Drink Plenty of Water
Welcome to another of my great Top 100 Weight Loss Tips. In this post, which is number 80 in the series of articles, I'll be looking at the value of drinking plenty of water to help you to lose weight as well as to maintain a healthy, hydrated body!
It's a fact that most adults in the West do not drink enough water each day to maintain their health. This can affect a whole host of things and one of those is the perceived feeling of hunger, where you want to eat something even though you're not really hungry.
Let's see why this is.
Drink Enough Water
When you are mildly dehydrated, meaning you haven't taken in sufficient water for your body to function at 100% efficiency, lots of things can happen that will all degrade your health and can also lead to weight gain. But first, let's look at how you can tell that you haven't drunk enough water.
The first tell tale sign is a feeling of, well, thirst! That's right, in case you've forgotten that sensation of thirst is your body's way of letting you know that it needs more water. So you should follow its hint and drink some water.
Does Water Quench Thirst?
Now, many people when faced with the feeling of thirst believe, so some odd reason that water is not enough to quench it. So instead they turn to chilled soda, beer, fruit juice, isotonic drinks, iced tea and just about anything as long as its not plain boring old water!
Unfortunately, this is far from what your body actually wants. Worse, is that when you get into the habit of quenching your thirst with soda or other sugary, additive laden drinks, you not only do more harm than good but you also pile on the calories. Which is why your weight goes up in the wrong direction.
It's also why you are reading this to find a good way of losing it again!
Plain water, on the other hand does a remarkable job of quenching your thirst, even when its at room temperature. It adds zero calories to your physiology and re-hydrates your body quickly and effectively so that everything can work at peak efficiency.
So why do so many people ignore the obvious?
Something Changed
We in Western society have been brought up on a diet of bad habits learned from our parents, teachers and peers. They all learned them from the same sources, but that doesn't account for why our grand parents and great grandparents never knew about a fraction of the awful stuff we eat and drink today.
No, somewhere back through the generations, things changed and a whole generation unlearned all the wholesome ways of the generation before them.
That thing was television advertising. Television based advertisements brainwashed a whole generation into believing that soft drinks or soda were more desirable than water to quench a thirst. Why did they get so popular? It's because they tasted better and those ads made darn sure you knew it!
And that was how it was done. By drumming into people's brains by relentlessly repeated TV ads, the soda companies managed to have everyone believe that water tasted boring and their brand of soda was far better for quenching your thirst. And it tasted good. Plus it made you look cool if you drank it.
Well, it's all a great big lie, of course.
Maybe not so much the part about it tasting better, because it does. But it doesn't quench your thirst any better than plain water and plain water is far better for you, your waistline and your health in so many ways.
Drinking Water Will Not Make You Gain Weight
First of all, the human body is more than 70% water in composition. So don't worry that if you drink a lot of water you will gain weight because of water retention. That's a myth. Water retention is cause by certain diseases, not by merely drinking the stuff! If anything, you're more likely to hold onto more water when you are depriving your body of it.
There are various recommendations on how much water to drink each day to maintain your health and a stable weight loss solution. Some say 6 to 8 glasses is enough, some say more, some say less.
The best rule of thumb is to aim in the middle, but whatever you do, you need more than a pint of it a day or you'll likely end up with serious health problems later in life.
So drink your water, drink it plain straight from the tap if your water is certified fit for drinking. If not, buy it bottled and go for plain rather than sparkling, because plain is best.
100 Weight Loss Tips number 79 follows in the very next post!
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Posted on Mon, 13 Jul 2009 in Top 100 Weight Loss Tips | 1 Comments
1 thoughts on "Drink Plenty of Water"
Vinny says:
Ah, at last I found some information on what drinking water is all about. I had heard that water was very important for health but I didn't realize it was also a good thing to do if you want to lose weight. That was a really interesting article you posted and I think I will take your advice and switch from drinking soda to plain water. Thanks!