Living Well
Did you think you had to resort to drastic measures for weight loss? Not if you drink enough water in a day. So how much water should you drink for weight loss and at what times? Let’s find out.
Research shows that drinking about 500 ml water 30 minutes before a meal helps middle-aged and older adults digest the food better, thus aiding weight loss.
Another study conducted on 50 overweight girls concluded that water plays an important role in weight reduction and can induce thermogenesis (process of heat production in organisms.)
Participants of the study were asked to drink 500 ml of tap water half an hour before breakfast, lunch and dinner, over and above their regular water intake. The participants showed a drop in the weight at the end of the study.
In another study conducted in Birmingham, researchers tested the effects of water preloading on 84 obese adults who were divided into two groups. One random sample group drank 500 ml of water 30 minutes before the main meals and the other group was asked to imagine that they had a full stomach before each meal. The group that drank water before meals showed an average weight loss of 1.3 kgs within 12 weeks.
Though weight loss depends upon many factors such as diet, exercising, and your lifestyle, drinking water half an hour before the main meals of the day has proven to have added benefits. Becuase it helps our body to absorb the nutrients better. It also prevents our skin from going rough and dry, since it keeps us more hydrated. In addition, it also helps in solving problems like constipation. Many researchers have studied this theory and have reached a similar conclusion – that drinking water before meals, along with watching your calorie intake, can help in weight loss.
1. Pre-meal water consumption for weight loss, Handbook of Non Drug Intervention (HANDI) Project Team: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23826600
2. Effect of ‘water induced thermogenesis’ on body weight, body mass index and body composition of overweight subjects, Vij VA, Joshi AS: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24179891
3. Water consumption increases weight loss during a hypocaloric diet intervention in middle-aged and older adults, Dennis EA, Dengo AL, Comber DL, Flack KD, Savla J, Davy KP, Davy BM: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19661958