Water consumption and weight loss

I seem to lose weight on my biggest water drinking days. I drink water a lot anyway but huge water days the weight falls off...

Water not only keeps you hydrated but it also helps with hunger cravings and flushes the waste from your body.

I don't know if drinking speeds the weight loss - but I have learned the following from drinking nothing but water (and two cups of black coffee) every day:

1. Water is way better for your teeth than any soda (diet soda is the worst cause of enamel erosion)
2. Frequent urination flushes out the system, including the by-products of burning fat
3. Keeps the skin healthy
4. Keeps me from adding a snack to my lunch - just drink an extra glass and you're full

MAJOR DITTO TO THE ABOVE...

I do best when I drink at least 3 liters (12 cups) of water a day.

I have a hard time drinking water but I know how good it is for me so I keep trying. I know proper hydration makes me not have headaches, makes my body feel so much better "I am 54 and the older I get the more I have these aches and pains", etc. Recently I went to a chiropractor for the first time and once when getting a massage they were working out all these pressure points or what felt like bumpee's (yeah, go ahead and laugh at my butchered English); so I asked what or how or whatever. They told me that could indicate that I wasn't drinking enough water (so that really helped me to do so). It has made my complexion much nicer and my eyes more hyrdrated (thus sparkley). When I wake up I immediately drink two cups (that way I have two cups out of the way). I take a bottle water that equals two cups to work and make myself drink one in the am (or I can't go to lunch I tell myself) and one in the afternoon (can't go home until I drink it is what I tell me)... I also love myfitnesspal at the bottom of the page where you can track your water. All these little things are helping me. OH, ONE more biggie? My friend ended up having kidney stones blasted out of him but these were I guess excrutiatingly painful. They told him he needed to drink more water to help those things not form. That kind of freaked me out. I don't want that to happen to me. Drink up everybody...

Water not only keeps you hydrated but it also helps with hunger cravings and flushes the waste from your body.

^^This is what I was going to say, and the caffeine in Coffee will dehydrate you more (which may make you hungry as well as thirsty). So drink up on the water and limit your caffeine intake!!!

Caffeine is an appetite suppressant.

Since it has become cold out I try my hardest to drink water but I would rather have something hot. But I have noticed that weight loss has been slower since I slowed down on the water. So I decided to try something different, I use flavoring for my water (generic brand about 10 cals per packet) And since I have started adding that and have been able to up my water to about 9-10 glasses a day (or about 140 ozs a day) the weight seems to be on the move again This is what works for me

On the days I drink ALL my water portions I drop weight when I hit the scale the next morning.

I drink a lot of water everyday. On the days I drink less I weigh more the next morning, so I would definitely say that water consumption is a factor in my weight loss. I also read an article once about why water helps with weight loss. It said that because you get filled up drinking your quota of water per day, you're less inclined to consume more food and that the water helps to flush your body out...hence the weight loss.

I remember watching a show on TV years ago. They did a little test with twin women. Had one drink a lot of water each day for 30 days. The other one didn't. There was no difference in the health of her skin.

It doesn't speed up weight loss. If there is a study that shows this I would love to see it. Until then I don't believe this at all. It might look like water is speeding up weight loss but there could be other factors (like exercise, calorie restriction, etc.) so whose to say it was the water. This is like saying "when combined with an exercise and diet routine these pills will help you lose weight!"

And when the "experts" say to get 48-64oz of water a day they neglect to emphasize that you can about 40% of that through food (at least real, non-processed food).

I take a lesson from my pets. When they get thirsty they go drink some water. And they pee a bright, clear yellow. They don't suck down water all day for fear of getting dehydrated. That is why our bodies have SIGNALS.

I let my body tell me when I need water. (And coffee and tea count. They might be diuretics but you are still consuming a fluid)

And I will not drink while eating dinner. Our stomachs have a specific pH for digesting our food. Drink a ton of water beforehand and you have diluted that digestive acid.
And it never stopped my hunger cravings. What stopped my constant hunger cravings was knocking out the grains/flour/sugar/beans and increasing my fat (I'm 10/25/65 - 10/20/70).

Water not only keeps you hydrated but it also helps with hunger cravings and flushes the waste from your body.

^^This is what I was going to say, and the caffeine in Coffee will dehydrate you more

Sigh...


