Drink Less Water?

ukhennin · October 2011

I found this article to be very interesting. Especially when it talks about drinking too much water diluting the stomach and hurting digestion. Because of this I no longer force myself to drink 80-100oz of water a day. Instead I have my coffee in the morning and drink when I'm thirsty. Let me know what you guys think about the article.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/8-glasses-of-water-a-day/

HMonsterX · October 2011

THANK YOU!

I've been trying to get this across for months now...

And to quote the best part...

At their recommended 2000 calories a day, that worked out to 2 liters a day, or roughly 8 eight-ounce glasses. Lost in the translation somewhere was an important caveat that much – if not most – of the water we required could actually be obtained from the foods we eat. In other words, it simply was not necessary to actually drink 8 glasses a day.

xLyric · October 2011

I'm still reading, I just thought I'd stop to point out that he used Wikipedia as a source. As a college student, especially an English major, that just irks me. Sorry. :P

What I'm getting so far is that, yeah, you get most of your water from food. BUT, the people he mentioned getting 20 percent from food? Need more water.

He's talking about people who eat very healthy diets when he's talking about not needing much water. So far I'm pretty much agreeing with what he says (because I'm an expert too /sarcasm) but I don't think this completely applies to people who eat unhealthy foods, or even an above average amount of sodium.

ukhennin · October 2011

I'm still reading, I just thought I'd stop to point out that he used Wikipedia as a source. As a college student, especially an English major, that just irks me. Sorry. :P

What I'm getting so far is that, yeah, you get most of your water from food. BUT, the people he mentioned getting 20 percent from food? Need more water.

He's talking about people who eat very healthy diets when he's talking about not needing much water. So far I'm pretty much agreeing with what he says (because I'm an expert too /sarcasm) but I don't think this completely applies to people who eat unhealthy, or even an above average amount of sodium.

Right, the article is sort of assuming that a healthy diet is in place. This obviously would work for someone living off of fast food. But those people usually aren't worried about getting enough water. I know, I used to be one.

H_Factor · October 2011

I don't mean to ruin the party, but the *problem* with this and other articles like it is that this article concerns only HYDRATION. yes, its important to be hydrated. and, yes, I'm on board with the notion that it takes less than 8 glasses of water each day to be relatively hydrated.

However, there is another benefit to drinking water that is, in my opinion, more important to weight loss. That is the physiological benefit of drinking enough water so that your liver does not have to help your kidneys do their job. When the liver is not having to help the kidneys do their job, the liver can focus on its more important job of processing the food you eat and burning fat. Of course, for someone as fit as the person who wrote the hydration article, he's probably not as concerned with the fat burning potential of water.

Also, for me, I have found that I have better weeks when I drink at least 10 glasses of water each day.

anyway, I understand that for a lot of folks, drinking 8-12 glasses of water a day isn't easy and its nice to find some justification not to do it. I can assure you that you won't keel over if you don't drink that amount of water and that you likely will be hydrated drinking less. However, if you really want to turn up the fat burning potential of your body, then I do recommend that you drink 8-12 glasses a day (aiming for the 10-12 range....or as much as you need to drink to have at least a few clear (or almost clear) urinations a day).

That is all. feel free to spend more time debating articles on hydration. I will continue to focus on fat burning.

ukhennin · October 2011

I don't mean to ruin the party, but the *problem* with this and other articles like it is that this article concerns only HYDRATION. yes, its important to be hydrated. and, yes, I'm on board with the notion that it takes less than 8 glasses of water each day to be relatively hydrated.

However, there is another benefit to drinking water that is, in my opinion, more important to weight loss. That is the physiological benefit of drinking enough water so that your liver does not have to help your kidneys do their job. When the liver is not having to help the kidneys do their job, the liver can focus on its more important job of processing the food you eat and burning fat. Of course, for someone as fit as the person who wrote the hydration article, he's probably not as concerned with the fat burning potential of water.

Also, for me, I have found that I have better weeks when I drink at least 10 glasses of water each day.

anyway, I understand that for a lot of folks, drinking 8-12 glasses of water a day isn't easy and its nice to find some justification not to do it. I can assure you that you won't keel over if you don't drink that amount of water and that you likely will be hydrated drinking less. However, if you really want to turn up the fat burning potential of your body, then I do recommend that you drink 8-12 glasses a day (aiming for the 10-12 range....or as much as you need to drink to have at least a few clear (or almost clear) urinations a day).

That is all. feel free to spend more time debating articles on hydration. I will continue to focus on fat burning.

