhance the alkalinity and overall wellbeing benefits).

So let us explore what may be happening when people drink water that has magnesium added to it. Magnesium is a critical mineral salt or electrolyte in the body. Magnesium is used in every cellular function. Benefits include helping with osteoporosis, prevention of cardiovascular disease, helps with hypertension, treats migraine, depression, insomnia, menopause, cramps … the list goes on.

Magnesium and hydration - To better understand how the body operates when hydrated, we can explore the movement of key electrolytes (minerals salts) sodium, calcium, potassium and magnesium (plus chloride).

These electrolytes actually charge the body by charging the water and depending upon the charge they are holding (negative or positive) they can move water in and out of cells and around the body.

Sodium and calcium always partner and as they move into the cell they displace potassium and magnesium.

So What is an Electrolyte?

An electrolyte is a mineral that dissolves in water and carries an electrical charge.

Since the body is mostly made up of water, electrolytes are found everywhere in the body – inside the cells, in the spaces between cells, in the blood, in lymph glands and everywhere else.

Because electrolytes have electrical charges, they can move easily back and forth through cell membranes. This is important because as they move into a cell, they carry other nutrients in with them and as they move out of it, they carry out waste products and excess water.

To keep body fluid levels in balance, your cells need to have a lot of potassium inside them and a lot of sodium in the fluids outside them. To keep the balance, sodium and potassium constantly move back and forth through the cell membranes as do magnesium and calcium.

Sodium easily combines with other elements and is necessary to make hydrochloric acid – the powerful digestive juice inside your stomach that breaks foods down to enable it to be digested and absorbed.

All these electrolytes – sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium – keep the amount of water in the body in balance, carry impulses along the nerves, help make muscles contract and relax and keep the body from becoming too acidic or alkaline.

Electrolytes are also required to carry glucose (blood sugar) and other nutrients into the cells and to carry waste products and extra water out again. Electrolytes also regulate blood pressure and heartbeat.

zazen Alkaline Water has a balanced range of alkaline minerals including magnesium, sodium, chloride, potassium and calcium, which aid in hydrating you at a cellular level for maximum wellbeing benefit.

Many minerals such as magnesium are also more easily absorbed in water than in food.

The zazen Alkalinity & Antioxidant Enhancer product (AAE 100gm) – releases additional magnesium into your zazen Water system enhancing both the Alkalinity and Antioxidant value of the water. Click here to download the AAE fact sheet

Additional reading:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/02/10/magnesium-can-reduce-your-risk-of-sudden-death.aspx

http://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/Magnesium-health-benefits-supplements/2011/01/20/id/369647

10 Reasons to Drink Water

Did you know.......?

Roughly 70% of an adult’s body is made up of water.  At birth, water accounts for approximately 80% of an infant’s body weight.

While the daily recommended amount of water is eight cups per day (we more specifically recommend 1 litre for every 25kgs of body weight), not all of this water must be consumed in the liquid form. Nearly every food or drink item provides some water to the body.
Soft drinks, coffee, and tea, while made up almost entirely of water, also contain caffeine. Caffeine can act as a mild diuretic, preventing water from traveling to necessary locations in the body. So these drinks don't count in your daily water intake.

Pure water (solely hydrogen and oxygen atoms) has a neutral pH of 7, which is neither acidic nor basic.  Water dissolves more substances than any other liquid. Wherever it travels, water carries chemicals, minerals, and nutrients with it.

Somewhere between 70 and 75 percent of the earth’s surface is covered with water (similar to the percentage in our bodies - interesting coincidence!!).
Much more fresh water is stored under the ground in aquifers than on the earth’s surface.  The earth is a closed system, similar to a terrarium, meaning that it rarely loses or gains extra matter. The same water that existed on the earth millions of years ago is still present today. We are drinking the same water the dinosaurs drank! 
The total amount of water on the earth is about 326 million cubic miles of water.  Of all the water on the earth, humans can use only about three tenths of a percent of this water. Such usable water is found in groundwater aquifers, rivers, and freshwater lakes.

The average person uses anywhere from 300 to 400 litres of water per day. Flushing the toilet actually takes up the largest amount of this water.

By the time a person feels thirsty, his or her body has lost over 1 percent of its total water amount.
The weight a person loses directly after intense physical activity is weight from water, not fat.

• 2 glasses of water after waking up - helps activate internal organs
• 1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal - helps digestion
• 1 glass of water before taking a bath - helps lower blood pressure
• 1 glass of water before going to bed - may help avoid stroke or heart attack

We know our drinking water does not just contain hydrogen and oxygen (H₂O). Under a microscope and through chemical analysis we can find up to 2000 harmful contaminants in our drinking water. A key health hazard found in ALL chemically treated metropolitan drinking water are Chloroforms and THM’s.

THM’s & Chloroforms are a breed of deadly modern day man made chemicals created as a bi-product of disinfecting our water. They need to be removed before you drink your water as they are cancer causing.

THM’s & Chloroforms are produced from a chemical reaction with the organic compounds naturally occurring in our drinking water. The amount of organic matter (rubbish) in tap water is essentially made up of decomposing vegetation, algae and dead parasites killed through the disinfectant (chlorination) water process.

