We’ve all heard that drinking water is good for your health. Proper hydration is essential for all of your body’s systems. Can drinking water also help you to lose weight as well? While drinking more water alone won’t miraculously make you slim, drinking more water really could help you reach your weight loss goals. Drinking water to lose weight might sound unlikely, but it can be a helpful addition to your program.
Reducing fatigue and improving performance
Exercise can help you when you’re trying to lose weight — but it’s not always easy. When you’re feeling tired and lethargic, you don’t want to exercise and move around. Dehydration, even mild dehydration, can leave you feeling low in energy. If you haven’t drunk enough water, you can overheat rapidly as your body won’t be able to cool you down through perspiration. A drink of cool, refreshing water can perk you up, allowing you to get moving.
Replacing high-calorie drinks
Does drinking water help you lose weight? If you’re consuming sweet drinks, switching to water can certainly help create a calorie deficit. Soda and soft drinks may be tasty — but they often come loaded with sugar. A single can of full-calorie soda can pack as many calories as a bowl of pasta and marinara sauce. If you replace that soda with water instead, you’ll save those calories for a healthy snack. Current research suggests that water is better than diet soda if you’re trying to lose weight, as the use of artificial sweeteners seems to be correlated with obesity. Nobody’s precisely sure as to why this happens. It may be that people who drink diet sodas feel that they can eat more. Another theory holds that diet sodas trick the body into making too much insulin and thus cause a drop in blood sugar, increasing the drinker’s appetite. Whatever the reason, it’s clear that drinking water instead of soda is a smart move. Water has no calories, no additives, and no acidic flavorings to attack your teeth.
Reducing your appetite
While there’s little substance to the old saw that thirst can masquerade as hunger, water can still help to reduce your appetite and prevent you from over-eating. It takes around 20 minutes after eating for your stomach to communicate fullness and satiation to your brain and the rest of your body. During those 20 minutes, you may continue eating because you still feel hungry. If you can slow down the pace at which you eat or hasten the feeling of satiation, you may find that you naturally eat less. Drinking water before you eat will fill up your stomach and help you to feel satisfied more quickly. Sipping water during your meal will help you to slow down and eat less rapidly. Some people find warm water more helpful for this, while others prefer ice water. Experiment to find out which is best for you.
Raising your metabolism and burning calories
Can you lose weight by drinking water that’s been chilled? There’s some truth to this old diet tip. When you drink cold water, your body has to warm it up. This means burning calories. The number of calories needed to raise the temperature of cold water is surprisingly significant. It takes around 25 calories to warm up two pints (one liter) of ice water so it’s the same temperature as your body. While you can’t lose weight just by drinking ice water, the process of warming the cold fluid up to body temperature may raise your metabolism overall. That’s good news when you’re working towards weight loss.
Boosting your confidence
It can be hard to stick to your weight loss goals when you feel like you’re not looking your best. Drinking water regularly can help you to look and feel great. It keeps your complexion bright and fresh, gets rid of fine dryness lines, and stops your eyes from becoming dry and dull. The confidence boost can help motivate you to get into shape. Does drinking water help lose weight? The bottom line is that it can help if used alongside other measures like dieting and exercise. Whether you’re trying to lose weight or not, it’s essential to drink enough water. Dehydration can have several negative effects, especially if you’re working out a lot. Getting plenty of water will help you to perform at your best, whatever your weight is now.
