We’ve all seen them, the gallon water jugs, multi-colored and feigning some sort of inspirational hoo-hah to incite motivation to slug down more and more water like “don’t give up”, or “feeling awesome.” But is there really a method to the madness? There is. You may not have to carry around a water jug that inadvertently screams at you like your apple watch to stand up, but research has shown that drinking more water can indeed help you lose weight.
Research suggests there is in fact a connection between water and weight loss. After all, your body is composed of nearly 60% water, meaning it does play a significant role in your biological function. The more hydrated you are the more optimal your bodily processes such as mental processing and burning body fat will be.
Water can help you lose weight through several different mechanism, such as suppressing your appetite, improving metabolic rate, and more.
Water stimulates your metabolic rate by inducing thermogenesis and energy expenditure. One study found that increases in water intake significantly reduced body fat over a 12 month period independent of diet and exercise.
Drinking more water stimulates thermogenesis or heat production. The heat your body burns is measured in calories. The greater the thermogenic effect of your body, the high number of calories you’ll expend. Your body has to expend energy to warm fluid your body temperature, and the more energy expended in this process, the faster your metabolism (the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy) runs. Studyies have shown that drinking water can increase your metabolic rate up to 30%.
When you’re hungry, your first impulse is to eat. But hunger can also be triggered by mild-moderate dehydration and is often mistaken for hunger by your brain.
Drinking water before your meals, can help reduce your hunger and control the amount you eat and ultimately reduce caloric intake. One study showed that drinking 1-2 glasses of water before eating, reduced the overall amount of food they ate by 22%.
Drinking water promotes satiation and feelings of fullness, because it passes through your system quickly, stretching the stomach.
Replacing sugary beverages such as soda, with water can reduce overall caloric intake, and overtime cutting out 1-2 sodas per day can add up rather quickly and contribute greatly to weight loss.
One can of soda contains around 150 calories with 41g of sugar. Without drinking soda, or eating sweets, it’s difficult to ingest this much sugar through whole raw foods, lean protein, and unprocessed snacks.
Juice although healthy and loaded with micronutrients and antioxidants, also contains a heap of sugar and calories. Reducing the amount of juice you drink and replacing with water will also contribute to greater reductions in weight loss.
Increasing your water intake will help improve the process of lipolysis, or the process of using body fat for energy. Mild-moderate dehydration has been shown to slow down the fat burning process decreasing lipolysis and contributing to weight gain. Water also expands cell volume which could also be another mechanism to weight loss with water intake.
Drinking more water will make you have to pee more often as well as facilitate bowel movements. Therefore, the more hydrated you are the more things will move along removing toxins and waste along the way as a byproduct. This will aland constipation.
Drinking water provides a host of benefits that span far beyond just regulating weight or aiding weight loss efforts. Since we’re made up of so much water, making sure we’re well hydrated helps our bodies run more efficiently, absorb nutrients, and regulate important biomarkers like blood pressure. Keep in mind, drinking water isn’t a magic weight loss resolve, but it’s an incredible daily habit that you can practice on your journey towards better health. Now go get a cool water bottle, slap some stickers on it, and bring that thing with you everywhere. Hydration here we come!
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