The Great Water Conversation
Inside of our community, water has become a big conversation.
And as a result, I have officially become a water person.
Apparently this is what happens when you spend enough years studying nutrition, metabolism, hormones and the human body. You start wondering things like:
Is filtered water better? Should I be drinking spring water? What about reverse osmosis? Do I need electrolytes? Is my tap water actually fine?
And why does choosing WATER suddenly require a graduate degree?
Spring. Filtered. Reverse osmosis. Whole-house. Mineral. Tap. Hydrogen. Electrolytes. Mineral drops. Everyone has an opinion.
But I think we're asking the wrong question when we ask, What is the "best" water?
Because hydration, like almost everything else in the body, is contextual.
Your Body Isn't a Water Bottle
We tend to think: water goes in → hydration achieved
Except your body isn't a container we're trying to fill. It's constantly regulating fluid through your kidneys, hormones, thirst, food, electrolytes, sweat, activity and environment. Water moves through your blood, around your cells and into your cells while your body decides what to keep and what to release.
Which means:
Drinking water is the input. Hydration is the response.
One person spends Tuesday in an air-conditioned office. Another strength trains for 90 minutes and then walks outside in Tennessee in August. One may need 80 ounces. The other may need 120.
Very different Tuesday.
So How Much Do You Actually Need?
Start with a baseline, absolutely.
The National Academies suggest about 2.7 liters a day for women and 3.7 for men from all sources, with roughly a fifth of that coming from food. They're clear that this is a starting point, not a prescription.
Your water needs shift with:
→ Body size
→ Activity and sweat rate
→ Heat and humidity
→ Food and electrolyte intake
→ Alcohol, travel, illness
→ Hormonal changes, pregnancy or breastfeeding
→ And simply what your body is telling you that day
Your thirst is not an inconvenience. It's information.
So is waking up thirsty. So is urine color. So is the headache after an afternoon outside. So is suddenly craving watermelon, citrus, coconut water or something salty in the middle of summer.
Instead of asking
"Did I hit my water goal?"
try asking
"How is my body responding?"
Hydration First, Always
One of the simplest things we teach around hunger: before assuming every signal means you need more food, check your hydration.
The hypothalamus helps regulate both thirst and appetite, and sometimes we read thirst as hunger or a craving. That doesn't mean every craving is dehydration, and I definitely don't want you drinking water to suppress legitimate hunger. This is about getting better at understanding the signal.
A simple practice:
→ Drink water before meals.
→ Sip between meals rather than catching up at the end of the day.
→ Before grabbing a snack, check in: Am I hungry? Thirsty? Both?
Still hungry? Great. Eat.
Hydration also carries your digestion.
Your digestive tract uses fluid at every stage, and adequate water is what lets fiber do its job. A glass of water 20 to 30 minutes before eating is a lovely way to arrive at your meal well hydrated. Just don't turn the 30-minute mark into another rule. The hydration matters more than the stopwatch.
Okay, But What Type of Water?
Now we get to the part where the internet completely loses its mind.
Here are the options most of us are actually choosing between.
Tap Water
Tap water isn't automatically bad water. Public water systems in the United States are required to monitor for regulated contaminants.
But there's another layer. Your municipality can tell you what's leaving the water system. Only your home can tell you what's actually coming out of your faucet, because water also travels through service lines, household pipes and fixtures, and those add their own variables, especially in older homes.
Want to know what's in your water? Two steps:
1. Look up your local Consumer Confidence Report. Your water supplier publishes an annual report on where your water comes from and what's been detected.
2. Test your actual tap water. The EPA recommends a state-certified drinking water laboratory. This is especially worth it if you live in an older home, are concerned about lead, notice an unusual taste or smell, are on a private well, or are about to spend real money on a filtration system.
Because before spending thousands of dollars solving a water problem, it might be nice to know what problem you actually have.
Novel concept, I know.
Filtered Water
"Filtered" can mean almost anything: a pitcher, a refrigerator filter, an under-sink carbon filter, a multi-stage system, a whole-house system.
So instead of asking "Is my water filtered?" ask "What is this filter certified to remove?"
NSF certifications distinguish between systems designed mainly to improve taste and reduce chlorine and systems tested to reduce specific contaminants with health effects. More filtration isn't automatically better filtration.
The right filter addresses what's actually in your water.
A whole-house system treats everything you drink, cook with, shower in and wash produce with. For some households that makes sense. For others, a targeted filter at the kitchen sink solves the actual problem at a fraction of the cost.
Test → Understand → Choose.
Not: Fear → Instagram ad → $8,000 filtration system.
Reverse Osmosis: When "Pure" Gets Interesting
RO uses pressure to push water through a semi-permeable membrane. Depending on the system and its certification, it can dramatically reduce dissolved solids and contaminants like lead, arsenic, nitrates, fluoride, copper and some volatile organic compounds.
The important words there: depending on the system. Not every RO unit is certified for every contaminant.
But RO is very good at one thing: removing dissolved material. That includes what we want gone… and the minerals naturally present in the source water.
RO water is very low in total dissolved solids (TDS), which often gets marketed as lower TDS = better water. But TDS isn't a health score. It simply tells you how much dissolved material is present. As water moves through soil and stone it picks up minerals like calcium and magnesium. RO largely removes them.
That doesn't make RO water dangerous. It doesn't make spring water magically therapeutic. It means they're different inputs, and that's worth understanding.
Should you remineralize RO water? You can, through remineralization cartridges, mineral concentrates, electrolyte products, blending with mineral-containing water, or simply through mineral-rich food. Large-scale desalination plants do this intentionally. I wouldn't claim added minerals are useless because they didn't sit underground together for 400 years.
Our physiology is more adaptable than that. But I also wouldn't assume a pinch of something recreates a natural spring. What you add, and how much, determines the profile.
Spring Water
This is the category I find most fascinating, because different springs have completely different mineral profiles. And yes, they actually taste different.
Try it. Buy two or three glass bottles of spring water. Don't read the labels. Pour them into glasses. Taste.
I love this as a body-awareness experiment. Not because your tongue is suddenly an ICP mass spectrometer. We've become so accustomed to overriding ourselves that there's something interesting about simply asking:
Which one do I enjoy?
Which one makes me want to drink more?
How do I feel afterward?
Even that preference may shift with the season, your training, your food, your sweat. This is where nutrition becomes less about memorizing the "right" answer and more about developing a relationship with your own body.
This is the methodology we come back to again and again inside of Awaken Your Nutrition.
The Part Everyone Skips: Your Food Is Hydrating You
Here's what almost never makes it into the water conversation.
Somewhere around 20 percent of your daily fluid comes from food, and that's before we talk about minerals. Cucumber, melon, citrus, berries, tomatoes, leafy greens, soups, broths and yogurt all carry water into your body alongsidethe electrolytes that help you hold onto it.
And food is where most of your minerals actually come from:
→ Potassium: potatoes, bananas, beans, avocado, squash, leafy greens
→ Magnesium: nuts, seeds, legumes, dark chocolate, whole grains, greens
→ Sodium and chloride: salting your food to taste
→ Calcium: dairy, sardines, tofu, greens, and yes, mineral-rich water
For most people on most days, whole food plus mineral-containing water plus salting food appropriately covers electrolyte needs completely. The packet is the exception, not the baseline.
And Then There Are Electrolytes…
Somehow we went from "Drink water" to "If your water doesn't contain 17 trace minerals harvested from an ancient seabed during a full moon, are you even hydrated?"
Electrolytes are real and important. Sodium and potassium regulate fluid balance and are essential for nerve and muscle function. But that doesn't mean every person needs a packet every morning. Think tools, not requirements.
Electrolyte powders give you predictable amounts of sodium, potassium, chloride and sometimes magnesium, occasionally with carbohydrates for longer efforts. You know what you're getting, which makes them practical for long workouts, heavy sweaters, hot environments, travel and illness.
