Everyone knows that water is has important for your health. But did you realise that by drinking the correct amount each and every day you can increase your chances of losing weight by reducing your body fat percentage?
Water has many healing properties and by controlling your daily intake you can literally wash your body fat away.
But why is water so important?
Well as unbelievable as it sounds our bodies are made up of somewhere between 45% - 75% water. It is in our blood, muscle, fat, skin and even our bones. We need it to survive and need it even more than food. If two people were stranded in the middle of nowhere and one had water and no food, while the other had food but no water, the person with the water would always survive longer.
Well as unbelievable as it sounds our bodies are made up of somewhere between 45% - 75% water. It is in our blood, muscle, fat, skin and even our bones. We need it to survive and need it even more than food. If two people were stranded in the middle of nowhere and one had water and no food, while the other had food but no water, the person with the water would always survive longer.
And on top of all this water is also involved in almost every function the body goes through from digestion to nutrient absorption. What is the point of eating nutrient rich foods if you do not have enough water in your system to allow you to absorb their goodness?
So how do we get more water into our bodies?
Well the obvious answer is by drinking it however we also receive water from the food that we eat. In fact many times when you feel hungry you are actually just dehydrated. Your body knows that it will receive water from the food you ingest so it sends you this message. You can reverse this effect by continually drinking water throughout the day to prevent from running into dehydration thus achieving a feeling of fullness until you are truly hungry for food and not just water. This can also prevent you from snacking on high sugar snacks which will only increase your fat levels.
Now if your body does slip into a dehydrated state you will be totally ruining your chances of burning fat. Your dehydrated state is seen as a state of shock and all of your body's attention will be focused on getting more water and less time will be spent on tasks such as burning fat. Not a smart move when you are trying to lose weight.
Another clever way to burn fat is by simply drinking water that is ice-cold. Your body will then have to burn stored fat to heat this cold water to your body's natural temperature. A good rule is that is normally takes about 1 calorie to heat 1 ounce of ice-cold water to your natural body temperature. This means that if you drank 100 ounces of ice-cold water you would burn 100 calories of fat!
So how much water should you drink every day?
Well studies have shown that the typical person will lose on average 2.5 Litres of water every day. Also you would normally take in about 20% (500mL) of your liquid through your food that you eat so that leaves about 2 Litres every day to be provided through your beverages.
While these values have been scientifically proven there are still many sceptics to this value of 2 Litres or 8 glasses per day. However you will find that even these sceptics agree that there is evidence that the risk of certain diseases and conditions such as kidney stones can be lowered by a high water intake. So with this and the many other points noted in this article it seems quite wrong to restrict your body from its most precious resource.
While you should really listen to your body in how much water you require each day your amount will vary with the climate you are living in, how much exercise you perform and other contributing issues. Of course you should now be more aware of the importance of a high water diet in combating fat lose, losing weight and achieving a healthier body..