Numerous studies have shown that drinking water is essential for achieving optimal health. It keeps your body hydrated, helps transport nutrients throughout your body, creates saliva, maintains your body temperature, and other crucial functions. However, it may not be obvious, but hydration plays a key role in weight loss, as it affects how you digest your food and support your muscles.
While it may seem strange that drinking more water helps you lose weight, there is abundant supporting research that demonstrates a positive correlation between more water consumption and weight loss. Here are six reasons drinking more water can help you lose weight:
1. Water Suppresses Your Appetite
Drinking water can help you lose weight by making you feel full longer, which means you won’t be as hungry. When your stomach feels full, it tells your brain that you no longer need to eat, especially as water fills up the space in your stomach. Additionally, people often think they’re hungry when in reality, they’re just thirsty, so drinking water before looking for something to eat can help you avoid unnecessary snacking.
2. Water Accelerates Calorie Burning
According to a 2014 study, 12 people who drank 500 mL of cold and room temperature water used more energy than the control group. The research found that these participants burned 2 to 3 per cent more calories than usual 90 minutes after drinking the water, suggesting that water does facilitate calorie burning. It can even increase the number of calories you burn while resting. The study suggests that drinking cold water may capitalise on water’s calorie-burning qualities, as the body uses energy to heat the water for easy digestion.
3. Water Helps You Clear Your Body of Waste
When dehydrated, you cannot correctly expel waste as urine or faeces. Your kidneys need water to filter toxins and waste efficiently while retaining electrolytes and essential nutrients. When you’re dehydrated, your kidneys keep the fluid instead, resulting in hard or lumpy stools or even constipation.
However, drinking lots of water ensures your bowels continue moving, as it softens or loosens hardened stools. Water can also help your body bounce back from digestive issues, like indigestion or diarrhoea.
4. Water Helps Reduce Your Liquid Calorie Intake
Water contains no calories, making it a healthier alternative to juice, energy drinks, coffee, or other beverages. Consuming plenty of soda, juice, or sweetened coffee can easily cause the calories to rack up, leading to weight gain. It’s easy to ignore the calories in different beverages, especially in sports drinks or alcohol, but replacing some with water or other no-calorie drinks can lead to long-term weight loss.
5. Water is Crucial for Burning Fat
Apart from hydrating your body, water is essential for burning fat. Your body needs it to properly metabolise carbohydrates or stored fat, which is a process called lipolysis. The first step required is hydrolysis, where water molecules react with triglycerides or fats to produce glycerol and fatty acids. For this reason, drinking lots of water is vital for burning the fat you get from food and drink, along with stored fat.
6. Water Helps Your Muscles Work More Efficiently
Lastly, drinking lots of water helps your joints, muscles, and connective tissues correctly. It also aids the heart, lungs, and other vital organs, helping them work more effectively as they keep up with the effort involved in rigorous exercise. When you’re hydrated, you’ll reduce the risk of injury, fatigue, and muscle cramps, which can bench you for days. Drinking water before, during, and after exercise will also help you avoid dehydration.
Conclusion
Drinking water is a simple yet effective way to keep your body hydrated and healthy. With all these benefits, you’ll want to have an eco-friendly bottle filled with water with you at all times, giving you what you need to stay hydrated and facilitate weight loss.
Ecobud sells water filter jugs that you can use to ensure you have a steady supply of clean, fresh water at home. Our water filter jug is an easy and efficient way to access filtered water, and you can store it in your fridge to keep it cool or on a benchtop if you enjoy room temperature water. Shop now to get yours!