What happens to this organic matter as it breaks down and is exposed to disinfectants such as Chlorine and Chloramine?
Minerals are naturally released back into the water, which is fine, many of the minerals are used by the body and good for us. Unfortunately as this organic matter breaks down, proteins from the dead carcasses of parasites are also released. These proteins, when combined with Chlorine or the disinfectants used to kill parasites, create this deadly family of modern day chemicals called THM’s / Chloroforms.

For more information:
USA EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) Report on Health Risk of the Trihalomethanes Found in Drinking Water Carcinogenic Activity and Interactions.

What a Good Quality Water Filtration & Re-mineralisation System will do to your tap water.
A good quality water filter & re-mineralisation system will remove and reduce many of the harmful chemicals in our drinking water including THM’s and Chloroforms (refer zazen Blog Post Electrolytes in Drinking Water).  But the system should also rebalance your drinking water so that it supports your body’s ability to hydrate, creating a mineral rich Alkaline Water - just like natural water found bubbling out of a mountain spring.

Distilled Water and Reverse Osmosis Systems will not give you Alkaline Water.
The water produced by these systems does NOT nourish the body; nor hydrate it at a cellular level, most of it runs through us (you know the feeling of water sitting in your stomach). It is generally low pH or acidic water (below 7.0pH).

Because many of us are already mineral deficient, and we need minerals to actually use the water effectively and efficiently, the body has to rob minerals to absorb these types of water.

We are sure you would have heard the term electrolytes – and the need to replenish these when we have over exerted ourselves when exercising or if you have suffered from a diarrhea or vomiting episode.

What happens is that we have lost so much body fluid (water containing mineral salts) - that we become dehydrated. We MUST replenish both the fluid (water) and these valuable mineral salts in order for the body to rebalance itself.  Otherwise we get worse and suffer headaches, low energy etc.

What are Electrolytes and why are they so important?
An electrolyte is simply an alkaline mineral – or mineral salt. These “electrolyte” mineral salts dissolve in water and carry an electrical charge. Since the body is made up of over 70% water – electrolytes are found everywhere in the body.

 
Alkaline Water containing a balanced range of electrolyte minerals is essential for re-hydration – which is why sports drinks (Gatorade and PowerAde) are based on rehydration with electrolytes minerals contained in them – along with carbohydrates, flavoring and sugars!

Because electrolytes have electrical charges, they can move easily back and forth through cell membranes. This is important because as they move into a cell, they carry other nutrients in with them and as they move out of it, they carry out metabolic waste products and excess water. The key electrolyte minerals are Sodium, Potassium and Chloride (not chlorine!) mineral salts, which have a negative electrical charge.

To keep body fluid levels in balance, your cells need to have a lot of Potassium inside them and a lot of Sodium in the fluids outside them.

To keep the balance, sodium and potassium constantly move back and forth through the cell membranes. Sodium easily combines with other elements and is necessary to make hydrochloric acid – the powerful digestive juice inside your stomach that breaks foods down to enable it to be digested and absorbed.

So all 3 electrolytes – sodium, potassium and chloride – keep the amount of water in the body in balance, carry impulses along the nerves, help make muscles contract and relax and keep the body from becoming too acidic or alkaline.

Electrolytes are also required to carry glucose (blood sugar) and other nutrients into the cells and to carry waste products and extra water out again. Electrolytes also regulate blood pressure and heartbeat.

 
zazen Alkaline Water contains all 3 key electrolytes plus many other ionized alkaline minerals creating an alkaline water full of alkaline minerals ideal for the body’s modern day water needs.
 

Every function inside your child’s body is regulated by and depends on their daily intake of water. 

Unfortunately the tap water our children drink at school, and at home, no longer has the required nutritional properties to sustain their vital health. 
 
Did You Know?

• Your child loses up to 12 cups of water every day through normal bodily functions?
• That your child’s body does not have a reserve of water?  The water present in their body is already fully engaged?
• That the brain is three-quarters water.  Concentration, memory and reaction times benefit from proper hydration.
• That blood is 90% water and without adequate water intake the volume of our blood can fall. A drop of four percent in blood volume reduces your child’s body’s ability to function by 33 percent!

A quality alkaline mineral water should provide the following benefits to your child, and to the family:

• it should clean your tap water of heavy metals, chlorine, rust, bacteria and other particulates that are mostly too microscopic for us to see
• it should have mineral rocks that the water sits in after being filtered, which put beneficial minerals back into the water, such as calcium, potassium, magnesium.  We know we need minerals as part of a healthy diet, but did you know that minerals in drinking water are more easily and better absorbed than minerals from food?
• it should have silver stones to ensure that the water sitting in the bottom tank is ready for drinking and is kept in a pristine state.  Silver is a natural anti-bacterial agent and anti-fungal agent, so the water remains healthy for drinking.  If you consider all the bottled waters sitting on shelves for long periods of time between when they were bottled and when they are consumed, with no silver continuing to keep the water in a pristine state, its no wonder many of them are found to contain bacteria.
• the water should pour through a magnetic tap which effectively reduces the size of the water molecule, meaning the water hydrates the body better.  You will notice drinking alkaline mineral water that you do not feel bloated in the gut, even after consuming a couple of glasses at a time.  The normal bloating feeling you might experience with tap water is because much of the water is too large to pass into our cells to hydrate.
• the mineral rocks also assist to restore often acidic tap water to an alkaline state which is much better for the body.  Disease cannot exist in the body in an alkaline state.  Disease is all acidic, and we often feed it with drugs that are acidic.

What water are you and your family drinking?  Is it alkaline mineral water?