1 liter of water first thing in the morning to detoxify???

***WARNING--THIS POST TALKS ABOUT BOWEL MOVEMENTS***

I saw a documentary called "Food Matters", it's about eating healthier, and the kinds of toxins that get into our bodes, stuff like that. They mention a sort of water detox at about 46 mins into it. Now, the guy who's talking suggests to start your day with water. He said to drink a liter of water before eating or drinking anything else. The point of this is to expel toxins as quickly as possible through our bowels instead of allowing them to go through our skin through sweat. He also claimed his cousin, who lost 150lbs, did this and actually lost 15lbs in one day, having 12 bowel movements a day. I know, that sounds excessive, lol. Well, I drank 1 liter of water this morning before eating my oatmeal or drinking my morning coffee, and my stomach instantly began to hurt. I felt terrible, nauseous, then my stomach began to cramp really bad. It subsided after a few minutes, so I ate my oatmeal, never did get to my coffee though because after eating my oatmeal I had to go straight to the bathroom. After two bowel movements, spread apart by maybe 30 mins or so, I now feel so much better. I literally felt like I had the stomach flu or something. I wasn't prepared for the "sick" feeling that I got from just drinking water. I usually drink about 80-90 oz of water a day, but I have never drank it first thing in the morning, and it's usually only 1 pint at a time. I know water is good for you, but I never knew it could be used in this capacity to detoxify your body. Anyone else doing this? Any thoughts about this?

I don't even know where to begin.

1) No need to emphasize the discussion of bowel movements as it's generally assumed that everyone on this site is 18 and therefore able to handle such topics.

2) Toxins do get into our bodies however are liver is more than capable than dealing with them.

3) If you're stomach is hurting and you feel like vomiting that is a sure fire sign that what you're doing is unhealthy for you.

4) The fact that somebody lost 15 pounds in one day is irrelevant as it's impossible to lose that much fat in one day.

5) His cousin may have lost 150 pounds but attributing that to drinking an incredible amount of water in a short period of time is misinformative.

The toxins that store in your body, generally store in fat. So, losing weight will help you detoxify your body. I drink a liter of water when I get up usually. Not to detox, but because it is good to stay hydrated, and morning time is the worst time for hydration. I drink a ton of water though.

Never seen the documentary or heard of having to drink a liter, but I've heard its good to drink some water 1st thing in the morning before eating, but with lemon or lime juice squeezed in it. The lemon is a natural astringent that helps your liver and lymphatic system to expel toxins.

But your skin, and the act of sweating, also expels toxins from the body, so when you are exercising and sweating, this is expelling toxins as well.

As you eat healthier, and sweat, and drink water, all these acts are expelling toxins you may have, and your liver will thank you

It would have come out eventually anyway. Instead, it sounds like the water forced our a bowel movement and made you feel sick and horrible.

I work out first thing in the morning. I usually drink about a liter of water during, and then a little more afterward before I eat anything. I've never noticed a difference in bowel movements between workout days and off days.

I think a few facts are needed here.

Firstly drinking a litre of water in one go will not harm you, but until your body gets use to it you may feel bloated or nauseous. The idea is really straight forward water is a zero calorie food. When you drink a large amount particularly in the morning, it fills the stomach and starts the digestive system to try to move the volume through the body. This is a natural bodily function.

Because water contains only trace elements of salts and other minerals there is nothing to digest.

The body clears out the residues of the food you ate the day before, to make room for the water you have drunk. The volume is important because too little and your body can retain the old food longer. To much and you feel ill.

To explain this a little better, when you eat food the body can take at least 8 hours to digest it, and for certain food groups even longer. The body will eventually digest everything if you don't eat again, however if you eat the body dumps some residue to make way for new which can be used as energy or stored as fats. The body doesn't store everything you eat hence we go to the little room to clear stuff out.

Now back to the water, when you drink in volume the body dumps residue as mentioned, but then cannot get any value out of the water you have drunk, so it takes enough to hydrate and then dumps the rest.

This leaves the body without food so it burns fat, and you feel full because of the water. Doing it daily loses the body around 400 to 500 calories but depends on weight. Of course you can eat more and keep the weight on. It also flushes the kidneys because again there is no value in water in terms of calories.

One final point, the latest research shows any drink will hydrate the body just as quick as water so the notion that drinking lots of water rather than beer hydrates your quicker is not quite true. Of course the downside is beer has both calories and dehydrates at the other end, so naturally zero calories are best.

So the answer is drinking a litre of water is not bad for you and can help you not to feel over hungry in the morning, so try it and eat half the breakfast you would normally eat and you will drop weight - and Oh don't forget the exercising.

I think a few facts are needed here. User signs up to defend a 5-month old thread about a specific documentary? FISHY....


Drinking water is great. When you wake up you are usually dehydrated so it's great to drink some water. I do this. But all the other stuff is a fantasy...

Y woud u drink something toxic to eliminate toxins???! Dihydrogen Monoxide is horrible for you and won't detoxify u! Please think of the chidren before injesting this toxin first thing in the morning!



Ok.. that out of my system, now for seriousness: Anytime you see the word "detoxify" your "quack alert!" meter should tick into the red. There's nothing to "detoxify"- what toxins your body can remove on it's own, it does so fantastically well, your liver and kidneys are miracles. Let them work and stop trying to assume they don't and therefore you need to drink some magical substance to remove other undescribed magical substances. If there are toxins your body can't remove (say, lead for example) and they're causing you problems, the magical properties of drinking water or eating veggies isn't going to help you- at that point you need a doctor and medical treatment. Otherwise, eat healthy and quit assuming your body doesn't know what the &#^ it's doing. It's been at it for years- let it do it's job and quit underestimating it!

Interesting. I always drink a 32 oz bottle of water (which is about a liter I think) every morning before eating anything else. Not for any reason, I just like to rehydrate in the morning and find it helps wake me up. I have never noticed any other effects on my body from doing this...and it doesn't speed up weight loss, that's for sure!

I wonder what it is about this thread that makes people sign up to MFP and leave their first post here months after it was posted? It's odd that 2 people have done that