Here we go again!

You need the equivalent of 8 cups of water a day on average, from any source. These sources can be pure water/tea/coffee/juice/soda/milk/fruit/veg etc. It does NOT have to be pure neat water!

http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/13/myth-eight-glasses-water-day

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/07/wellness-water-8x8-myth.html

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/12/08/the-myth-behind-drinking-8-glasses-of-water-a-day/


As for coffee being a diuretic, so many people just spout that word as a reason, without actually understanding what "diuretic" means.

di·u·ret·ic (d-rtk)
adj.
Tending to increase the discharge of urine.
n.
A substance or drug that tends to increase the discharge of urine.

Neat water is also a diuretic. The diuretic effect of caffeine is far, far outweighed by the actual water in the tea/coffee. Also, regular consumers of caffeinated beverages will build up a tolerance to said effect, eventually reaching the point where caffeinated drinks provide practically the same amount of hydration as a cup of neat water will.


http://www.divinecaroline.com/22178/46361-coffee-makes-dehydrated-say-what

http://worldofcaffeine.com/2011/06/14/caffeine-does-not-dehydrate/

http://advance.uconn.edu/2002/020722/02072207.htm

http://nomoredirtylooks.com/2011/04/surprise-caffeinated-tea-does-not-dehydrate-you/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/health/nutrition/04real.html

http://www.sharecare.com/question/does-caffeine-dehydrate-not

http://www.artofdrink.com/2009/12/caffeine-in-coffee-does-not-increase-dehydration-during-hangovers.php

http://www.caring4cancer.com/go/cancer/nutrition/questions/do-caffeinated-beverages-cause-dehydration.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=5552790&page=1#.TrQWc0O5_oo


Getting more fluid will help flush out excess water weight, but it doesn't have to be neat water. Neat water isn't some magical fat burner.

I cited one - see above...:yawn:

You need the equivalent of 8 cups of water a day on average, from any source. These sources can be pure water/tea/coffee/juice/soda/milk/fruit/veg etc. It does NOT have to be pure neat water!

THIS ^^^

I just researched this last night cause I can never drink enough water because I drink most of my calories (milk, juice, ensure, etc). Then after I researched I found out it is 8 cups of water from various sources!
Here is a summary:

http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/how-much-water-should-I-drink.aspx

A lot of places urge dieters to drink water and for good reason - it can help you lose weight. If you have a stomach with lots of water, you feel full, and will tend to eat less. Many sites don't explain why they recommend 8 cups/day but the only reasons I've seen given are that it fills you up. And that's a good thing.

My take on it — if you need to drink water to control your urge to eat, do it because being overweight is much worse than drinking water all day. If you don't need help controlling you appetite, why bother? Most of us have the urination thing down pretty well, right?

That comes across as a bias but it's one I've had for a while and part of it comes 'cause I grew up in a place where the drinking water wasn't that great (in Bermuda we used to catch the rainwater on our roof and store it in a tank under the house. Water tanks had mold and bacteria so we put guppies in the water tank to get rid of things like mosquitoes. Mold, stale water, and guppy…remnants — yummy!).

Fast forward to now and it appears that there's no medical evidence to drink the infamous 8 cups a day.

Yes, that flies in the face of "what everyone knows" but, heh, that's how life is some times. Everyone knows that stomach ulcers come from too much acid in the stomach, right? Wrong. It's a virus - a fellow won a Nobel prize when he proved it even though he had been denounced for his beliefs!. Another example - even the best scientific minds accept the fact that the human body will survive going faster than 10 MPH in a steam engine but it wasn't always that way. In the early 1800's, scientists were convinced that people would be killed if they were in a train going that speed. So, times change and we learn, right?

OK, references anyone?

This paper, written by a Dartmouth MD, professor, and author of a book on kidneys has 100 footnotes.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2002/aug/080802.html


And here's another link to a different version:

http://ajpregu.physiology.org/content/283/5/R993.full


Even Snopes gets in on this:

http://www.snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp


Is there value in drinking 8 cups of water? Yes, it can help control the urge to eat.

Do you have to drink 8 cups a day to lose weight? Nope.

Do you lose weight faster by drinking 8 cups a day? Could be but that information wasn't available when Dr. V, above, did his study.