Drinking enough water is one of the simplest and easiest changes you can make to help lose weight, keep it off and improve your fitness levels.
1. Increase intensity:
Heat, not lactic acid, is what produces muscular fatigue1 and eventual failure. The hotter your muscle cells get the less they want to work because getting too hot means cell death. Proper hydration (and air-conditioning) helps your body better regulate your temperature. In other words, being properly hydrated allows you to do more work and harder work, which burns more calorie.
2. Improve recovery:
The more water your drink the less DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) you will get. The less sore you are, the more often you can workout and the better your results will be in terms of fat-loss and strength.
3. Regulate appetite:
Very often people confuse thirst with hunger, and drinking water – especially before or during a meal – helps people to better regulate their appetite. Water also helps to activate the stretch reflex in your stomach that is part of what tells your brain you’ve had enough to eat. In other words drinking enough water helps people eat less without being hungry.
4. Protects your joints:
Water (and movement) are essential for keeping your joints lubricated and your cartilage supple. Without enough water and enough full range movement our joints and cartilage can dry out and become painful. Keeping your joints healthy is essential for being able to move and maintain/establish a healthy weight.
5. Displaces high calorie beverages:
The more water you drink, the less juice, soda or other high calorie beverages you’ll drink because there is only so much room in your stomach. In behavior change it is often much more effective to replace or displace something in your diet than it is to try and eliminate something.
How much water do I need? At True 180 Personal Training we’ve had a lot of success 2 liters (64 oz) per day as a minimum. (Yes, you can drink more!) Thinking about this in terms of “how many bottles of water is that?” helps most people get it done. Look at your bottle and do a little bit of math.
