Drinking water is important for everyone, but it’s especially vital for those trying to lose weight. Did you know that drinking more than six cups of coffee a day can cause weight gain? Or that consuming grapefruit may help prevent metabolic disorders linked to obesity? Or that drinking at least eight glasses of water daily can help prevent dental problems?
So, if you’re looking for an easy way to lose weight, you might want to try drinking more often. But how can you tell if drinking water is the best way to lose weight? Let’s find out.
How Does Drinking Water Help With Weight Loss?
Let’s start with a basic understanding of how your body works. Your body is made up of trillions of cells that work together to keep you alive. These cells need fuel in the form of food to function properly. When you eat food, your body breaks it down into usable energy to use as fuel for your cells and to maintain essential functions such as keeping you warm and feeling happy. This process of breaking down food into fuel is called metabolism.
In essence, metabolism is the body’s primary function. It constantly works to maintain homeostasis, or perfect balance, in the body. When homeostasis is thrown off balance – whether by eating too much food or having too few calories or sugar – it leads to weight gain. Drinking water can help keep you hydrated, which aids in maintaining proper metabolism and allows you to lose weight.
This is because water helps prevent you from gaining weight by increasing the amount of energy your body uses while keeping you satiated, or full. That’s why drinking water is often recommended for those who want to lose weight. However, how much weight you can lose depends on how efficient your metabolism is. If you’re already drinking the recommended eight glasses of water daily, pat yourself on the back because your weight loss will most likely be accelerated. But you have to be mindful not to go overboard and drink too much water. Excessive water intake can actually cause health problems.
When Should You Drink Water?
The best time to drink water is anytime, but especially before, during, or after exercising. This is because water is important for proper muscle function and for supplying your body with nutrients to build new muscles and tissues. If you’re already drinking the recommended eight glasses of water daily, you should drink at least eight more cups in the morning to achieve the optimum hydration level for exercising.
Avoid Drinking Fruit-Based Drinks
Fruit juices, like lemonade and orange juice are great for adding a touch of flavor to your beverage. But when it comes to losing weight, it’s best to stay away from fruit-based drinks. These juices have high amounts of sugar, which isn’t good for your waistline. Similarly, soft drinks have just as much sugar as fruit juices do, but they also have large amounts of artificial sweeteners in them. While artificial sweeteners aren’t necessarily unhealthy, having too much of it in your system will prevent you from losing weight. That’s because your body doesn’t register the presence of these substances in the same way it does with natural sugars.
The take-home message is that if you’re trying to lose weight, you should consume fewer sweetened drinks. They’re simply calorie laden and don’t meet the recommended eight glasses of water daily. If you want to drink them, go for sparkling wine instead – it’s a healthier option and contains fewer calories than regular wine. Sparkling wine is also a good choice if you’re looking to soften the effects of alcohol on your waistline. When mixing drinks, it’s important to remember to mix low-calorie drinks with high-calorie drinks. This will ensure you stay hydrated, but won’t cause you to gain weight. If you want to drink wine with your meal, opt for a dry white wine or a champagne. These are healthier options and don’t contain the same amount of calories as other types of drinks sold at restaurants and bars.
Consume More Vegetables
Your grandparents might have told you to eat your vegetables, and while that may still be good advice, it doesn’t mean that fruit and salad drinks are the only healthy beverages out there. Vegetables are also a great source of hydration, so you’ll be doing your body a favor by including more of them in your diet.
There are so many vegetables out there that are bursting with nutrients and flavorful ingredients. Try more than one type of vegetable instead of a salad whenever you make dinner so you can get a wide range of nutrients. That’s because your body can’t effectively utilize nutrients if it doesn’t get a wide variety of foods to work with. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition, especially when it comes to losing weight. Make it a point to try new vegetables each week and see what your body can handle.
Get More Flax
There is a wide variety of vegetables out there, but none of them are magical weight loss drugs, at least not yet. That’s why it’s important to add other healthy habits to your routine. One of the best things you can do for your health is to incorporate more flax into your diet. Flax is a fiber that your body doesn’t actually digest. It passes through your system intact. That’s why you need to include it in your diet – it keeps you regular and helps with digestion. It also slows the digestion of other foods, so you stay full for longer and don’t feel like you need to eat as often.
There are two forms of flax – regular and golden flax. Regular flax has a nutty flavor that you might not want to miss out on, but golden flax has a more mellow flavor that works well in baked goods and meat dishes. When choosing flax at the grocery store, make sure you buy the type that is readily available for cooking or baking. If you don’t have a food processor or blender at home, buying plain flax with the nut or seed already in it is the next best thing.
Consuming food that is high in fiber will also assist in the regulation of your appetite. A diet rich in vegetables and fruits has long been known to keep the appetite under control. That’s because, as we’ve discussed, your body needs fuel to function properly. When you eat foods that are broken down into simple sugars, your blood sugar levels will spike, causing your appetite to rise. By eating vegetables and fruits, you will keep your blood sugar levels steady, preventing you from feeling excessively hungry. This way, you’re more likely to maintain healthy weight loss.
When selecting a weight loss drink, it’s important to examine the carbohydrates and sugar contained within it. Remember, fruit juices contain the same amount of carbohydrates as the fruit itself. The only difference is the type of carbohydrate. When choosing a weight loss drink, opt for those that contain the least amount of carbohydrates.
Watch Your Calories
Your grandparents might have told you to eat your vegetables, but they also might have told you to watch your calories. When you eat food, your body produces hormones that regulate your appetite. These hormones cause you to feel hungry or satisfied based on the amount of food in relation to the calories you consumed. For example, if you eat a chocolate burger and order a sweet drink to go with it, your body will register the food as a rich source of calories and send out hormones to tell you that you should feel satisfied because you just consumed a lot of food. But if you opt for regular lemonade instead of sweetened lemonade, your body won’t send out the same hormones because the drink doesn’t contain the same amount of calories as the burger and the lemonade is essentially free of calories. That’s why it’s important to keep track of what you eat so you can accurately gauge how many calories you take in each day. There are calorie counters on the market that can help with this. Simply plug in the ingredients for each recipe you try, and the device will tell you how many calories are in each bite. This information will help you stay within your calorie limit while trying to lose weight.