Your Water Prescription: Every day you should drink that amount of water in ounces, which equals 1/2 of your body weight in pounds. 

What this means is that a 110-pound woman, for example, should drink 55 ounces of water per day, while a 200-pound man needs to drink 100 ounces. Since there are eight ounces in one glass, most people should drink somewhere between 6 to 10 glasses of water each day. As a general rule, try to drink your water mostly away from mealtimes. One glass of water 30 to 60 minutes before each meal, and one to two glasses two hours following each meal will work for most people. It is best not to consume too much water during the actual meal itself in order not to dilute out the digestive juices.

What Kind of Water?

With increased water consumption, it is of special importance that we pay attention to what type of water we drink. Try to consume only pure and unpolluted water. Most municipal water supplies, as they come out the tap, are unfit for human consumption. Chlorine and fluoride are routinely added, yet are highly reactive chemicals with adverse effects on the human body. Chlorine is necessary to kill germs, which can contaminate water as it travels from its original source to our homes. It is a necessary protective agent and can be compared to the protective plastic bag in which our bread is wrapped when we bring it home from the supermarket. But just as we do not eat our bread with the plastic wrapper left on, so too should we not drink our water with the chlorine left in it. Either get a filter, which can remove these chemicals and other pollutants from your drinking water or consider using bottled water. 

Home filtration systems have a wide variation of efficacy. Reverse osmosis systems are available that remove the majority of heavy metals, petrochemicals, estrogenic compounds and microorganisms.