Water for Weight Loss?

If you’re looking for a cost free, “easy to implement” weight loss tip, try water. Yes, plain old H20! In two separate studies, researchers found that within 10 minutes of drinking 500 mL (about a pint) of water, metabolic rates in both men and women begin to increase as much as 24 to 30 percent. They don’t fully understand why this occurs, but it appears to be related to osmotic pressure changes since other drinks don’t elicit the same effects.

These changes begin to peak at about 60 minutes before dropping back to normal after that. The great thing is that over the period of a year if you drank this much water every day upon rising it could result in burning an extra 17,400 calories and result in the loss of five pounds. For the best results we suggest drinking the additional water first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.

(J Clin Endocrinol Metab 03;88:6015–6019) (J Clin Endocrinol
Metab 07;92:3334–3337)