Well I am very confident that my daily liquid intake is well over 2 gallons a day. I bring a gallon of water & 3 cans of diet dew & 2 cans of diet A&W to work with me everyday - which is all usually gone by 5:00 pm. Also I usually drink another quart of diet A&W with dinner & at least another 1/2 gal. of water in the evening.

When you toss in 2 hours of working in the garden or cutting wood after work add at least another 1/2 gal. of water to the evening.

Things to factor in -

I'm 6'2" & 215 lbs.

I take Nexium for a birth defect where the flap at the top of my stomach doesn't close properly (I've had heart burn since I was 5 or 6 years old) - Nexium absolutely dehydrates me.

The caffiene in the Mountain Dew isn't helping the situation.

Also I eat more food/sweets than I need to.

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My wife is the other extreme on liquid intake. Most days she probably drinks less than 1/2 gallon. But she isn't on any medication. She weighs 125 lbs. And she is not a big eater.

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We are all wired up so differently that trying to nail it down to a set amount for the entire population is impossible. Each person needs to factor in their information.

If you took me off Nexium, Caffiene & cut out all the sugar I'm confident that I could survive on 1/2 gallon of water. But I agree with you that this would crazy! So the answer for me is to store a ton of water.