however, too much h2o whilst exercising WILL cause your body to function properly. have to watch out for that
Yes, actually. IF you drink over several gallons of water (Read:Bathtubs) your belly will swell, Fill your stomach past maximium could be fatal. Chances of you doing this: 0.00001% Water is your friend.
The only time I've ever heard of water being hazardous is in extreme cases. I remember reading someone one time about a marathon running drinking too much water and his/her salt content in the body dropped very low because he/she was only replacing the water, not the salt, lost in sweat. But yeah, I agree with Maximicus on the chances of harming yourself.
Drinking too much water can kill you. But youd have to drink more in a couple hours than you probably do in a day. Happens in the military every so often though.
Drinking lots of water in a short time period can give you a bloated belly... nothing to worry about though, it passes.
I remember when my house (big team type of house) at school has this thing called the "Kilburn challenge" (Kilburn being the name of the house) We gave this guy a jug of water and he had to drink it, he managed to chug a lot of it down. As he sat back in his seat under a roar of applauses, he stopped, he ran outside faster than anything you've seen, and probably more uncoordinatedly too, ran outside into the hallway (just outside the priests’ offices) and chucked it all up, the amount of water in the carpet was incredible. Very few of us shall ever forget that! Conclusion: Water through the day = Good Chugging = Bad.... Very Bad.
Im not too sure about gatorade tho. Unless you're doing more than an hour or so of strenuous training, gatorade is just empty calories and has no advantage over water. I also read somewhere that drinking excessive amounts of water (we're talking a lot of water here), while having horible effects on your body, gives you a cheap high. but for now im comfortable with a bladder thats smaller than a football and a digestive track that works...
Water is my friend!!! Water rocks... You can't believe the health benifits you get from drinking water... Here's an idea which i recommend everyone read http://www.trickstutorials.com/channels/water.php
Just a side note. If you do get really thirsty and drink gallons of water in one sitting, go to a doctor! My uncle woke up one night very very thirsty. He drank over a gallon of water and still was thirsty. He went to the doctor and found out he had diabetes. (He was over 35 when he found out.) So extreme thirst can be a warning call of something else!
Basically, if your exercising and drink a gallon of water a day, good for you, your doing right. If your drinking a gallon of water an HOUR, baaaaad news, somethings wrong.