What'ya eating (drinking) Wednesday?

Marking a water bottle can help you drink more!

We have all heard that we should be drinking more water but it's tough for me.  Sometimes I literally feel like I am drowning as I'm trying to guzzle down my water.  Here's some encouragement from Giam life that may motivate us to drink more water.                                            "Step 1: Drink before you eat

Because water is an appetite suppressant, drinking it before meals can make you feel fuller and therefore reduce your food intake. Health resource website WebMD states that drinking water before meals results in an average reduction in intake of 75 calories per meal. Drinking water before just one meal per day would cause you to ingest 27,000 fewer calories per year. Do the math: You'd lose about eight pounds per year just from drinking water! Now imagine if you drank it before each meal.

Step 2: Replace calorie-filled drinks with water

Ditch the sodas and juice and replace them with water to help you lose weight. If you think water tastes boring, add a slice of lemon. A glass of water with lemon is a recipe for successful weight loss because the pectin in lemons helps reduce food cravings. Think water doesn’t really help weight loss? Give up those sugary drinks for just a few weeks and see the difference." (I also like to add a drop of lemon oil )

Step 3: Drink it ice cold

According to the editorial staff at WebMD, drinking ice cold water helps boost your metabolism because your body has to work harder to warm the water up, therefore burning more calories and helping you to lose weight. Plus, ice cold water is just so much more refreshing than water that’s room temperature.

Step 4: Hit the gym

Because drinking water helps prevent muscle cramping and keeps your joints lubricated, you can work out longer and harder. Just another way keeping hydrated with water helps you lose weight.

Step 5: Make sure you get enough

If you really want the water you drink to help you lose weight, you should follow the “8x8” rule recommended by most nutritionists: Drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day for weight loss and to maintain an ideal weight. You might need to drink more water if you exercise a lot or sweat heavily, or less water if you drink other beverages like herbal tea (make sure they are decaffeinated).

Trent Nessler, PT, DPT, MPT, managing director of Baptist Sports Medicine in Nashville, says the amount of water you need depends on your size, weight and activity level. He adds that you should try to drink between half an ounce and an ounce of water for each pound you weigh, every day.

How do you know if you’re getting enough water? A general rule is to check the toilet after you’ve gone to the bathroom. You’ll know you’re well hydrated if your urine is clear or very light yellow in color. The darker your urine, the more water you need to drink, especially if weight loss is your goal."

I wanted to focus a little more on step two.  Recently, I watched a video called  "Sugar-the bitter truth".  It's a long technical video by Dr Robert Lustig who works as an pediatric endocrinologist with a focus on childhood obesity.  Here's the four steps that they do with every child who comes into the obesity clinic that we could apply to our own weight loss journey:

As you can see from the picture, the first thing they do is get rid of any sugared liquids.  (This includes juices and sport's drinks) Dr Lustig asks, "My question to you is, why do you need sweet drinks at all? What's wrong with water? The human race had no sweet drinks until 1915, when Coca-Cola went national. Until then, we had water and milk, and we did just fine, thank you. Juice was invented in the 1950s. We didn't have obesity in the first half of the 20th century. But we have seen both soft drinks and juice sales rise astronomically, at the same time the obesity epidemic started to build....Water has everything you need, and nothing you don't. And it's cheap."

Are you thirsty? Let's go drink some water.