Water is highly essential for life to sustain. Drinking water helps in delivery of nutrients to the body, enhances muscle strength, improves skin health and also helps in proper functioning of various organs. Above all, it also helps in weight loss. So, how much water should you drink to lose weight? Let us understand in this article.
How Much Water Should You Drink To Lose Weight?
Among all other benefits, one of the known benefits of water is that it is essential for losing weight in an effective manner. It is a known fact that about 30 to 59% of adults in US who are in to weight loss challenge, do increase their water intake.
In this article we will try to evaluate how much water should you drink to lose weight. It is known that drinking eight glasses of water in a day could actually aid you in losing weight. Drinking ice-cold water helps in burning few calories just because you have to raise that water to match the body temperature.
When you wonder about how much water you should drink to lose weight, there are various factors to be considered. Generally talking about the water content you need to intake so as to lose weight; it can be said that 4-8 glasses or 1-2 litres or 37-67 ounces of water is enough. However, the amount of water you require to take also depend on an individual’s size, weight, activity level, climatic conditions at which the person live and the age. It is explained that for each pound you weigh, you should drink between half an ounce and an ounce of water, every day. Considering an example, if you weigh 150 pounds then you need to drink 75 to 150 ounces of water each day.
Some considerations regarding how much water you should drink to lose weight.
- You would require drinking less water if you are living in a cooler climate as compared to those living in a hot climate.
- If you are exercising regularly or those who are physically more active, require drinking more water than those who have a sedentary lifestyle. This is so because, people who exercise regularly, do sweat a lot and thus require taking more water.
- One of the best known rules for water intake is that you should drink water when you are thirsty, but drinking about 1-2 liters or 8 glasses of water each day helps in weight loss effectively.
- You can try drinking about 2 cups of water before meal.
- Apart from all these, do remember that the foods or liquid diet you take also contain water which can help you in weight loss.
How Water Helps In Weight Loss?
Let us understand how water actually aids in losing weight.
#1. Water reduces calorie intake:
Drinking water increases the amount of calories our body burn; which is known to be the resting energy expenditure. It is explained that in adults, resting energy expenditure increases by 4 to 30% only within 10 minutes of drinking water. This lasts for at least 60 minutes. Studies have shown that in children who are obese or overweight; there is a 25% of increase in resting energy expenditure after taking cold water.
One study explained that overweight women who took over 1 litre of water each day, fairly experience weight loss. In about 13 months, many women experienced 4.4 lbs of weight loss by increasing water intake. It was seen that in both these studies, drinking about 0.5 litre of water results in an additional 23 calories burned in the body.
This sum up to roughly 17, 000 calories in a year or over 4.4 lbs of fat.
In other studies it was also monitored that overweight people who took 1- 1.5 liters of water regularly for a few weeks, found significant reduction in their body weight, BMI or body mass index, body fat and waist circumference.
So, if you have been thinking, how much water you should drink to lose weight, this information helps a great deal. Now, we know that water helps in weight loss, the results in weight loss from water intake is more impressive if the water is cold. This is because when it is cold, the body uses extra calories to warm the water up to your body temperature.
#2. Water reduces appetite:
It is also known that drinking water before your meal can reduce appetite, especially in the middle aged and the older adults. Decrease in appetite results in reducing calorie intake and in turn reduces your weight. Studies of older adults have shown that taking water before meal may help in reducing weight by 4.4 lbs or 2kg over a period of 12 weeks. There is also another study where the middle aged overweight people who drank water before their meal lost about 44% more of their body weight compared to that did not drank more water.
So, it is now known that taking more water reduces appetite and aids in weight loss. And how water you should drink to lose weight completely depends on individual requirements and health status. But it is clear that drinking water does help in losing weight in every way.
Tips To Increase Water Intake To Lose Weight:
Here are some tips that help you increase water intake.
- Add flavor to help you drink more water. You can add lemon and salt to have a nice flavor or can try out various vegetables like cucumber, broccoli, herbs like mint, fruits like orange, strawberries, cranberry etc. to add flavor to the water.
- Try detox water or fruit infusion water for a natural flavor to your water without affecting your calorie intake. You can happily drink fruit and vegetable infused water to lose weight.
- Eat water rich food throughout the diet. Fruits and vegetables contain a high content of water and thus can help in weight loss.
- Drink water throughout the day. By doing this, your stomach will remain full and you won’t feel the need to take high calorie rich foods that can increase your weight.
Conclusion:
While we have discussed about how much water should you drink to lose weight, it is important to understand your daily water requirements and follow medical advice. Also, considering a plan for losing weight, it is best to have a healthy diet and regular exercises for best results.
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