How Much Water To Drink To Lose Weight

Water is a transparent, inorganic, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless substance composed of the chemical elements hydrogen and oxygen and exists in Gaseous, liquid, and solid states. It is the essential constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms. Although it does not provides food, energy, or organic micronutrients, but also it is vital for all known forms of life.

Research says that humans can only live three to five days without water because around 60% of the human body is made up of water. Including regulating body temperature, flushing waste from the body, and transporting nutrients that are necessary for digestion, water plays many important roles in the human body.

How Much Water To Drink To Lose Weight

Shouldn't you be drinking an entire gallon of water per day in order to lose weight?

If weight loss is a goal, then you've definitely heard this one before. So, in this post, I will be diving into whether or not this is what you need to be doing to achieve your wellness goals. This article just gives you an idea of how much water to drink to lose weight.

 

To write this article we have discussed with a Certified Nutritionist. Her name is Autumn Bates, and she is a Certified Clinical Nutritionist. In this post, we just describe her opinion. So, let’s start.

 

All the time, Drinking water is really important. We know that it's really essential for staying hydrated and our body is roughly 60% water. Water literally acts as the medium for chemical reactions to happen. So even, Presence of water is required for the chemical reaction of breaking down fat into energy.

 

In fact, even just a 2% decrease in your hydration status can have a massive impact on your athletic performance. Now the Mayo Clinic suggests, as well as what I have learned in my Master’s program for sports nutrition that you need about 2 liters per day of water in order to be hydrated, and that's for women.

 

But for men, they need about 3.8 liters. So it's about 88oz for women and 120oz for men. But even this number can really range a lot.

For example, if you're super active and you're sweating, you're going to be losing a lot of that water that you need to replace. So, you'll need to be drinking more water if you live in a really hot area again, where you are sweating. Or if your mouth breathes when you sleep, you are actually losing more water that way as well.

 

Going back to why it actually can be helpful for weight loss, you guys have definitely seen this before for people who are probably like weightlifters or maybe those who are trying to lose weight carrying around that big jug of water.

And people who do this swear by it. These peoples swear that it's like a life-changing moment for their weight loss goals. Now, there is actual truth to this, it might not necessarily be the fact that they're drinking water.

 

There is a cap on really how much liquid you can be having or how much you might be craving. You're drinking water which means you're replacing something else with the water. So you might be replacing that second cup of vanilla latte coffee with additional water, which means that you will be lowering your sugar intake just by simply removing that vanilla latte.

 

Another reason that’s why increasing water intake is really helpful, it is because it makes you feel fuller. There's literally a stretch mechanism within your stomach where, as it starts to stretch out, that sends signals up to your brain that you're full.

 

Fiber sends those messages up to your brain saying that you are full, that is also why we talk about it as being really important for weight loss because fiber does this job where it causes the stomach to stretch out a little bit. 

But here with drinking too much water can happen some problems. And the problem is a little more common than you may think. Did you guys ever see, like, those marathon runners who just collapsed suddenly toward the end of their race? Or even I heard, there’s like a radio show where people to drink water challenge and from drinking too much water one woman died.

 

Well, having too much water can actually lead to something called hypernatremia. And it's not that this is too much water. It's actually an imbalance of your electrolyte levels.

 

Specifically, it's where your sodium levels get too low, even though sodium gets a bad reputation, the most important thing when it comes to nerve transmission is called a sodium-potassium ion channel.

 

And if you don't have enough sodium in order to be able to have those nerve transmissions, it can lead to things like seizures or coma, or even death. That's why we're always talking about when you are in your most dehydrated state making sure that you get the electrolytes in first thing in the morning because there is no one who wants to just load up on water but not have the electrolytes that go along with it, where the pinch of Celtic sea salt is really important to make sure that you get those electrolytes in. 

Will you get Hypothermia from drinking a gallon of water per day?

Will get Hypothermia from drinking a gallon of water per day

Most likely not. You need to be drinking a pretty high amount of water and not consuming any type of electrolytes in order for this to happen. But I wanted to bring it up because it can happen and it is possible, and it has happened.

 

And as we talked about, hydration is essential for energy levels. Having those chemical reactions that can occur within your body for that stretch mechanism helps you feel full. But it's also important for helping to push that fiber out of the human body so that you don't get constipated too.

Side note, that's one problem a lot of people have. When people start to increase fiber intake, they don’t increase water intake to go along with it which can lead to constipation.

Do we need to drink a gallon of water?

Not necessarily, in fact, if you're only drinking 20oz a day right now, then I wouldn't necessarily recommend jumping all the way to the 88oz recommended for women or the 120oz recommended for men.

 

Do we need to drink a gallon of water

Gradual increases in the ounces of water that you drink per day are going to be a more realistic approach where you don't feel like it's daunting. If you're at 20oz right now, then just try increasing it to another 12oz, and then every week from there, just increase it by another 12oz until you get to that goal of at least 88oz.

 

Important note, you might need to increase your water from there if you are working out a lot or in a hot environment and you are sweating. But really about an extra 16 to 20oz in addition to that is all you really need.

 

Also, you can swap in water and really improve hydration status, if you are drinking a lot of caffeine throughout the day, this is another effective way.

Caffeine is a diuretic, so it can contribute to releasing water out of your system. So by swapping out one extra coffee for 12oz of water, not only are you reducing that diuretic effect, but you're also increasing your water intake.

 

So it's a win. And remember, it's super important to have that Celtic sea salt or some type of electrolyte, but I prefer Celtic sea salt and especially that first-morning water, or possibly even in addition to another water after your workout, depending on how hard you're exercising.

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