Water is one of the most essential elements of human life. Without it, we wouldn’t survive. Unfortunately, though, so many people are failing to stay properly hydrated—and this can wreak major havoc on the human body. By understanding the importance of water when it comes to your wellness and how hydrating your body can help you fight hunger, you can begin to see why you may need to incorporate more of it into your daily diet.
How Does Water Help Fight Hunger?
First of all, understand how essential water is in digesting foods and eliminating waste from your body. When you’re not getting enough water, you may feel lethargic and uncomfortable. Water also helps flush waste from the body, which is key when you’re trying to lose weight. Furthermore, water can help you feel fuller longer. That’s because drinking water allows you to fill your stomach without adding calories.
Give this a try for yourself. The next time you sit down for a meal, drink a glass of water before you begin eating. You’ll likely find that you feel fuller faster. The same applies to those who drink a glass of water in the middle of a meal. For dieters, a good rule of thumb is that once you finish your plate, if you still feel like going back for seconds, you should drink a glass of water and wait five minutes. More than likely, after those five minutes, you’ll feel satiated and less likely to go for seconds.
How Does Hydration Help to Burn Fat?
In addition to keeping you fuller for longer, proper hydration can also help your body burn off fat. This is due to the fact that when you’re not drinking enough water, your kidneys aren’t functioning as well as they should. In turn, they become “lazy” and hand off the work of excreting waste to your liver. This causes your liver to essentially work overtime, preventing it from burning stored fat as it should. In this sense, when you drink enough water, you keep your kidneys working properly and you give your liver the “break” it needs to focus on burning fat instead of processing waste.
How Much Water Should You Be Drinking?
There are differing opinions on exactly how much water a person should drink on a daily basis. As a general rule, it’s good to aim for half your body weight in ounces of water. For example, if you weigh 180 pounds, then you should shoot for about 90 ounces of water intake each day. For most men and women, this number will fall somewhere between 91 and 125 ounces of water per day.
Incorporating More Water Into Your Diet:
Unfortunately, many of the beverages that the food industry puts out there don’t do a whole lot to keep our bodies properly hydrated. Even sports drinks that are meant for hydration contain all kinds of sugars and other chemicals that should make us think twice before putting them into our bodies. Truly, the best way to incorporate more water into your diet is to shy away from beverages that have no nutritional value and stick to pure water. For many, simply carrying around a large water bottle and drinking from it throughout the day is enough to meet daily hydration goals.
The truth is a healthy body doesn’t come from simply changing the foods you eat. It’s about changing the way you view food and the lifestyle you want to create for yourself. Not one singular thing can make you healthy, it’s combination of choices you make.
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