What is the right approach in logging water consumed vs other fluid consumed during the day?

[HermanCheng]

What is the right approach in logging water consumed vs other fluid consumed during the day?  

I mean, if you drink 2 glasses of water, and drink a gallon of sports drink, then some coffee etc. how should you log it? in food item consumed? should they count as water consumed?

[WendyB · Accepted solution]

Sports drink I woud log as food as it has a lot of calories. Coffee I would log as water not many calories

[Mary]

I personally don't log water or fluid intake, except if I'm logging calories from it.  From what I've read, if you drink when you're thirsty and if your urine is clear, not cloudy, you get enough water.  

[TangledWood]

It really comes down to personal preference, and why you are logging. I log my coffee, diet /zero calorie drinks, and also the low calorie Gatorade I drink. I log the coffee and other diet drinks to help keep track of how much caffiene I am drinking.

Occassionally I will log water for a few days when I know I'm losing the habit of drinking enough, just the act of logging it helps me keep it in mind.

[Rucker]

I have a rule that I don't drink calories.  Of course, since only a sith deals in absolutes, here's how I handle drinks...

If the drink has any calories or sodium, I log it as food (i.e. Pepsi Max, Gatorade, Diet Gatorade, etc.).  The other reason I log diet drinks is that I'm trying to track the impact of artificial sweeteners on my diet.  Because I use intermittent fasting, I actually find that consuming diet soda makes the next day more difficult to stay on track, so I want to be able to go back and track when I drank what.

I only add calories to my coffee on very rare occasions.  I drink black coffee all morning and white/green tea all evening, with no sweeteners or cream.  As such, I log that as water.

[mkchaereddy]

Coffee really shouldn't be logged as water.  I know it has water in it but it's also a diuretic.  Whenever you drink coffee, you should really be drinking MORE water to compensate for that.  Just my two cents! 🙂

[Rucker]

Caffeine is a mild diuretic at best. Water in coffee counts, just like water in juice or soda counts. There's water in most food that counts, there's to just no easy way to measure it.

Edit: grammar