Water as diet drink and mind booster

Lifehack/Fakt

29.Jan.2018

Many friends of me get along with only half a lite of water per day, and I am wondering myself how they are able to stand this. A former colleague drunk even only half a liter of water in a week (beside a cup of coffee in the morning). In fact, the body need much more water, but it can also get along with only a very little if necessary.

It is very important and also beneficial to drink an adequate amount of water. Often, physical complaints can occur by inadequate liquid intake. Attentiveness disorder, headache, nausea, digestive problems, and even backache are the most often but also the most innocuous. Erroneously, these symptoms are often interpreted as hunger, or they are suppressed with pills, like it is often the case with headache. This will help on the short term, but will not provide a cure on the long term.

Two liter of water per day are recommended. Liquids like lemonade and juices don't really count. With coffee there are different opinions. I would say, as coffee detract water from the body, but is taken with water, the balance is equal. In contrast, tea should provide a positive balance for the water supply. During hot days, while higher transpiration, you should even drink a respective higher amount. These information count for healthy people, who want to escape the above described symptoms. People with kidney problems or other metabolism problems have to adapt their water supply to these diseases.

If you count to those who don't even drink one liter per day, I recommend to increase the daily amount of water slow. Most that want to increase the amount suddenly to a very high level often fail already after a few days.
But if you reach this goal after a while and to drink the amount constantly, you will notice that your body becomes accustomed to you will notice very quickly if you drunk too few. This shows you how necessary this amount of water is for your body. The easiest way is, to fill a bottle with water and keep it with you all the time. So you only need to reach out for the bottle to get the water. And then you should drink directly one glass at once. It is also helpful to drink the proper water. Tap water as well as many mineral waters provide some minerals, but they are often also contaminated with anthropogenic (created by human) and noxious substances. That is for example hormones, drug remnants and nitrate which reaches the ground water by strong fertilization. Many waste water plants are not able to handle these pollutants completely or even only negligible. But about this, I want to tell you more in another article.

If you are asking where the life hack hides, here is the answer:
A study (which I cannot find anymore, unfortunately) showed, that there is a nice side effect. If you are drinking more than two liter of water a day, your body burns approximately 300 kcal energy more than usually (which correspond to a half hour of sport). The reason is, that the body needs to heat the water to body temperature. Additionally, some other studies emphasize, that you are satisfied faster during your meal when you drunk a half liter of water, half an hour before the meal. This seems to reduce the caloric intake by another 100 kcal.
Further, as I already indicated above, you can concentrate better on things if you have a balanced water supply. This is something I often notice myself, when I forgot to drink enough. In this case, drinking quickly two glasses of water and I can think and concentrate much better, already after a few minutes. So, water is a kind of secret weapon for extensive learning or for exams.


Main-Sources:

  • based on own observation
  • Püttmann, W., Keil, F., Oehlmann, J. et al. Environ Sci Eur: Wassertechnische Strategien zur Reduzierung der Trinkwasserbelastung durch Arzneimittelwirkstoffe (2008)
  • J. Conrad: Nitratdiskussion und Nitratpolitik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (1990), Springer-Verlag
  • B. M.Davy et al.: Water Consumption Reduces Energy Intake at a Breakfast Meal in Obese Older Adults (2008), Journal of the American Dietetic Association
  • H. Valtin: Drink at least eight glasses of water a day. Really? Is there scientific evidence for 8 × 8? (2002), American Journal of Physiology