Blog / Food
Water before coffee
One full glass of water before the first coffee. Thirst gets quieter as we get older, so plenty of men start the day a little low on fluid without noticing, and even a small shortfall makes training feel harder than it should.
Thirst gets quieter
With age, the thirst signal becomes less sensitive. You can be short of fluid without feeling thirsty, which is why waiting until you want a drink works worse at sixty than it did at thirty.
What it does to a workout
Being even slightly dry makes the same effort feel harder, pushes your heart rate up for the same work, and makes you more likely to feel light-headed when you stand up quickly. None of it is dramatic. All of it makes the session worse than it needed to be.
Coffee is not the enemy
For regular drinkers, coffee and tea count towards your fluid for the day. This is not about giving anything up. It is about the order: water first, coffee second.
The habit
Fill a glass the night before and leave it next to the kettle or the coffee maker. Drink it before anything else touches your hands. Then a glass with each meal.
The simplest check is the colour in the toilet: pale yellow is about right, dark yellow means drink more.
When not to follow this
If you have heart failure, a kidney condition or another reason your doctor has set a fluid limit, follow their number, not this page.
