Know your water-level

Share your Berget "know-how" and what is necessary to be prepared for when going to Berget-games.
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Know your water-level

Post by Spof » 05 Nov 2009, 01:10

This is a classic but ill put it here anyway. When you are in base and prepering to go out on a mission. Drink water all the time to gain maxium waterlevel in your body.

To know that your waterlevel is ok for long-range mission your urine should be transparent.

Urine Transparent = Good!
Urine light Yellow = Drink more
Urine Yellow/red = Drink more and eat something ( you can be close to dehydration)
Urine red/brown = Something is wrong, visit a doctor ASAP.
Last edited by Spof on 05 Nov 2009, 08:56, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by OviDiuS » 05 Nov 2009, 03:03

Remember to drink small amounts often. We humans cant absorb more than a few 1-5 dl of water whit 15 - 30 min itervals otherwise you just pee it out again. And for crazy blasts don't forget to put some salt in your food so you can keep the damn water in side to ^^
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Post by Panzergraf » 05 Nov 2009, 03:58

Good thread; good posts :)


Also, watch your buddies!

For many, Berget 8 will be their first Berget event, or even first large airsoft event of this sort. Some of these might not have any experience with being outdoors and have never served in any sort of army.

While this does not make them bad airsofters, they might not know the simple stuff, like drinking enough and the right fluids, and what sort of food to eat to get the right amount of nutricion.

We had one case this year of a lad who, on the first game-day had only eaten junk food and had not been drinking enough water. I think he only drank Coke or Red Bull or something...

Out on our first mission, on the hilltop south-east of Bashir (himmelberget?) he started getting headaches, felt dizzy and tired and basically was not capable of functioning at the same level as the rest of the company.
So we had to watch him, make sure he got water and stuff, and escort him back to the NATO camp.


SO basically; if you don't know to drink enough and eat right - learn it.
If you do know; very good - and be sure to help your friends :)


It's also a good idea for the squad leader to tell his squad to drink water at regular intervals. Sure, they might know it and some might already be sipping from their camelbacks, but better safe than sorry :)

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Post by Rhyn0 » 05 Nov 2009, 07:51

good advice, above. One thing to correct:
Under NO circumstance is it ok for your urine to be red. brown or dark brown are "ok", as ok as dehydrated means. Red means you have a serious urinary tract condition, be it kidney or bladder stones or a sever infection.
so brown/dark brown=dehydrated. Red="oh shit".
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Post by running+sizzor » 05 Nov 2009, 11:18

You should have to pee regularly, if not drink more.
If it smells strongly or looks like orange juice rather than water, drink more.
If you get a headache, you are probably dehydrated. This happens to a lot of people that report headaches after a day of airsofting or other activities.
If you're drinking alcohol, drink a glas of water for every glass of beer to compensate (and you're not supposed to be doing that during the event anyway.)

If you run out of water, most people know not to drink sea water because it's so salt it sucks out the water more than it adds water. Your urine is more or less salt neutral as is adds as much water as it removes. Thus you can drink urine if you enjoy that sort of thing, but it won't really help your hydration. (and reintroducing the toxins your body just got rid of isn't that helpfull either.) :wink:
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Post by Kartoon » 05 Nov 2009, 13:23

running+sizzor wrote:
If you run out of water, most people know not to drink sea water because it's so salt it sucks out the water more than it adds water. Your urine is more or less salt neutral as is adds as much water as it removes. Thus you can drink urine if you enjoy that sort of thing, but it won't really help your hydration. (and reintroducing the toxins your body just got rid of isn't that helpfull either.) :wink:
Actually, excess salt and toxins are included to urine sometimes to an extent where drinking it might not be the right thing to do.

But studies show that unless you've been under the influence of medicine, drugs or alcohol, drinking urine as a last resort to fighting dehydration could be something to consider. Ofcourse the benefit will be short-lived as the amount of water continuosly decreases, and the amount of toxics in your body increases. As your dehydration worsens, your body will stop making urine and whatever harmful substances you drank along your urine get stuck in your body, possibly causing fever as the first symptom for a disease, infection or a poisoning.

So in a nutshell, under the circumstances where you have no fresh(ish) water to pour down your throat and you need to fight for survival drinking your own(or your friends :wink: ) urine could give you some extra hours' boost hydration wise. Needless to say, Berget is NOT one of these circumstances.

This was sort of OT and for that I apologize.
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Post by Panzergraf » 06 Nov 2009, 03:35

If you have to resort to drinking urine at an airsoft event,
something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong :?

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Post by Kvarnen » 06 Nov 2009, 14:55

A human body can absorbs approximately 2 decilitre of water every half hour. Drinking more than that is a waste of water and time ( Eventually you have to de-hydrate, and why do it more often than necessary :P)

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Post by OviDiuS » 07 Nov 2009, 21:43

Kvarnen wrote:A human body can absorbs approximately 2 decilitre of water every half hour. Drinking more than that is a waste of water and time ( Eventually you have to de-hydrate, and why do it more often than necessary :P)
I don't agree to your advice to drink just 2 dl it all depends on the person. Some persons have the possibility to absorb 3 and some up to even 5 dl so saying that 2 dl for every one don't really work. Its up to the players them self to find where it works for them. Thats why i did wright in 1-5 dl on my first post on this thread.
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Post by Rubber Duckie » 07 Nov 2009, 22:26

I dont see the problem with drinking too much water last year I watched several of my Irish team m8s suffering from heat stroke and dehydration. All it means is taking a leak behind a bush and hopeing to god that no one shoots u in the .........:)

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Post by Kvarnen » 07 Nov 2009, 22:39

yeah sorry about that, I merely tried to tell what an avarage person should drink during an avarage day during the swedish summer. Of course it depends on the person itself.

