A lot of people talk about the important in water in dieting. But, how much water should you drink for weight loss?
Today I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about water in dieting.
“For Weight Loss How Much Water Should I Drink?”
We use these rough guidelines with our clients who are wondering how much water to drink for weight loss. Our recommendations for how much water to drink is based off of how much you weight.
The more you weigh generally speaking the more water you will need per day.
How to Drink Enough Water per Day
Okay, you know how much water to drink per day, but how do you drink enough water per day?
That’s a whole different story. When it comes to nutrition of our client fall into the category of knowing exactly what to do but struggling to actually do it.
This is where we come in and try and help them figure out how to integrate these changes into their day to day life.
How to Drink Enough Water per Day Strategies
- Figure out how many water bottles you need to drink per day. Then put that number of elastics onto your water bottle. Each time you fill up move an elastic from one end of the bottle to the other. It will keep track of how many you are drinking per day.
- Drink 250-500ml (1-2 cups) of water in the first 5-10 minutes you’re awake. Your body is looking for fluids after not getting anything for several hours while sleeping. I’ve found this helps to kick start the body’s regulation of thirst and actually gets someone feeling thirsty throughout the rest of their day.
- Drink 250-500 ml of water 10-15 minutes before each meal. It will help you to regulate your appetite as well as making sure you’re getting enough water.
Use an app on your phone like this one.
- Drink water before drinking coffee
If you don’t enjoy drinking water look into buying things like a water infuser like this one.
These are just a few strategies to help you figure out how to drink enough water per day. You need to figure out a system that works well for you.
What are the Benefits of Drinking Water?
So why do you actually want to drink water if you’re trying to lose weight? Is there really a benefit to drinking more water and dieting?
There are several reasons why drinking water helps you lose weight.
1) Water helps to suppress your appetite. Earlier, I mentioned drinking 250-500ml (1-2 cups) of water before each meal. This will actually help you to eat less food at your meals. For example, this one study had participants keep their meals and exercise routines the same. The only change participants made was drinking 500ml of water 30 minute before breakfast, lunch and supper. Participants lost an average of just over 3 pounds in 8 weeks
3) Drinking more water can help you lose weight by reducing overall calorie in-take. Commonly when people are drinking enough water for weight loss, they are drinking less juice, sugary drinks, coffee (assuming it’s not black), and other calorie dense beverages.
4) Hydration is key to keeping your energy levels high throughout the day and during workouts. This might seem like it doesn’t directly impact weight loss. However, when you’re feeling tired or rundown it leads to poor choices with your nutrition. Stop and think about this, if you are feeling tired or stressed are you more likely to reach for something that is less than an ideal choice with nutrition.
5) It can help to lubricate joints. Again, if you’re getting more active or already regularly exercising you want to make sure you keep your joints healthy.
6) Water is required for proper digestion. If you’re looking to lose weight you might be thinking who cares about digestion. But, digestive stress can quickly cause your stomach to bloat or get inflamed. We have had clients improve digestion and lose 3-4 inches off their waist simply from getting their digestive system working better.
7) It can help to maintain healthy blood pressure.
Do You Get Water Through Food?
Yes, you do get a large amount of water through food. Especially certain fruits, vegetables, and carbohydrate dense foods.
However, when giving the guidelines above about how much water to drink when dieting this is how much water you should drink in addition to the water that you get from food sources.
Benefits of Drinking Water in the Morning
Ideally, we recommend that people drink 250-500ml of water first thing in the morning. You want to try and drink this water in the first 5-10 minutes you’re awake.
Two of he benefits of drinking water in the morning is that you’re getting water in right away to help start regulating your hunger levels immediately. It helps to start your day off right.
The 2nd benefit of drinking water in the morning is that it helps to regulate thirst levels throughout the day in my experience.
A lot of people struggle to get enough water during the day, if you trigger your body’s natural thirst mechanism it will make it easier to drink enough water all throughout the day.
What’s the Best Time to Drink Water?
There is no ideal time to drink water throughout the day. Ideally, you want to spread out your water consumption throughout the entire day.
However, you might want to stop drinking water 2-3 hours before bed. The reason being is that some people find this causes them to wake up throughout the night.
