How Eight Glasses of Water (plus the extra you need as an overweight person) A Day Keep Fat Away

Water suppresses the appetite naturally and helps the body metabolize fat. Studies have shown that a decrease in water intake will cause fat deposits to increase, while an increase in water intake can actually reduce fat deposits.

The kidneys can't function properly without enough water. When they don't work to capacity, some of their load is dumped onto the liver. One of the liver's primary functions is to metabolize stored fat into usable energy for the body. But, if the liver has to do some of the kidney's work, it can't operate at full throttle. As a result, it metabolizes less fat, more fat remains stored in the body and weight loss stops.

Drinking enough water is the best treatment for fluid retention.
When the body gets less water it perceives this as a threat to survival and begins to hold onto every drop. Water is stored in the extracellular spaces (outside the cell walls). This shows up as swollen feet, legs and hands. Diuretics offer a temporary solution at best. They force out stored water along with some essential nutrients. Again, the body perceives a threat and will replace the lost water at the first opportuinity. Thus, the condition quickly returns.

The best way to overcome the problem of water retention, is to give your body what it needs--plenty of water. Only then will stored water be released. The overweight person needs more water than the thin one. Larger people have larger metabolic loads. Since we know that water is the key to fat metabolism, it follows that the overweight person meeds more water.

Water helps maintain proper muscle tone.
It does this by giving muscles their natural ability to contract and by preventing dehydration. It also helps to prevent the sagging skin that usually follows weight loss--shrinking cells are buoyed by water, which plumps the skin and leaves it clear, healthy and resilient.

Water helps rid the body of wastes.
During weight loss, the body has a lot more waste to get rid of--all that metabolized fat must be shed. Again, adequate water helps flush out waste.

Water can help relieve constipation.
When the body gets too little water, it siphons what it needs from internal sources. The colon is one primary source. Result? Constipation. But, when a person drinks enough water, normal bowel function usually returns.

So how much water is enough?

On the average a person should drink eight 8-ounce glasses every day. That's about two quarts. However, the overweight person needs on additional glass for every 25 pounds overweight. The amount you drink should also be increased if you exercise briskly or if the weather is hot and dry.

Water should be preferably cold -- it's absorbed into the system more quickly than warm water. And some evidence suggests that drinking cold water can actually help you burn calories.

To utilize water most efficiently during weight loss follow this schedule:

1 quart consumed over a 30 minute period.

1 quart consumed over a 30 minute period.

1 quart consumed between 5 and 6 o'clock.

When the body gets the water it needs to function optimally, its fluids are perfectly balanced. When this happens you have reached the "breakthrough point." What does this mean?

Endocrine-gland function improves.
Fluid retention is alleviated as stored water is lost.
More fat is used as fuel because the liver is free to metabolize stored fat.
Natural thirst returns.
There is a loss of hunger almost overnight.

If you stop drinking enough water, your body fluids will be thrown out of balance again, and you may experience unexplained weight gain and loss of thirst. To remedy this situation you'll have to go back and force another breakthrough.

The above article taken from "The Snowbird Diet" by Donald S. Roberston, M.D., MSC.

One other advantage for those of us on the Atkins WOE is fat is being flushed from the body every time we urinate as ketones.

Water is essential, meaning we have to drink enough of it to live and promote good health. It's especially important when you are dieting. Water is an important component of just about every function that takes place within our bodies. It:

• regulates body temperature.
• transports nutrients and oxygen throughout the body.
• carries waste products away from body cells.
• cushions joints.
• protects body organs and tissues.

1. Make a commitment to start drinking more water today. Just drink more of it. Make this a personal challenge.

2. Save a gallon (and more!) of money! I used to drink a lot of diet pop throughout the day. I realized I was spending more than $3 a day on pop! I'm now drinking water and guess what?? Now I am saving almost $1,100 a year. (subtract bottled water bought, maybe saving $500-LOL) New wardrobe, anyone?