Seawater-derived mineral solutions like Quinton use filtered seawater as their source, in hypertonic and isotonic versions. Another delivery option. Some people love them. What we can't responsibly say is that they're absorbed better than every traditional product. We simply don't have strong evidence for that claim. Again, listen to your body.. if you feel better when choosing one of these options, that's data.
Mineral salt is the simplest option. A pinch in water raises sodium and chloride, which is perfectly reasonable in the right context. But Himalayan pink salt and other specialty salts are still primarily sodium chloride. Their magnesium and potassium content is too small to make them a comprehensive electrolyte supplement. So not Himalayan salt = complete mineral replacement, but Himalayan salt = an accessible source of sodium and chloride with small amounts of other minerals. Very different claim.
So which is best?
It depends. Shocking, I know.
For everyday life: food, mineral-containing water and salted meals may be completely sufficient. For demanding days: a balanced electrolyte product earns its place. If all you have is salt and water, that's still a tool.
You don't need the world's most expensive packet to be a hydrated human. And you don't need to reject a product simply because it comes in one.
One important caveat: if you have kidney disease, heart disease, high blood pressure, take medications that affect fluid or electrolyte balance, or have specific sodium or fluid instructions from your provider, that's a conversation to have with them rather than experimenting freely.
Reverse Osmosis: When "Pure" Gets Interesting
RO uses pressure to push water through a semi-permeable membrane. Depending on the system and its certification, it can dramatically reduce dissolved solids and contaminants like lead, arsenic, nitrates, fluoride, copper and some volatile organic compounds.
The important words there: depending on the system. Not every RO unit is certified for every contaminant.
But RO is very good at one thing: removing dissolved material. That includes what we want gone… and the minerals naturally present in the source water.
RO water is very low in total dissolved solids (TDS), which often gets marketed as lower TDS = better water. But TDS isn't a health score. It simply tells you how much dissolved material is present. As water moves through soil and stone it picks up minerals like calcium and magnesium. RO largely removes them.
That doesn't make RO water dangerous. It doesn't make spring water magically therapeutic. It means they're different inputs, and that's worth understanding.
Should you remineralize RO water? You can, through remineralization cartridges, mineral concentrates, electrolyte products, blending with mineral-containing water, or simply through mineral-rich food. Large-scale desalination plants do this intentionally. I wouldn't claim added minerals are useless because they didn't sit underground together for 400 years.
Our physiology is more adaptable than that. But I also wouldn't assume a pinch of something recreates a natural spring. What you add, and how much, determines the profile.
Spring Water
This is the category I find most fascinating, because different springs have completely different mineral profiles. And yes, they actually taste different.
Try it. Buy two or three glass bottles of spring water. Don't read the labels. Pour them into glasses. Taste.
I love this as a body-awareness experiment. Not because your tongue is suddenly an ICP mass spectrometer. We've become so accustomed to overriding ourselves that there's something interesting about simply asking:
Which one do I enjoy?
Which one makes me want to drink more?
How do I feel afterward?
Even that preference may shift with the season, your training, your food, your sweat. This is where nutrition becomes less about memorizing the "right" answer and more about developing a relationship with your own body.
This is the methodology we come back to again and again inside of Awaken Your Nutrition.
The Part Everyone Skips: Your Food Is Hydrating You
Here's what almost never makes it into the water conversation.
Somewhere around 20 percent of your daily fluid comes from food, and that's before we talk about minerals. Cucumber, melon, citrus, berries, tomatoes, leafy greens, soups, broths and yogurt all carry water into your body alongsidethe electrolytes that help you hold onto it.
And food is where most of your minerals actually come from:
→ Potassium: potatoes, bananas, beans, avocado, squash, leafy greens
→ Magnesium: nuts, seeds, legumes, dark chocolate, whole grains, greens
→ Sodium and chloride: salting your food to taste
→ Calcium: dairy, sardines, tofu, greens, and yes, mineral-rich water
For most people on most days, whole food plus mineral-containing water plus salting food appropriately covers electrolyte needs completely. The packet is the exception, not the baseline.
And Then There Are Electrolytes…
Somehow we went from "Drink water" to "If your water doesn't contain 17 trace minerals harvested from an ancient seabed during a full moon, are you even hydrated?"