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Post by Kartoon » 07 Nov 2009, 23:23

Here's an interesting article:
On January 12, 2007, a 28-year old Californian wife and mother of three children died from drinking too much water. Her body was found in her home shortly after she took part in a water-drinking contest that was sponsored by a local radio show. Entitled "Hold Your Wee For A Wii," the contest promoters promised a free Wii video game machine to the contestant who drank the most water without urinating.

It is estimated that the woman who died drank approximately 2 gallons of water during the contest. When she and other contestants complained of discomfort and showed visible signs of distress, they were laughed at by the promoters and even heckled.

This tragic news story highlights the importance of understanding why drinking too much water can be dangerous to your health.

Whenever you disregard your sense of thirst and strive to ingest several glasses of water a day just because you have been told that doing so is good for your health, you actually put unnecessary strain on your body in two major ways:

1.

Ingesting more water than you need can increase your total blood volume. And since your blood volume exists within a closed system - your blood circulatory system - needlessly increasing your blood volume on a regular basis puts unnecessary burden on your heart and blood vessels.
2.

Your kidneys must work overtime to filter excess water out of your blood circulatory system. Your kidneys are not the equivalent of a pair of plumbing pipes whereby the more water you flush through your kidneys, the cleaner they become; rather, the filtration system that exists in your kidneys is composed in part by a series of specialized capillary beds called glomeruli. Your glomeruli can get damaged by unnecessary wear and tear over time, and drowning your system with large amounts of water is one of many potential causes of said damage.

Putting unnecessary burden on your cardiovascular system and your kidneys by ingesting unnecessary water is a subtle process. For the average person, it is virtually impossible to know that this burden exists, as there are usually no obvious symptoms on a moment-to-moment basis. But make no mistake about it: this burden is real and can hurt your health over the long term.

Forcing your body to accept a large amount of water within a short period of time - say, an hour or two - as several contestants did during the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest can be fatally dangerous to your health. Here's why:

If you force large amounts of water into your system over a short period of time, your kidneys will struggle to eliminate enough water from your system to keep the overall amount at a safe level.

As your blood circulatory system becomes diluted with excess water, the concentration of electrolytes in your blood will drop relative to the concentration of electrolytes in your cells. In an effort to maintain an equal balance of electrolytes between your blood and your cells, water will seep into your cells from your blood, causing your cells to swell.

If this swelling occurs in your brain, the bones that make up your skull hardly budge. The result is an increase in intracranial pressure i.e. your brain gets squeezed. Depending on how much water your drink in a short period of time, you could experience a wide variety of symptoms, ranging from a mild headache to impaired breathing. And as occurred recently in the tragic water-drinking contest, it is quite possible to die if you drink enough water in a short enough period of time.

This information is particularly important for parents to pass on to their children. Foolish water-drinking contests are not uncommon among high school and university students, especially while playing cards.

So how much water should you drink to best support your health?

The answer to this question depends on your unique circumstances, including your diet, exercise habits, and environment.

If you eat plenty of foods that are naturally rich in water, such as vegetables, fruits, and cooked legumes and whole grains, you may not need to drink very much water at all. If you do not use much or any salt and other seasonings, your need for drinking water goes down even further.

Conversely, if you do not eat a lot of plant foods and/or you add substantial salt and spices to your meals, you may need to drink several glasses of water every day.

Regardless of what your diet looks like, if you sweat on a regular basis because of exercise or a warm climate, you will need to supply your body with more water (through food and/or liquids) than someone who does not sweat regularly.

Ultimately, the best guidance I can provide on this issue is to follow your sense of thirst. Some people believe that thirst is not a reliable indicator of how much water you need, since many people suffer with symptoms related to dehydration and don't seem to feel a need to drink water on a regular basis. My experience has been that most people who are chronically dehydrated have learned to ignore a parched mouth. If you ask such people if they are thirsty and would like a piece of fruit or a glass of water, they will almost always realize that they are indeed thirsty.

Some people suggest observing the color of your urine as a way of looking out for dehydration. The idea is that clear urine indicates that you are well hydrated, while yellow urine indicates that you need more water in your system. While this advice is somewhat useful, it is important to remember that some chemicals (like synthetic vitamins) and heavily pigmented foods (like red beets) can add substantial color to your urine.
So what to take away from this? Drink when you're thirsty. Don't drink just because your friend tells you to drink this and that every half hour.
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Post by Eldoriath » 08 Nov 2009, 00:53

On hot days you should try to drink more then you are thirsty about to drink. If I would only drink when thirsty I know I would dehydrate quite quickly, so I try to drink a bit bore then I feel for whenever I drink. Also I try to drink more often, even though not actually feeling about it, even if it's just a mouthfull or two each time it adds up over a day.
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Post by Shadow » 09 Nov 2009, 08:45

If you wait until you are thirsty to drink, it's too late. Dehydration symptoms follows very fast.

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Post by freno » 09 Nov 2009, 08:48

Shadow wrote:If you wait until you are thirsty to drink, it's too late. Dehydration symptoms follows very fast.
...and if you are as stubborn as me, you don´t listen to the signs from your body!

DRINK WATER!
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