3. Use a straw. Believe it or not you seem to drink faster and more often out of a straw! (or the sport-tops)

4. Drink and drive! (non-alcoholic, of course!) Drink water in your car on the way home from work. Depending how far you have to drive, you can down 2-3 bottles!!

5. Drink water when you are hungry! It's been said on this board before, whenever you get a hunger pang, try drinking a large glass of water. Then drink another. Sometimes all your body is really craving is water, not food!

6. Make bathroom and water cooler trips into a break! You should look at getting up to get water and going to the rest room as a positive part of the day. With computers being an important part of our daily lives, (work and play) we do not get enough time away from sitting in front of the screen. (Or sitting where ever!)

7. Freeze your water overnight! Freeze a 20-ounce bottle of water every night. In the morning, take that frozen bottle to the office. You can sip cold water all day long. (courtesy of someone on this board who posted this tip this week. It's a really good one!)

8. Make it count. I drink a bottle of water upon rising in the morning, 1-2 more before lunch, more before dinner and 1-2 more after dinner. That's a heck of a lot of water!!

9. You can fill a gallon-sized empty milk jug and no one else can drink from it but you. That way you can keep track of the water you drink.

10. Bigger is better Another way to track is to drink out of a 16-oz. or 24 oz. bottle rather than an 8-ounce one. Then you track how many bottles you need each day.

11. Drink water for energy. Water actually keeps me more alert, and I experience no "crashes" after drinking it like I do with diet pop.

12. Think about clear skin. Drinking all this water purifies from the inside out. Who doesn't want younger looking skin???

13. Do the math! It has been said many times here. 64 oz PLUS 8 oz for every 25 lbs you want to loose. MANDATORY!!!

14. Make it into a game! You can approach the issue like the old game show Let's Make a Deal. Don't give yourself small rewards until you've drained that bottle. (examples, I can't make my snack until the bottle is dry; I can't go shopping until I drink this).

Another hint: Keep Reading!!!
Drink COLD water!!!!!

For anyone trying to lose weight, this question is an exciting one! If you simply want to know if your body burns calories warming up the water, the answer is yes. But if you want to know if drinking a lot of ice water can help you lose weight, or keep weight off, this "yes" needs to be qualified with some calculations.

First of all, calories are case-sensitive. There are calories and then there are Calories. Calories with a big "c" are the ones used to describe the amount of energy contained in foods. A calorie with a little "c" is defined as the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. What most people think of as a Calorie is actually a kilo-calorie: It takes one Calorie to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius. So when you drink a 140-Calorie can of cola, you are ingesting 140,000 calories. There is no cause for alarm, because the conversion applies across the board. When you burn 100 Calories jogging a mile, you are burning 100,000 calories.

So, considering that the definition of a calorie is based on raising the temperature of water, it is safe to say that your body burns calories when it has to raise the temperature of ice water to your body temperature. And unless your urine is coming out ice cold, your body must be raising the temperature of the water. So calories are being burned.

Let's figure out exactly what you're burning when you drink a 16-ounce (0.5 liter) glass of ice water:

The temperature of ice water can be estimated at zero degrees Celsius.
Body temperature can be estimated at 37 degrees Celsius.
It takes 1 calorie to raise 1 gram (0.0352 ounces) of water 1 degree Celsius.

There are 454.56 grams in 16 ounces of water.
So in the case of a 16-ounce glass of ice water, your body must raise the temperature of 454.56 grams of water from zero to 37 degrees C. In doing so, your body burns 16,819 calories. But that's calories with a little "c." Your body only burns 17 Calories, and in the grand scheme of a 2,000-Calorie diet, that 17 isn't very significant.

But let's say you adhere to the "eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day" nutritional recommendation. In 64 ounces of water, there are 1,818.24 grams. So to warm up all that water, in the course of a day, your body burns 67,275 calories, or 67 Calories. And over time, that 67 Calories a day adds up. So, while you definitely shouldn't depend on ice water consumption to replace exercise or a healthy diet, drinking cold water instead of warm water does, in fact, burn some extra Calories!