Does Water Help you Lose Weight?

Water helps in so much as it is something that the body needs to function properly but that’s about it.

It’s like asking if protein helps you lose weight. It does because if you don’t eat protein you die. So if you want to lose weight you are going to need to be alive to do that and protein helps you stay alive, therefore protein DOES help you lose weight.

See what I mean?

Water helps you lose weight in that you need water for optimal day to day functioning.

But what about this …

What’s if you design a diet you KNOW will make people lose weight (we’ll assume it will for the purposes of this example)?

Person 1, your friend Sally follows it and drinks a normal amount of water.

Person 2, your uncle Dave, follows it and drinks very little water. He likes his coffee in the morning and then nothing until after dinner which for him means a beer or two. A beverage that actually dehydrates him.

What about then? How will Uncle Dave lose weight with clearly a sub optimal amount of water in his system day in and day out?

The answer, is that Uncle Dave will still lose weight. You body is very good at holding onto water if you don’t take in enough. It will release a hormone called vasopressin which tells your kidneys to conserve water and so your urine will be very dark.

It’s not very healthy and Uncle Dave may have other health issues if he doesn’t change his water intake over time, but his body will have the same amount of water in it as your friend Sally.

The water inside their bodies will look different. Sally’s will be like a public swimming pool while Dave’s will be like a dirty fish tank – cloudy, discolored and with fish that are starting to mutate.

Water Weight

One way drinking adequate water helps you lose weight is by flushing out water that’s being retained in your tissues.

If your body is holding onto water because you’ve eaten too much salt, sweets or just food the night before (or week before in the case of coming back from a holiday,) then you’ll be a few pounds heavier.

In that case drinking enough water over the next couple of days will help flush out the excess salt and metabolic byproducts of eating too much. You drink, then you eliminate, drink, eliminate until your body is back to normal.

That’s not fat loss but it is weight.

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So in short, no. Water doesn’t do much to help you lose weight. It’s highly recommended though that you make water your primary drink as it’s great for your health.

Doing that should make you feel good and when we feel good we want to keep doing things that help keep us there, in that state.

Things such as sticking to our diets.

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