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The Great Outdoors

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    Can you quote your source please? If you drink a lot of water, the body won't retain much of what you drink since it is superfluous to its needs.
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Oct 22, 2019 at 17:47
  • We have a bunch of highly related answers on the site which provide sources about body water usage. While I'm not denying what you suggest, the answers and resources that have been shown to us suggest water utilization is highly dominated by a simple "water in" / "water out - and the water-out is fairly constant and predictable". Would be interesting though if anyone could provide any studies about water retention.
    – Loduwijk
    Commented Oct 22, 2019 at 17:53
  • I think some of us may be thinking about your question differently. Am I correct in thinking that you do not mean training yourself to use less water, but instead that you mean that we already train ourselves all the time to lower our water retention (excess water stored in the body) because we supply ourselves with plenty of water? And therefore the idea is to dehydrate yourself for a few days before a hike to retrain your body, then suddenly drink lots again the day before the hike and hope that you fully rehydrate and even retain more excess water?
    – Loduwijk
    Commented Oct 23, 2019 at 16:45
  • If my previous question correctly highlights yours, then I would like to add (since this could be a dangerous, possibly life-threatening preparation): 1) Even if this were a strategy that could work if done properly, you probably don't have the means to test your water retention accurately yourself, so you wouldn't know if you did it right or if you left yourself worse than before, and 2) I think I've read that most people, at least in my nation, keep themselves slightly dehydrated all the time due to excessive salt in their diet, and this may mean they're not trained against retention.
    – Loduwijk
    Commented Oct 23, 2019 at 16:50
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    @Loduwijk: I found a review on heat adaptation that interestingly says that heat adaptation involves retaining more water in general, i.e. having more water available for use during physical exertion in the heat (they give amounts of 2-3 l). But that is achieved by drinking more rather than less. It also suggests that in the heat, but not adapted to it, many people do not have adequate thirst and this improves (i.e. we get more thirsty) during adaptation. Bottomline is maintaining body temperature takes precedence over retaining water under "normal working conditions" of the human body.
    – cbeleites
    Commented Oct 27, 2019 at 9:08