Electrolytes are real and important. Sodium and potassium regulate fluid balance and are essential for nerve and muscle function. But that doesn't mean every person needs a packet every morning. Think tools, not requirements.
Electrolyte powders give you predictable amounts of sodium, potassium, chloride and sometimes magnesium, occasionally with carbohydrates for longer efforts. You know what you're getting, which makes them practical for long workouts, heavy sweaters, hot environments, travel and illness.
Seawater-derived mineral solutions like Quinton use filtered seawater as their source, in hypertonic and isotonic versions. Another delivery option. Some people love them. What we can't responsibly say is that they're absorbed better than every traditional product. We simply don't have strong evidence for that claim. Again, listen to your body.. if you feel better when choosing one of these options, that's data.
Mineral salt is the simplest option. A pinch in water raises sodium and chloride, which is perfectly reasonable in the right context. But Himalayan pink salt and other specialty salts are still primarily sodium chloride. Their magnesium and potassium content is too small to make them a comprehensive electrolyte supplement. So not Himalayan salt = complete mineral replacement, but Himalayan salt = an accessible source of sodium and chloride with small amounts of other minerals. Very different claim.
So which is best?
It depends. Shocking, I know.
For everyday life: food, mineral-containing water and salted meals may be completely sufficient. For demanding days: a balanced electrolyte product earns its place. If all you have is salt and water, that's still a tool.
You don't need the world's most expensive packet to be a hydrated human. And you don't need to reject a product simply because it comes in one.
One important caveat: if you have kidney disease, heart disease, high blood pressure, take medications that affect fluid or electrolyte balance, or have specific sodium or fluid instructions from your provider, that's a conversation to have with them rather than experimenting freely.
Your Muscles Store Water With Their Fuel
Here's the other reason to stop thinking of water as something that goes into a bottle and then into you.
Water is intertwined with metabolism.
When you eat carbohydrates, they're broken down largely into glucose. Some is used right away. Some is stored in your muscles as glycogen. And glycogen doesn't get stored alone: each gram of muscle glycogen is stored with roughly 3 grams of water.
So imagine this. You eat more carbohydrates over the weekend. Monday morning you step on the scale: +2 pounds. Within approximately four seconds: I knew I shouldn't have eaten those carbs.
Except you may not have gained two pounds of fat. You may have replenished:
CARBOHYDRATE → GLUCOSE → GLYCOGEN + WATER → FUEL
Read this twice: sometimes "water weight" is stored fuel, not gained fat. That glycogen is now available to power your next workout.
Same scale. Completely different interpretation.
This Is Why I Love Physiology
The more you understand your body, the less every little fluctuation needs to become a crisis.
A pound appears on the scale. You're thirstier than usual. You crave something salty after sweating. Your energy changes. Your needs change.
None of that means something has gone wrong. Your body is constantly gathering information and responding.
The goal isn't to control every variable more precisely. It's to become more fluent in the language of your own body.
There isn't one perfect number. There isn't one magical water. There isn't one filtration system everyone needs. There isn't one electrolyte formula every human should take.
There is:
INPUT → RESPONSE → INTERPRETATION → ADJUSTMENT
And the more you understand the response, the less dependent you become on someone else telling you exactly what your body needs.
That's where health becomes personal.
Awaken Your Nutrition Begins September 21
Inside our 12-week experience, you'll work alongside our team of seven nutrition, lifestyle, and holistic architects to establish personalized nutritional inputs and learn how to interpret your body's response to them.
Week by week, we use education, coaching, and biofeedback, like hydration water and minerals, to help you understand what's happening and make adjustments as your body and life change.
Because the goal isn't perfect macros.
And it isn't perfect eating.
The goal is to know yourself better.
If you're ready to stop treating nutrition like a test and start treating it like something you can learn from, we'd love to explore that with you.
Awaken Your Nutrition begins September 21.
👉Click here to apply for Awaken Your Nutrition
👉Click here if you want to nerd out on everything you get inside the Awaken Your Nutrition Program
All love,
Shannon Morse
