Weight Loss
Water and Weight Loss
Water is an essential component of your weight loss program and for your body to metabolize stored fat into energy. Your body’s metabolism can be slowed by relatively mild levels of dehydration and the slower your metabolism, the slower your weight loss (and the greater your fatigue), until eventually your weight loss just crawls to a halt.
Water is a natural appetite suppressant. In the hypothalamus, a region in your brain that controls appetites and cravings, the control centers for hunger and thirst are located next to each other, and there tends to be some overlap. This has both advantages and disadvantages for the dieter: on the down side, it means that chronic mild dehydration can confuse these control mechanisms, leading to feelings of hunger, rather than thirst. But on a positive note, it means you can use water to reduce your appetite.
Water is an essential component of the processes that enable muscle to contract. This means that water helps to maintain muscle tone. Better muscle tone means a better looking body, and isn’t that what dieting and weight loss is about?
Water also helps to prevent the sagging skin that often follows weight loss – water plumps the skin cells, giving the skin a younger and healthier look.
Water helps rid the body of waste. During weight loss, the body has a lot more waste to get rid of, as a by-product of all that metabolized fat. So adequate water is essential to your health while dieting.
Water can even help with constipation. When the body gets too little water, it siphons what it needs from within, particularly from the colon. This leads to constipation. But normal bowel function usually returns with adequate water intake.
More generally, mild dehydration can cause a number of health problems:
- Headaches & feeling light headed, as dehydration interferes with normal body processes, including waste disposal.
- Fatigue, as the body’s metabolism is slowed – mild dehydration is probably the most common cause of daytime fatigue.
- Hunger & cravings due to weakening of the thirst mechanism.
- Fluid retention.
- Constipation
Not a pretty picture, is it? But once you’ve reached the breakthrough point, fluid retention eases, the liver and endocrine system start to function more effectively, you will start to regain your natural thirst and your hunger cravings will be significantly reduced. And so the end result of reaching and sustaining the breakthrough point in your water balance is that your body is able to metabolize fat more effectively. The end result is more control of your weight loss program.
Janet Whalen
skype – janetwhalen
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment