Questions for a newbie please?

carolynbergen1
carolynbergen1 Posts: 57
edited January 14 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all,
Would appreciate it if someone in the know can answer a couple of questions for me.

Water. Why is it important in regards to weight loss? I detest the taste of it. NEVER have been a big H2O drinker. Can't imagine drinking 8 glasses a day. Is it imperative to do this? I rarely drink things like soda. My weakness is coffee, tea, Fuze banana colada or fresh lemonade.

Eating breakfast. I've never been a breakfast eater. I generally do not consume any solid food until mid to late afternoon. I just have no desire to eat. Majority of calories are eaten at dinner. Is this really that bad?

Thanks!

Replies

  • ashleey1000
    ashleey1000 Posts: 256 Member
    Well I don't have the answers but I used to go days even weeks without a drop of water bc I hated the taste of it but now I'm drinking 72oz to a gallon a day and it isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

    I also never ate breakfast bc I would feel not sick but my stomach would hurt or I simply just didn't have time.

    I feel better about myself and an confident in my weightloss just by changing those two things about myself.
  • annieclaws
    annieclaws Posts: 9
    Try a little drop of pure lemon juice in the water
  • wibutterflymagic
    wibutterflymagic Posts: 788 Member
    Well here is my take on those 2 things. First the water, people are too hung up on the word "water" when "hydration" is what our bodies need. If someone eats a lot of fruits and veggies and soup then their bodies are getting the "hydration" it needs. Yes, water is good for complexion and keeping toxins to a minimum but drinking lemonade, tea, coffee also give you the "water" your body needs. I still never drink 8 glasses of water but I do drink more then I used to just because I'd prefer to eat my calories vs. drinking them. Our bodies are hydrated if our urine is a light yellow color. The darker it is, the more dehydrated we are. Now for the breakfast thing, I have always eaten breakfast so the idea of not eating until mid afternoon is completely foreign and don't know how anyone could not be hungry by 10am. I don't eat first then when I get up, it's typically about 9:30am. I do believe that our bodies need something within the first couple hours of being awake in order for all of our organs to get a kick start and for our metabolism to get started. I personally do not believe not eating until mid afternoon is healthy. If you ate dinner at 7pm and then don't eat for another 18hrs your bodies metabolism is in the toilet. Eating more often keeps our metabolism up and steady. My 2cents for whatever it's worth.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    These 2 things are little deals that get made into big deals.

    Water- Drink enough to stay hydrated. As long as you are not thirsty and the color of your pee is a light yellow, your good.

    Breakfast - Eat it if you like. Don't if you don't. Meal frequency and nutritional timing has little to no effect on weight loss.
    /thread
  • twentyco
    twentyco Posts: 70 Member
    Speaking only for me, drinking more water has helped because it decreases water retention (if you are giving your body plenty of water regularly, then it feels less need to retain it), and at least some of my weight was due to water retention. Also, I hit a small plateau early in my weight loss process, and in response started drinking more water. Since then, I have not hit a plateau. Not saying that drinking more water prevents plateaus, or even that it necessarily is what helped me through mine, but it does seem like, especially if you tend to have a lot of sodium in your diet, having plain water helps. I also find that while I sort of had to force myself to drink it at the beginning, I now enjoy it more.

    I have not found when I eat to make any difference. Some days I do eat breakfast, but others I don't, and it doesn't seem to matter.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    Speaking only for me, drinking more water has helped because it decreases water retention (if you are giving your body plenty of water regularly, then it feels less need to retain it), and at least some of my weight was due to water retention. Also, I hit a small plateau early in my weight loss process, and in response started drinking more water. Since then, I have not hit a plateau. Not saying that drinking more water prevents plateaus, or even that it necessarily is what helped me through mine, but it does seem like, especially if you tend to have a lot of sodium in your diet, having plain water helps. I also find that while I sort of had to force myself to drink it at the beginning, I now enjoy it more.


    Actually water retention has more to do with electrolyte balance than anything. Mostly notably, sodium/ pottassium.
  • wjrapp
    wjrapp Posts: 56 Member
    Speaking only for me, drinking more water has helped because it decreases water retention (if you are giving your body plenty of water regularly, then it feels less need to retain it), and at least some of my weight was due to water retention. Also, I hit a small plateau early in my weight loss process, and in response started drinking more water. Since then, I have not hit a plateau. Not saying that drinking more water prevents plateaus, or even that it necessarily is what helped me through mine, but it does seem like, especially if you tend to have a lot of sodium in your diet, having plain water helps. I also find that while I sort of had to force myself to drink it at the beginning, I now enjoy it more.


    Actually water retention has more to do with electrolyte balance than anything. Mostly notably, sodium/ pottassium.

    Yep...this^^^^^
  • Mini_Medic
    Mini_Medic Posts: 343 Member
    The real importance is hydration in the sense that our bodies need hydration for our organs to work properly but you don't have to guzzle the recommended 64oz a day to lose weight.

    The reason everyone screams water water (and more water!) is because hydration is important for optimum body function, not just weight loss. Everyone also disses tea and pop (coke, soda, whatever we call it) because it causes dehydration.

    Here's the truth: Tea contains caffiene and sugar, pop contains caffiene, sugar, and typically lots of sodium. Caffeine is a diaretic meaning your body activates a fluid shift at the cellular level and you pee more and excrete/lose water. Pop has sodium which in large quanities causes your body to have an electrolyte imbalance (as mmapags stated) so in order to fix the imbalance, your body has to react by retaining a lot of your fluid to make up for the shift that used your reserves. You don't want to become dehydrated, so tea (especially sugared down tea) and soda are not things you want to drink a lot of, but are not inherently evil in small amounts.

    Our bodies are made up of >60% water. If you dehydrate (sweating, caffeine use, too much sodium) and don't replenish, then your metabolic functions slow and your system is working inefficiently. If you understand aerobic (with oxygen) and anaerobic (without oxygen) metabolism you can conpare the function with an oxygen rich environment verses a oxygen deprived state. Same goes for water. Everything works properly with good hydration.


    Ah breakfast, the biggest debate on MFP. Check out the Intermittent Fasting forum and read up on Intermittent Fasting and you can see one side of the debate. I use IF and I still lose weight without breakfast. Many IF'ers eat most of their calories in a bigger evening meal and are still successful. Meal time has very little to do with overal calorie consumption. Many IF'ers also do as I do and count calories for the week, not the day, and this really helps me. Instead of worrying about a few high days and a few skipped breakfasts, you just keep track over a week and you get the same result even if you have higher days and lower days.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/forums/show/66-intermittent-fasting
  • carolynbergen1
    carolynbergen1 Posts: 57
    Thanks one and all! All good information. I appreciate it.
This discussion has been closed.

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