Drop Down! Will Drinking Water Help You Lose More Weight?

Getting in shape can't get any easier than this. Forget diets and weight loss super foods, chug a couple of glasses of water before your meal and you may eat less without even holding back! That's what a new study, published in the Journal Obesity, reveals. The research was conducted at the University of Birmingham where experts have shown that  that drinking 500ml of water half-an-hour before eating the three main meals of the day may help you lose weight.According to Helen Parretti, a lecturer at the University of Birmingham, "Just drinking a pint of water, three times a day, before your main meals may help reduce your weight."To reach to this conclusion, researchers recruited 84 adults with obesity for a 12-week experiment.
Each of the participants were given a weight management consultation, where they were advised on how to adapt their lifestyle and improve their diet and levels of physical activity while they were being monitored.
(Ditch the Sugar-Laden Colas: Make Your Own Flavoured Water This Summer)Half of them (41 adults) were asked to preload with water, the other half ( 43 adults) were advised to imagine that they had a full stomach before eating. Everyone's weight was noted at start, in the middles and at the end. They also kept tract of their level of physical activity. By the end of the period, it was seen that those in the group who were instructed to 'pre-load' with water lost about 1.3 kg (on an average) more than those in the control group.(Headaches, Mood Swings & Fatigue: What Happens When You Don't Drink Enough Water?)Those who reported pre-loading before all three main meals in the day reported a loss of 4.3 kg over the 12 weeks, whereas those who only pre-loaded once, or not at all, only lost an average of 0.8kg. "When combined with brief instructions on how to increase your amount of physical activity and on a healthy diet, this seems to help people to achieve some extra weight loss -- at a moderate and healthy rate. It is something that does not take much work to integrate into our busy everyday lives” Parretti pointed out.(10 Detox Waters to Cleanse Your Body & Burn Fat)Water is effective because it fills you help and increase satiety. Drinking water before your meal keeps you full that can help you make decisions about what and how much to eat. "Water can help us reduce weight to some extent. It boosts our metabolism. It's a good practice to drink water half and hour before the meal not right before the meal. It helps curb your appetite and gives you a sense of fullness. Drinking less water can cause water retention in our body which leads to swollen hands and even it makes you gain weight," explains Dr. Simran Saini, Nutritionist from New Delhi.Dr. Shikha Sharma, Nutrition Expert and Founder of Nutrihealth agrees, "Water is an essential element and less intake of water is compensated with over eating. The human body has a biochemical balance which can be maintained in an alkaline state by consuming fruits and vegetables with a high water content. Water before a meal helps curb your appetite and in fact drinking warm water tends to be more effective."(No, You Do Not Have to Drink 8 Glasses of Water a Day)This is just the first step and more research is needed but researchers of the study believe that drinking water before meals can definitely help you manage your weight irrespective of the BMI status.With inputs from IANS