Water-drink it up!

Well, I trust you all survived the holidays...some of you may be a few pounds lighter and some may be a few pounds heavier. The good news is, if your scale did go up unless you were eating WAY more  (remember 3500 calories = 1 pound of fat) than you normally do some of it can be attributed to water retention...because you probably consumed far less water than you should have been consuming.

There is a vital connection between drinking water and fat loss. A sufficient supply of water keeps fat away. Incredible as it may seem, water is possibly the most important factor in losing weight and keeping it off.

Why water is important

Other than the obvious, to avoid dehydration here is why water is so important.

1. It is believed that when we metabolize or burn 16 ounces/454g of fat, our body generates 22 ounces/624g of water, which - surprisingly - must be flushed out by drinking water. By drinking too little water, the body feels threatened and enters a self-protection mode and will hang on to every molecule of water in the body resulting in fluid retention and no weight loss on the scale.

2. Water can help suppress the appetite naturally and helps the body metabolize stored fat. By drinking water and correcting fluid retention more fat is used as fuel because the liver is free to metabolize fat at an accelerated speed. Not to mention most people confuse being thirsty with actual hunger which can easily happen if you have not had enough water during the day.

3. The kidneys cannot function properly without enough water. If the kidneys do not work to capacity, some of their load is dumped on the liver, resulting in less fat being metabolized.

4. Water helps wash out by-products of metabolism, prevents an accumulation of body and drug/chemically induced toxins, it helps in maintaining all normal body functions such as temperature control, electrolyte balance and the prevention of constipation. Ample water is also important in preventing sagging skin during fat loss. An overweight person needs more water than a thin person, because they have larger metabolic loads. Since we know that water is the key to fat metabolism, drinking water is essential to weight loss and maintaining good health during the stress of dieting.

6. People normally receive a large portion of their water needs through their food, which can be 70 - 90%. While "dieting" the food intake is reduced and thus the person is not getting their normal water supply, let alone the extra water needed to flush out the metabolic by-products. This results in a hidden hunger in "dieters" as the body is craving food for it's water content, but the person also ends up with calories contained in the food.

7. Water is essential to keep skin healthy. If the body can't get rid of the by-products of metabolized fat via kidney excretion, the skin is called upon to excrete these by-products. Your skins elasticity is also greatly influenced by you water intake. 

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I drink a minimum of 3 litres of water a day, on top of that I usually have 2 green teas. If you hate the taste of water, try adding lemon, strawberries or cucumber to it.

Pop does NOT count as water! in some cases your pop is adding 150-200 or more empty calories. Coffee doesn't count either although there are some people who would argue this. Coffee is a natural diurectic. Diuretics, increase the dehydration process...which defeats the purpose.

So, drink up!