How You Can Lose Weight Quickly and Have More Energy Just by Drinking Water ?
It is hard to believe that you can create your dream body through this simple, everyday action: drinking water.
While it cannot do everything on its own (it will not replace a good diet or physical exercise), it can help you shape up your body as you begin to melt away excessive fat.
Water can be a powerful tool if you know how to use it.
The trouble with losing weight is that people always imagine it must be something hard – like exhausting yourself, avoiding all tasty foods or using sophisticated pills created in labs.
The better solution is usually at hand. Drinking water is so simple and natural, yet it is completely overlooked. Most of us don’t even get the daily recommended quantity of 6 to 8 glasses.
Can you really drink more water and lose weight?
Experts agree: in certain quantities, water can trigger certain processes within the body and help it burn more fat. It is a complex process but it is worth looking into.
First of all, however, let’s look into the bad daily habits that get people dehydrated – which you could also be guilty of!
Do you drink coffee, caffeinated soda or even green or black tea on a daily basis? Do you frequently consume alcohol? These beverages cause dehydration as they make you excrete important quantities of water.
Even when you appear to drink enough, your body will not retain it as it should. As you breathe, your lungs expel water in the forms of vapor. This process is much more intense when the weather is hot or when you are breathing quickly. The water quantity is estimated between 2 to 4 cups. Sweating or going too frequently to the toilet means even more water expelled.
The indicators that show your body is in need of water
(It is not always a sensation of thirst!)
- Fatigue
- Brain fog
- Dry mouth
- Dry skin
- Headaches
- Weak muscles
- Dizziness
You may have one or more of these symptoms, along with an intense or frequent sensation of thirst, as well as frequent urination. Keep in mind that specialists talk of serious dehydration when as little as 10% of your bodily fluids are lost. However, a loss of only 2% means your mind becomes sluggish and your performance decreased.
Drinking enough water not only keeps you hydrated, but also avoid kidney stone formation, protects your heart, avoids constipation, keeps your joints in good functioning and even helps your body fight against colds and flu. How will it help you lose weight though, you may ask?
Water won’t just magically melt away your fat and drive it out of your body. It works in a different way.
Why water is so important to your body’s vital processes ?
Two thirds of your body is water. 95% of your blood is water and when this gets thicker, your heart needs to pump harder, which may lead to health issues.
The brain is 74% water, muscles have about the same percentage and even your bones contain water (22%!). When the percentage drops, organs, tissues and entire systems can no longer function properly. In addition, you will also be looking worse, as your skin will no longer be plump and glowy.
Water helps your liver and kidneys do their job. These organs are the ones responsible with filtering out useless or bad compounds. When there isn’t enough water, these processes cannot happen as needed.
The waste inside your body will not be carried out as it should be. Just think about the times when you are dealing with constipation. The more the waste stays in, the worse you feel.
Water also has a crucial role in absorbing nutrients from food. The digestive function benefits of it tremendously. All in all, you cannot even be fit if you don’t give your body enough water to reach the muscle fibers and ensure a proper nutrient feed.
Water feeds your body and mind
Water keeps you alert and helps you focus on the job at hand. It maintains your critical thinking at optimal levels. Being hydrated makes you sharp. Your mind stays ‘fit’.
When you drink plenty of water, you work better and with less effort – something which does not happen when you ignore this healthy habit. It comes as no surprise now that when your mind is properly functioning you also feel motivated to work out. Thus, you are more able to engage in activities that keep you fit. When you drink 8 to 12 glasses a day, you begin to experience a lot of wonderful effects.
Drinking water helps you lose weight
As you begin to engage in physical activity on a constant basis, you start to put on lean muscle mass.
The water powers up your toxin excretion mechanism and thus moves these toxins from where they are stored – within the adipose layers.
Through proper digestion, your body gets the nutrients it needs and you have more energy for staying active, day by day. At the same time your skin is glowing and becoming tighter, which improves your appearance considerably. Staying hydrated is one of the keys to an enviable physique.
Have you also heard about the alkaline – acid balance in your body? Water interferes here too, by helping your body be more alkaline when acidity has set in. This is yet another feel good factor.
When you drink enough water, countless bodily processes are regulated, including hormone production, thus interfering in the energy cycle and the fat burning processes. The fat stores unwanted compounds which lead to toxicity. A faster metabolism moves them away, to be excreted or flushed out. Boost your water intake and your fat layers will drop.
How to drink as much water as you need ?
We know it’s not easy to remember to stay hydrated throughout the day. Most of us simply forget. This is why you need to constantly remind yourself. There are even mobile apps to help you with that – especially designed to remember when and how much you should drink. Read and memorize the tips below:
- Drink water first thing in the morning. After hours of sleep, you are at your most dehydrated. As soon as you wake up, down one big glass or two. 10 ounces of water would be ideal.
- Post morning activity: drink 10 more ounces.
- Breakfast time: 10 ounces.
- Brunch: 10 ounces.
- Lunch time: 10 ounces.
- Mid-afternoon: 10 ounces.
- Dinner: 10 ounces.
- Before sleep: another 10 ounces.
Ideally, you will be drinking cold or room temperature water at the given times and no substitutes like soda, tea, juice, soup etc. However, it is no bad idea to try and get water from food or snacks.
Fruits are a particularly good snack that will keep you hydrated, but too many of these will load your body with sugars and might get you fat. The same goes with soup – it will hydrate you, but at the same time load your body with sodium.
You may not manage to drink all the water recommended above, but try to have at least 60 ounces. You will be amazed by ho good you begin to feel.
Do not give up when you won’t see results immediately – it cannot happen that way. Weight loss begins to occur when bodily functions are ‘reset’. It’s only when you regain your healthy balance hen you start shedding pounds.
Keep in mind that you must not only mind the water intake, but also the activities or substances that may drive it out of your body, thus asking you to compensate.
Thus, if you need to drink coffee or alcohol for example, drink more water too. The same goes for hot days when you sweat more, for gym days or for whenever you lay out in the sun, thus making yourself vulnerable to dehydration.
Overweight people often take caffeine-based pills for slimming or drink plenty of green tea throughout the day for its fat busting properties. When you are on protocol like this, you absolutely have to compensate by drinking more water.
If you happen to have a water retention issue that makes you look puffy, you should consult with a physician to tell you how to proceed. Avoid taking diuretics by yourself, as these can have harmful effects that you may not know how to counter.
Remember that drinking water is simply the easiest and most natural way to ensure proper hydration and maintain health. The better your body feels, the more apt it is to regulate its functions and to manage its weight.
In consequence, you will lower your weight and have a leaner body. Besides, you’ll have the energy required in order to start exercising and commit to a workout routine, which will further shape the way you look.
