We are all well aware of the risks posed by obesity. It can lead to severe health complications which include heart attack, diabetes, stroke etc. If you are overweight, there is definitely a need to shed off extra fat from your body. You could possibly do that in two main ways. One through making changes in your diet and second by keeping yourself physically active. Let us focus on the diet part for the time being and see what is missing. Water!
Yes! Nutritionists have revealed that many people overlook the importance of water from their daily diet. In fact, one study looked into the composition of participants who undertook extreme diet plans. It was found that their bodies had more levels of salt and less hydration.
Why this is a serious cause for concern will be clear later. Also surprisingly enough, drinking water can actually aid in the weight loss process!
Suffice to say, if you are dieting, make sure to include water as an essential component.
You know from your Grade 6 Biology textbook that your body is made up of 70% water. What you were also told was much gets lost in the process of sweat and urination. Yet, more importantly, not keeping yourself hydrated will make your dehydrated.
If you are suffering from dehydration, you lose more fluids from your body than you take in. And when your body does not have enough fluids, it is unable to carry out its normal functions. Now dehydration should be taken seriously particularly because the symptoms can be dangerous at times. While on a short-term basis it may make you feel a lot thirsty. But in addition to that, a severe form may actually harm the functioning of the brain.
All that being said, let us look into how water helps in the weight loss process.
The first thing to note is that it is not a direct way of losing weight. It's not like by keeping yourself hydrated you are burning off excessive calories. There is rather a very indirect way of how that happens. Supported by studies and shown by empirical evidence, water prevents from consuming more food. Which really means, you are likely to take in fewer calories than usual.
A lot of nutritionists have argued that people often mistake thirst for hunger. When they are actually thirsty, they will ingest in food to overcome the feeling. Now, that is the wrong approach to have. Instead, if you focused on drinking more fluids, you are able to satisfy your body's need. At the same time preventing yourself from the intake of calories.
How to keep yourself hydrated on a regular basis?
Well, the straight forward answer is to drink more water. This might seem harder than it sounds so there is an alternate path you can adopt. That entails incorporating fluids in your daily diet in manifold ways. Let us see one way of doing so.