Daily Water Intake Goal Explained

WaterMinder app helps you keep track of your water intake each day, and helps you make sure you drink enough. But what is enough and how does the app know how much you should drink? What is the daily Water Intake Goal?

The advice from medical professionals regarding drinking water used to be that people should drink eight cups of water a day. If the glasses are 8 ounces, that is 64 ounces a day. But that does not take into account the differences in average body size for men and women. That led to new advice recommending that men drink 13 cups (104 ounces) and women drink 9 cups (72 ounces).

But that advice has moved on too in order to take into account the differences between individuals - not all women are the same size or shape, and they have different lifestyles. The same applies to men. So current advice is based on your weight:

You should drink between 0.5 ounces and 1 ounce of water for every pound that you weigh.

So, if you weigh the average for a US woman, 156 pounds, you should drink between 78 ounces and 156 ounces of water a day. If you weigh 196 pounds, the average for a US man, you should drink between 98 ounces and 196 ounces per day.

The first thing to note is this water intake level is more than the previous recommendations, and demonstrates the importance for health of drinking water.

The second thing to note is that there is still quite a range. So, how much should you drink?

WaterMinder asks your weight when calculating your daily Water Intake Goal, but it takes into account other factors too. This includes if you are pregnant or breast feeding. It also adjusts the calculation for the climate that you live in and how active your lifestyle is.

So, for a woman weighing 156 pounds, the minimum daily Water Intake Goal using 0.5 ounces per pound is 78 ounces. However, once WaterMinder factors in that you live in a temperate climate and lead a moderately active lifestyle, this is raised to 87 ounces.

Using 0.5 ounces of water per pound of weight, a man weighing 196 pounds would have a daily Water Intake Goal is 98 ounces. WaterMinder, however, lowers this to 77 ounces in its calculation as the man only engages in light physical activity.

You can manually edit your daily Water Intake Goal depending on your lifestyle to override the WaterMinder estimate. There are a number of reasons that you might do this including:

• If you exercise a lot
• If you live in hot climate
• If you work outside, particularly when the temperature exceeds 103
• If you are pregnant
• If you experience the common signs of dehydration

Change the Water Intake Goal

1. To change your daily Water Intake Goal, tap the existing calculation,

2. Enter a manual goal and tap the tick icon.