Does Drinking Lots of Water Help You Lose Weight? The Answer May Surprise You

You’ve heard it countless times before: if you want to lose weight, drink lots of water. Does drinking lots of water help you lose weight? The answer is yes…and no. See, when someone is overweight, they are often carrying a lot of water weight around with them. Eat a meal high in sodium and you begin to retain water. If you were to then drink a lot of water, you would see the scale indicate that you’ve lost weight. Have you lost fat, however? The majority of the weight you lose when you drink lots of water is water weight. Therefore, when you ask, “Does drinking lots of water help you lose weight?”, the answer is yes, you will lose weight, but it won’t be permanent because you’re not losing fat. And it’s typically fat we’re looking to lose when we want to lose weight.

Water Helps

If you were to ask a dietician or a personal trainer, “Does drinking lots of water help you lose weight?”, they would answer yes. Every fitness advocate will recommend drinking lots of water. That’s because the body is comprised of more than seventy percent water so drinking water helps the body work more efficiently. However, as far as asking, “Does drinking lots of water help you lose weight?”, it’s not going to help you lose fat. Only eating less and exercising more is going to do that. But drinking water will help you get there faster.

Not By Itself

The moral to this story is that yes, drinking water will help you lose pounds; but it’s not going to help you lose fat. You will need to eat less food, exercise more and drink more water. This is the only safe and healthy way to lose weight.

The fact is that people are still going to ask, “Does drinking lots of water help you lose weight?”, but that’s because they’re mainly looking for an easy way to do it. Most people don’t want to do the hard work that’s required to shed pounds. They all want a miracle drug or a magic machine, but you just can’t lose weight that way. It’s takes a long time of hard work and dedication.

It’s still a good idea to drink lots of water. It’s the substance of life. But you’re going to do a little more than that if you hope to reach your ideal weight.