Water, of course, is essential to our survival as human beings. As a follow-up to our previous article, How Much Water Should You Drink, we want to explore what exactly counts as water. Does it have to be pure water or can anything that we drink that contains water count towards our daily intake? 
As you might expect, this is widely disputed.
Some seem to think that coffee, teas, and soda do not count towards your daily water intake because they contain caffeine and therefore act as diuretics which increase the dehydration process. Some even say that for every cup of caffeinated beverages you consume you should add a extra glass of water to your diet. But what if you are drinking decaffeinated coffees and teas? Because decaffeinated beverages do still contain trace amounts of caffeine they could still act as diuretic, but certainly would not be as bad as drinking their fully caffeinated counterparts. However, there are opposing views as well. An article from the Mayo Clinic states that recent research shows that caffeine only has a diuretic effect if you consume large amounts of it — more than 500 to 600 milligrams (or 4 to 7 cups of coffee) a day.
There are many people that rarely drink a pure glass of water and they are still alive. Is this the healthiest way to live? No. If you’re trying to maintain your weight or lose some you should not be filling yourself by consuming the empty calories that many beverages offer. So, it would seem that coffee, tea, and soda probably do count somewhat toward your water intake, but they simply cannot replace the beneficial properties of pure water.
The Shrinking Team
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