TikToker Isabella Murray revealed that a “crazy” popular online health trend left her fainting daily.
Chatting to host Gabby Allen on the health and fitness programme What the Health?!, the content creator responded to a question asking what online fitness myth frustrates her the most: “The one about drinking a gallon of water everyday, because it can lead to water poisoning, and I don’t think a lot of people know this. You’ll see videos on TikTok saying you need to have two to three litres of water a day or a gallon of water a day. I actually had water poisoning a couple of years ago. My doctors didn’t believe me and they just kept scanning my brain. I was working for the NHS at the time and I was commuting from Birmingham to London and I was just fainting. It was really weird, like we had an away day and I was like, oh my God, I don’t think I can get back to Birmingham okay. I was fainting at my desk, I just kept dozing off.”
She continued: “The NHS Eat Well Guide says you need six to eight cups of fluid a day. That can be juices, tea, coffee, that all counts as fluid. So imagine you’re doing all of that, then you add in all these litres of water, you’re going to dilute your electrolytes. You know the importance of the electrolytes, and if you dilute them too much, you’re going to get nausea, dizziness and you’re going to be fainting. That isn’t something you want, and also your body will start failing because it doesn’t have enough electrolytes in the body. So when I hear people saying they’re drinking a gallon of water, I think, is that all you’re drinking? Or are you drinking everything else and a gallon of water? Because your water intake changes based on your height, age, gender, weight, what activities you’re doing, your environment. It’s not as simple as everyone downing a gallon of water. It’s crazy!”
Hear the episode, also featuring Dan Roberts and Rhiannon Lambert here.
