Water is life! It is an essential part of our body and the adult human body consists of between 60 and 70% water. Drinking lots of water will help you lose weight as well as gain weight. Confused? Let us explain how water interacts with your body.
Water is essential – make it an important part of your diet
Drinking water is essential and it helps to increase your metabolism slightly so you burn more calories. Drinking a glass of water up to 15 minutes before a meal will fill your stomach a bit so that your food consumption decreases. Water is also essential to flush out harmful toxins, improve concentration and improve blood circulation. Water makes digestion as well as elimination of wastes easier. Always ensure that the water you drink is free from chemicals and harmful toxins.
Water retention and body weight
As mentioned earlier, our body is between 60 and 70% water and therefore it will automatically retain essential quantities of water. It may also over retain water and this happens if we consume lots of water on the one hand, observe poor diets on the other and compound the problem with little or no exercise.
The quantum of sugar and sodium (salt) in our diet regulates the quantum of water retained. Excess of either or both will lead to over retention of water. This happens because our body tries to compensate for the excess sugar and salt by attempting to ‘water it down’. Obviously, over retention of water will cause you to increase your body weight.
A good digital fat and BMI scale will display exactly how much percentage of your body is water and how much is fat.
Controlling water retention and body weight
You can control water retention and also body weight in two ways; alter your diet so there is less sugar and salt i.e. switching over to a healthier diet and second, by exercising. A good exercise routine will make you sweat. Sweating has two purposes – lowers core body temperature (which would have gone up due to exercise), excrete excess water and salt thereby bringing about a water and salt balance in the body. Of course, exercise has other benefits too such as burning fat, increasing lung capacity, ventilating your skin, building muscles, etc.
Drinking water helps you lose weight
Drinking a glass of water up to 15 minutes before meals and every time you have a food carving, will help you control your cravings, curb your appetite and prevent you from stuffing yourself with multiple servings of food.
Drinking water beforehand, means your body will only be able to accommodate a smaller portion of food. Less is more when it comes to losing weight. Smaller meals allows for your body to work more efficiently and burn the stored fat.
Drinking adequate quantities of water also ensures lubrication of muscle joints which makes our body function with ease. If you love flavored beverages, add lemon or lime to the water – the fruit’s peel has pectin fiber which could also help alleviate your food cravings. It also promotes the liver to secret bile so your digestion is more efficient and therefore assists in maintaining your body weight.