Calculate fluid requirements - how it works
Calculating your daily fluid needs can be a good thing, because an adult is about 70 percent water. It is therefore particularly important to meet your daily fluid needs.
Calculate fluid requirements - you should keep this in mind
When calculating your fluid needs, keep in mind that only an average can be calculated. How much fluid you really need depends on various factors, some of which vary daily.
- Age: Between the ages of 15 and 51, people need the most fluids. Infants, children and the elderly, on the other hand, have a lower fluid requirement.
- Weight: The higher the weight, the more water the body needs.
- Nutrition: The values given (see table) refer to the total fluid requirement of your body. So if you eat a lot of food with a high water content (e.g. cucumber), you need to drink less liquid through drinks.
- Condition: Pregnant or breastfeeding women need more fluids.
- Activities: Athletes sweat a lot and therefore excrete a large part of the absorbed fluid. Therefore, the need for fluids generally increases in athletic people or through physical activity.
Calculating fluid requirements: These formulas exist
You can also use a variety of formulas to calculate your daily fluid requirements. We will show you the best-known methods for this in the following points.
- For every kilogram of body weight, adult people should consume around 35 milliliters of fluid per day. Seniors from the age of 65 only 30 milliliters per kilogram. According to this, an adult person with a body weight of 75 kilograms needs a daily amount of fluid of 2, 625 milliliters. From the age of 65, this value drops to 2, 250 milliliters.
- Visit the fluid requirements calculator from onmeda.de, here you only have to enter weight and age. The tool does the math for you.
- The next method only takes into account your body weight. Age doesn't matter here. Calculate 100 milliliters for the first 10 kilograms of body weight and 50 milliliters for the next 10 kilograms. For every additional kilogram of body weight, take 15 milliliters of water a day. For a sample person weighing 75 kilograms, the fluid requirement can be calculated as described in the following image.
Find out what happens when you drink too little in our next practical tip.