[CyberTOPS] Drinking More Water Burns a Few More Calories -- and, this is good especially when the weather is going to be a hot one this week!

[Donna]

Drinking More Water Burns a Few More Calories

But Don't Overdo It

Does drinking more water really help dieting? A small study says it may help
you burn a few more calories each day. How many? About 50 calories per liter
or quart of water. About 25 calories per water bottle-full of water. Mind you,
that's only 5 M&Ms - plain, not peanut.

Why Drink More When Dieting?

Drinking a big glass of water whenever you feel hungry and before a meal or
snack fills the stomach briefly and makes you feel fuller and stop eating
sooner.

Breaking down body fat and body muscle during weight loss produces wastes that
must be eliminated through the kidneys. Drinking enough water is important to
keep the kidneys functioning to remove these wastes.

Popular high-protein diets produce more waste products from digestion, let
alone from breaking down stored fat. Kidney function is even more important
when on a high-protein diet.

Drinking more water does not "flush fat."

If the dieter is drinking plain water, he/she is less likely to be drinking
something with calories in it.

Drinking Water Briefly Increases Metabolism

Drinking 500 mL of water (a half-liter or about a pint) increased the study
participants' metabolism briefly - for about a half hour. In that time they
burned an extra 25 calories. That's about a quarter of a piece of sliced
bread, or 5 M&Ms. The researchers theorized that most of the effect comes from
warming the water in the stomach. In the male participants the calories came
mostly from stored fat, in the women it came from stored carbohydrates. The
paper was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism,
December, 2003. It was conducted by researchers in Berlin.

Eight Glasses of Water a Day?

The study provides some support for the general recommendation to drink eight
glasses of water a day while dieting. For most people that would add a liter
or two to their regular water intake. The extra calorie-burn would be about
100 calories a day if drinking 2 liters (2 quarts or 4 water-bottles full)
more than usual.

Dangers of Too Much Water

Don't start drinking an extra gallon of water a day - that can kill you,
especially if you are fasting or eating very little. Water taken in must be in
balance with body salt - electrolytes. The body needs to maintain salt balance
or risk hyponatremia with heart attack and even death. Drinking too much water
dilutes the salt in your blood and tissues - and can kill you. Healthy
athletes have died from drinking too much plain water and not replacing salt.
Dieters should not plunge into drinking gallons of water a day in hopes of
burning a few more calories. Drink an extra few glasses, yes. But a gallon is
too much.

Drinking and Walking

Exercise such as walking causes the metabolism to rise and body water to be
lost through increased respiration and sweat. Walkers should drink a large
glass of water an hour before walking, then drink about a cup of water every
mile. When you finish walking, drink a glass of water. Guidelines for the
marathon and half-marathon now say to "drink when thirsty" rather than pushing
water, in order to prevent hyponatremia - drinking too much with replacing
electrolytes.

What You Drink

Sometimes it's easy to focus so much on what we eat that we forget to include
what we drink in our diet analysis. That can be a big problem, because the
number of liquid calories you can consume without even realizing is quite
astounding.

PUT THE KIBOSH ON COLA CONSUMPTION.
If you drink regular soda, you may be surprised at just how many additional
calories you're taking in.

For example, for every 20 ounces of Coca-Cola you drink, you're consuming 250
calories. Drink several glasses a day and you can easily down 1,000 liquid
calories.

If you're attempting to consume around 1,500 to 1,600 calories a day in order
to lose weight, you've almost blown your entire calorie budget on soda!

When you think about how many calories you eat on average and then add in
those empty calories, you'll realize what a waste drinking these sugary drinks
is -- literally -- they go straight to your waist!

If you drink a lot of soda, think of how many calories you'll be saving if you
trade it in for diet soda or water. Hundreds? Even thousands? Remember, every
3,500 calories saved equals one pound lost!

DRINK UP THAT H20!
I know it sounds like a broken record, but it really is important to drink
enough water every day. Reach for the rule-of-thumb goal of eight glasses per
day.

Plus, drinking water more often will help you with tip #1 . You won't have
time to drink soda! You may even find you crave water instead of soda once you
begin drinking it more often.

Try going a day or two with no soda and then sit down to a glass; you'll
probably be shocked at how overly-sweet it tastes.

DIET DRINK DILEMMA
Switching to diet sodas may sound like a sure-fire way to lose weight since
they're virtually calorie-free. However, there is a controversial issue about
artificial sweeteners' indirect effect on weight loss that might surprise you.

In the mid-1980's -- when the safety of artificial sweeteners was often
headline news -- a study was published in a medical journal that suggested
artificial sweeteners cause one's appetite to increase.

More recently, some health experts have suggested that artificial sweeteners
actually cause cravings for sweet foods to increase. If so, this reaction
definitely sets you up for making poor food choices. This can lead to a big
problem, particularly if you tend to binge when you eat high-carb and
sugar-rich foods.

STICK TO MINERAL WATER
This may go without saying, but they don't call it a beer belly for nothing.
Alcoholic beverages are high-calorie and can lead to out-of-control eating.
Try to cut down -- or better still, eliminate -- alcohol.

Diet Tips on Water

One of the easiest and most effective ways to help your diet is to drink water
- it's recommended to drink 8 glasses of water per day, although most people
don't often drink that much. Water provides a number of benefits when dieting
- if you're hungry, you can have a glass of water, it has zero calories and it
helps to fill your stomach and suppress your appetite. Water also helps to
flush out your body, including toxins that you would want to get rid of
already.

As our bodies are made up of mostly water, we can go longer without food than
we can without water, as the body requires water to run efficiently. If you
don't drink enough water, you can get bloated - so although it sounds
counterintuitive, to get rid of excess water you need to drink more water (in
fact you can often lose a few pounds within the first week or two just from
increasing your water intake, which helps release all the excess water your
body has stored).

A further tip is that drinking ice-cold water actually burns more calories, as
your body needs to heat it up to absorb it properly, so if you have an ice
water dispenser at home or at the office, fill up a glass regularly and keep
it nearby.

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