Will Drinking More Water Really Make a Difference in Your Weight?

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Weight loss can be a hard task for anyone. There’re so many different elements that go into losing weight it can be like learning a whole new set of information. There is one simple thing that you can do to help regulate how much and what you eat. Drinking water is not a magical cure-all, but it may seem like it after you learn what it can do to help you regulate your eating.

Water Aids Digestion Through Saliva

Digestion starts with saliva. Saliva is made mostly of water. According to Everyday Health, the enzymes in saliva are the beginning of the digestive tract. These enzymes help break down food so that they can be properly digested in the stomach. Without these and times food would never be able to be processed in the stomach.

Water also helps break down the fiber. Water-soluble fiber is one of the biggest factors of filling full after you eat. If you have not had enough water, or are dehydrated digesting water soluble fiber becomes almost impossible. Make sure that you are able to digest this food element properly by drinking lots of water.

Water Soluble Vitamines

One of the reasons that we eat food is to get access to vitamins. Vitamins and minerals are vital to various body functions. Deficits in these minerals and vitamins can cause cravings in the body. San Fransisco Gate tells how the body cannot digest certain water-soluble vitamins without enough water in the body.

Water-soluble vitamins are vitamins that can only be absorbed with the aid of water. These vitamins break down with the water in the digestive tract and men are absorbed into the body. Absorption of these essential vitamins stops when dehydration occurs, or when there is not enough water in the body. When even slight deficiencies are present, you may begin craving additional foods even though you’re not hungry. These cravings are due to vitamin deficiencies and not hunger so make sure that you have enough water so that you can digest all of your water-soluble vitamins.

Hunger And Thirst Cues Are the Same

You may be reaching for a snack when what you should be reaching for is a tall glass of water. Spark people recently did an article describing how the body sends out the exact same signal for hunger that it does for thirst. Many people don’t know how to tell the difference between hunger and thirst, and because we so rarely think about dehydration we assume that we are hungry. Next time you’re getting hungry signals from your brain try reaching for a glass of water instead. You may find out that you were just thirsty.

Eat Fewer Calories

Water can help you eat fewer calories than you would if you didn’t drink water before meals. This ties into the last point, where drinking water will satisfy cues that often interpreted as hunger. So basically if you are not as hungry, you will probably eat less food.

There are of course other interventions that will cause you to eat less food, like increasing fats and decreasing carbohydrates, but that is not the focus of this article.

How Much Water Should You be Drinking?

I encourage you to start with figuring out your weight and then drinking half that in ounces. So if you weight 150 lbs, then start with 75 oz. of water daily. This can be a tall order to get in. One method to get all that water in, is to measure it out at the beginning of the day. Then as the day goes on, pour glass by glass out of your starting container. It is a very clear way to see how much you are actually drinking and to help ensure that you get in plenty of water daily.

Another way to help promote drinking water is to add vegetables and fruits for an infused water option. Lemon slices, cucumber slices. watermelon, kiwi are all a few options of what you can add to your water to enhance the experience and help you get through some reluctance in drinking enough. 

Now you know four surprising ways that water can help you control how much and what you eat. Helping you stop cravings and eat less water is a fantastic one stop shop for your diet solutions. What are some ways that you have noticed water help you with your diet? Are there other suggestions you have for getting more water into your day?