Water and Weight Loss

IS DRINKING MORE WATER to help lose weight just a pipe dream—a mirage, an old wives' tale?

Not at all. It's fact, with solid science behind it. In a recent obesity conference in Phoenix, Arizona, for example, Brenda Davy, Ph.D., R.D., associate professor in the Department of Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Tech, shared findings of research showing that people who drink two glasses of water 20 to 30 minutes before each meal lose more weight—and lose it more quickly—than those who don't.

In another study by Dr. Davy and her team, published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, results showed that people who drink water before meals eat an average of 75 fewer calories per meal. While this may not seem like a lot, eating 75 fewer calories each day at lunch and dinner for a year means a weight loss of 14.5 pounds.

Consider too these facts:

• 75 percent of Americans (and likely at least half the world population) are chronically dehydrated
• Even a MILD dehydration of 1 percent will slow down one's metabolism—one's "fat-burning furnace"—by as much as 3 percent
• A University of Washington study found that one glass of water shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100 percent of the dieters studied
• Lack of water is the Number 1 trigger of daytime fatigue
• Preliminary research indicates that 8 to 10 glasses of water a day (half of that coming from water-based foods and drinks other than plain water) could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80 percent of sufferers
• A mere 2 percent drop in body water can cause fuzzy short-term memory, difficulty with basic math, and problems with focusing on a computer screen or a printed page
• Drinking five glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45 percent, of breast cancer by 79 percent, and of bladder cancer by 50 percent

So clearly, drinking enough water—which for most people means drinking MORE water—can be a great assist with weight loss, as well as benefiting both mind and body in a host of other ways.