In this article
Background
Yes! Drinking water helps boost your metabolism, acts as an appetite suppressant and can help your body stop retaining water, helping your body flush out that extra water weight.
Lets look into this in more detail
Water supresses appetite
In a study participants drank 500ml of water 30 minutes before their meals in addition to their regular water intake. The report found a reduction in participants weight, body fat and body mass, with reports of feeling less hungry.
The reason for this is probably due to the filling nature of water. When your stomach is full, it sends a signal to your brain to stop eating.
And since water contains no calories, consuming extra water can help in offset additional calorie intake and tricking your brain into thinking you’re full. Coupled with the fact water makes you feel fuller, you’re less likely to consume calorie high soda drinks, which are empty calories containing high amounts of sugar. Instead, water – whether plain drinking water or herbal infused, green-tea water – can help offset the desire to drink a sugary beverage which helps offset the empty calories and therefore, contributes to weight loss.
Summary – water helps supress your appetite by signalling your brain that you’re full, and by curbing your total calorie intake as a result.
Water helps remove excess water and burn more calories
By drinking more water, your body stores less water and therefore you begin to lose that initial water weight during the early stages of drinking more water or dieting.
Not only that, but water increases calorie burning. Studies indicate that drinking more water can promote calorie burn. Primary reasons indicate that water may temporarily increase the body’s resting energy expenditure as the body expends energy in either heating up or cooling down water.
What’s more, water can help move waste internally. Have you ever felt bloated or unable to pass stool? Drinking more water helps flush your kidneys and remove toxins and waste. These toxins can result in harder stool which can bloat your stomach and add inches to your waistline. Water can help soften the stool and make you pass more regularly, therefore helping in feeling lighter and contribute to the perceived weight loss.
Water helps burn fat before and during exercise
Water helps aid your body’s metabolic functioning, to use fat or carbohydrates as energy.
As metabolising fats requires lipolysis, which itself requires hydrolysis which is when water molecules interact with fat to create fatty acids and glycerol. Drinking enough water therefore helps your body burn more fat for fuel and is important when on diets like Keto.
Drinking more water can help with performance in the gym. By staying hydrated you can prevent fatigue and loss of energy while working out, especially if exercising in hot or humid conditions.
How much water do I need? Answer – 3 litres minimum.
I bet you believe the old adage of drinking 8 glasses of water per day? It’s not as simple as that. The amount of water you need depends entirely on the individual and hydration needs. If you workout hard daily, then you’ll need more water 3-4 litre per day for instance, than someone who does not.
The bare recommendation from Caisey is to drink minimum 2 litres of water per day, on top of your teas, coffees, sodas and other beverages. That means you’re looking at maybe 3 litres of water a day. Yes, it will mean you go to the loo more often, however by flushing your body you also begin to lose weight, feel happier, improve skin health and improve your wellbeing.
Some of the other benefits you may see by increasing your water intake:
- Relieve headaches – you can relieve headaches which are brought upon due to dehydration
- Improve your mood – by increasing water intake you can improve your mood, hydrating your body so your brain continues to function optimally. Plus, the feeling of being healthy is known to help improve one’s mood and attitude,
- Prevent Kidney Stones – by drinking water your kidneys are continually flushing the toxins out of your body, making it less likely to develop kidney stones
- Controlling blood sugar – again by flushing out toxins and helping you pass more regularly, you’re body is functioning to keep you healthy and increased water intake can help potentially lower blood sugar levels
Summary
Increased water intake can help you lose weight. It does this improving athletic performance by keeping you hydrated, and your muscles fed, allowing your body to enhance endurance. Increased water intake also assists with supressing appetite, so you don’t feel like overindulging. And in fact, often when you feel you’re hungry, you’re probably just thirsty.
So, next time you feel cravings coming on, drink a glass of water and see how you feel after.
