Drinking Water And Weight Loss

Natural Appetite Suppressant

Generally, one of the major reasons behind your weight gain could be eating more and more. You will stop eating only when your stomach sends signals to the brain to do so.

Due to this if you drink more water before meals, it could help to truncate your appetite.

Water could take up the space in your empty stomach and lead to a feeling of fullness, hence reducing your appetite.

Many times it could even happen that you may mistake thirst for hunger hence drinking a glass of water before your meals could help you to evade any unnecessary snacking.

The fact that water acts as a natural appetite suppressant might even be substantiated by several studies. A study^[1] was conducted on obese middle-aged women.

These participants drank water before each meal and hence were able to lose 44% more weight as compared to the people who did not drink more water.

Besides this, another study showed how if you drink water before breakfast, it could help to truncate the calories consumed during the meal by 13%.

Removes Waste From The Body

Another reason why water could help you to lose weight could be because it assists in removing the waste from your body.

If your body is dehydrated, then you may not be able to correctly remove the waste in the form of feces and urine.

Water is the main component through which your kidneys can function to their best extent.

The kidneys can filter out the toxins and waste while retaining the essential electrolytes and nutrients with the help of water.

However, in case your body is dehydrated, the kidneys may retain the fluid, resulting in constipation and hard or lumpy stools.

Apart from this, water may also help resolve the digestive issues in your body like indigestion and diarrhea.

On the other hand, if your body is dehydrated, then the waste could build up in the body, leading to tiredness and bloating.

Bloating on the other hand may augment the weight on a person’s waist. Hence staying hydrated will help to remove waste that could add a few pounds to your body.

Staying hydrated and maintaining a proper water intake could benefit your health in several ways, as per this study^[2].

Burn More Calories

Resting energy expenditure also referred to as the number of calories you burn for the basic physiological processes, could heighten when you drink water.

Moreover, the positive results for weight loss may even amplify in case your water is cold.

When you drink cold water, your body might use more calories to keep the water warm and hence maintain the ideal temperature of your body.

Moreover, cold water may even help to increase your body’s resting energy expenditure.

The fact that staying hydrated may help you to burn more calories was suggested by a study conducted in 2014.

This study^[3] was conducted on 14 people who drank 500 milliliters of cold and room temperature water.

These people experienced an amplification in their energy expenditure and burned 2 to 3% more calories after 90 minutes of drinking water.

Apart from this, another study was conducted on overweight and obese children.

This study found out how drinking cold water could help with a 25% increase in resting energy expenditure.

Truncated Calorie Intake

Amplifying your consumption of water may even reduce the overall liquid calorie intake.

This could happen because if you do not drink water you may replace it with other substitutes like drinking soda, sweetened coffee, tea, or juice.

Some people might even consume alcoholic beverages and sports drinks, which may accumulate liquid calories in their bodies.

On the other hand, if you replace high-calorie drinks with water or other no-calorie drinks like herbal tea, then you may face certain weight loss benefits.

An observational study^[4] showed that people who drink mostly water may have a 9% lower calorie consumption on average, which accounts for around 200 kcal.

Moreover, drinking water may also hinder long-term weight gain. You could substantiate this fact from a study conducted in 2015.

During this study^[5], some obese participants drank 250 milliliters of water for a 24-week weight loss program after their lunch each day.

Due to this, they lost approximately 13.6% more weight as compared to the people who drank 250ML of beverages after lunch.

To Burn Fat

Staying hydrated could even help your body to burn fat, because, in the absence of water, the body may not be able to properly metabolize the carbohydrates and stored fat.

The process of metabolizing fat is referred to as lipolysis, which includes the presence of water.

As the name itself suggests, this step occurs only when the triglycerides or fats in the body interact with the water molecules. Both these substances together create fatty acids and glycerol.

This absence of water in your body may limit your lipolysis process and hence truncate the amount of fat burnt by the body.

According to a mini-review conducted in 2016^[6], amplification of water consumption in animals led to an increase in the lipolysis process and hence magnified the level of loss of fat in animals.

Supporting The Workout

As you must already know, one of the most crucial aspects of losing weight is to work out regularly. On the other hand, one of the most crucial aspects^[7] of working out is to stay hydrated.

Water could bolster the activity during exercise by helping different organs like the heart, lungs, and even muscles, connective tissues, and joints to move correctly.

Moreover, if you are well hydrated, it might truncate the risk of things that may serve as an obstacle to your good workouts like fatigue and muscle cramps.

So to evade dehydration, you may always drink water before, during, and even after your workouts. Keep water close in hand, especially during summer and hot conditions.