Just so I understand you, are you saying that drinking more water is necessary for the weight loss process? And does that mean once you hit your target weight you can back off the water consumption? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want to make sure I understand.

H_Factor · October 2011

I don't mean to ruin the party, but the *problem* with this and other articles like it is that this article concerns only HYDRATION. yes, its important to be hydrated. and, yes, I'm on board with the notion that it takes less than 8 glasses of water each day to be relatively hydrated.

However, there is another benefit to drinking water that is, in my opinion, more important to weight loss. That is the physiological benefit of drinking enough water so that your liver does not have to help your kidneys do their job. When the liver is not having to help the kidneys do their job, the liver can focus on its more important job of processing the food you eat and burning fat. Of course, for someone as fit as the person who wrote the hydration article, he's probably not as concerned with the fat burning potential of water.

Also, for me, I have found that I have better weeks when I drink at least 10 glasses of water each day.

anyway, I understand that for a lot of folks, drinking 8-12 glasses of water a day isn't easy and its nice to find some justification not to do it. I can assure you that you won't keel over if you don't drink that amount of water and that you likely will be hydrated drinking less. However, if you really want to turn up the fat burning potential of your body, then I do recommend that you drink 8-12 glasses a day (aiming for the 10-12 range....or as much as you need to drink to have at least a few clear (or almost clear) urinations a day).

That is all. feel free to spend more time debating articles on hydration. I will continue to focus on fat burning.

Just so I understand you, are you saying that drinking more water is necessary for the weight loss process? And does that mean once you hit your target weight you can back off the water consumption? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want to make sure I understand.

um, not exactly. creating a caloric deficit is the most important thing to lose weight.

YES, you can lose weight without drinking ANY water.

YES, you can lose weight if you drink fewer than 8 cups of water a day.

YES, it is my opinion based on several articles I have read and my own personal experience that you can and likely will burn more fat when you drink enough water so that your liver isn't spending time helping the kidneys and instead maxing out on digesting food and burning fat. How much would you need to drink? I've seen several equations for this, but a simple baseline is...enough water so that you have 3-4 clear (or nearly clear) urinations daily. For me, that's usually around 100 ounces a day. and if you subscribe to the equation that recommends you drink half your body weight in ounces of water per day, that's consistent with me weighing 191 pounds.

As far as backing off water consumption once you've hit your target, I haven't reached that point so I cannot give you my personal experience on it. From what I've read though, it would seem like you could back off your water consumption at that point. However some folks (me definitely) can gain weight more easier than others so, for those folks, it would probably be beneficial to continue to drink a fair amount of water.

I also believe water has other benefits in the weight loss equation. It helps to fill me up, reduce my cravings, and curb my appetite. Its easier to portion control my meals when I'm drinking my water in other words.

EDIT: I also meant to add that prior to drinking almost exclusively water in mid April, I was not a big fan. I didn't really like water and didn't really like the prospect of forcing myself to drink even 4 glasses of water a day. However, as I've read in a few places, your body can come to enjoy water. I have experienced this. After a week or two of force feeding myself the water, I actually started to enjoy drinking water.

SueInAz · October 2011

I have definitely seen other information similar to this, including the fact that the original "64 ounces of water" rule was flawed by not taking into account the amount of water in our food. I also agree, that the amount of water we need is based on our personal situation which is influenced by our size, caloric intake, environment and activity level.

Probably the most important thing to point out here is that the 64 ounces of water "rule" is based on a 2000 calorie diet. At that ratio, those of us consuming 1200 calories (which is a fairly large percentage of women using MFP) should be merely aiming for 38.4 ounces of water per day, NOT 64 ounces.

foremant86 · October 2011

Drink water, don't drink. I don't understand why it's such a hot topic.

"copious amounts of water" Oh come on 8 glasses of water is hardly a copious amount, nor do I have to struggle or force myself to drink 8+ cups.

Hyponatremia is what happens when your sweating A LOT and drinking a lot of water but not replenishing electrolytes. seen a few guys pass out on job sites(construction) from doing this because they drink straight water instead of throwing in some gatorade or something similiar. Also why we keep electrolyte tablets in the tool room for the workers.

It's not something that just happens when you drink 8 glasses of water everyday, especially with the ridiculous amount of sodium in everything we eat.

ukhennin · October 2011

It's not something that just happens when you drink 8 glasses of water everyday, especially with the ridiculous amount of sodium in everything we eat.

If you're eating a healthy diet, where are you getting "ridiculous amounts of sodium"?

Drink Less Water?

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