Water for Weight Loss

If you have been struggling with your weight and would like to lose some pounds, water may be the magic weight loss tool you’ve been looking for. As simple as it seems, drinking plenty of healthy water can be the most effective way to lose weight and keep it off.

Excess body fat is a sign of chronic toxic overload. When your body can’t process, neutrale and eliminate all the toxins, it stores them in fat cells in order to protect you from their dangers. Day after day, year after year this adds up to weight gain.

Water Flushes out Fat and Toxins!

A gentle detox is the best way to stir up these stored toxins and initiate healthy weight loss. And water is the most important tool for this process. Your kidneys and liver needs lots of healthy water to be able to properly filter toxins out and metabolize fat. When they’re forced to get by with an inadequate water supply fat metabolism stops and the weigh stays on.

Your need for water is dependent on your body weight. If you are overweight, your metabolic needs will be more than if you are lean. An overweight person has more toxins to process. As you release these toxins, you’ll need plenty of water to flush them through your kidneys and liver and to support healthy, regular digestion.

“Regularly flushing out the kidneys and bladder with water ensures that dead cells and other waste products can be expelled before they reach toxic levels.”
- Joshua Rosenthal, Integrative Nutrition: the future of nutrition

Besides being necessary for the metabolic process of losing weight and restoring health to your internal organs, water also supports your ability to stick with a healthy eating plan. Water will naturally suppress your appetite, shrink your stomach, curb your cravings and give you more energy. When you feel fatigued, hungry or cranky, drink a big glass of water and feel its healing, cleansing power.

Are you concerned that drinking so much water will cause water retention? Water retention is actually a common sign of dehydration among overweight people. When your body isn’t getting enough water, it will think there’s a shortage and react by holding on to every drop. This causes swollen ankles, hands and feet. By regularly drinking more water you can assure your body that there is no emergency. It will then let go of the retained water and the excess weight.

Healthy Water Drinking Practices

• Drink half your body weight in ounces of pure water. For example, if you weigh 160 pounds, then you can aim for drinking 80 ounces of pure water each day. If this seems like a lot to you take it one step at a time. Increase the amount of water you’re drinking each week until you reach this goal. As your body adjusts to being well hydrated you will feel better and it will become easier and easier to get in that much water every day.
• Drink a good helping of water first thing in the morning. This is when you are most dehydrated and when your toxins are most concentrated.
• Carry water with you everywhere. Start the day out with a glass of water and refill it every time you finish it, keeping it with you as you move around your house. When you head out of the house be sure to take a bottle of water with you. Drink your water throughout the day, while you’re working, driving, waiting, walking, etc. Plastic water bottles are known to leach toxins into the water. Choose a stainless steel water bottle to avoid this risk.
• When you have cravings, feel tired or get cranky, drink water first. These feelings usually mean that you’re dehydrated. Hydrate yourself first. After you drink your water than you can assess if you really need a healthy snack, some sleep or a relaxing detox therapy.
• Don’t drink other beverages until you reach your water goal. Retrain yourself to make water your primary beverage. Juices and milks are no substitution for pure water. Sodas, coffee, and other chemicalized or caffeinated beverages are actually very dehydrating.
• Avoid drinking significant amounts of water with or just after meals. Drinking with meals is like pouring water on a fire. When you eat your body makes stomach acid (digestive fire) to digest your food. Drinking large amounts of water (or other beverages) during mealtime dampens the digestive fire and inhibits digestion
• Don’t let your water disturb your sleep. If you wake in the night to urinate, start drinking most of your water in the morning and early afternoon and refrain from drinking in the evening. Healthy sleep is just as important to health and detoxing as water.