Meals - Week 11.2

Blogy blog blog time,

I want to chat about a chemical compound which on a molecular level is made up of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms held together in a covalent bond, no? Here's another clue, it's behavior changes in different environments such as the top of Mount Everest to the shores of Greenland, no? This substance is transparent and can absorb high amounts of ultraviolet and infrared light, still no? Ok all forms of life on planet earth depend on this liquid and without it most would perish to extinction...

I am of course talking about water...  And in this instance good old regular tap water...

More importantly i want to focus on water, the body, fats and it's effect on a successful diet.  The only liquids to pass my lips in the last 11 weeks are water, coffee, green tea, milk and that one time in band camp when i had 10 single malts, 2 beers and demolished all the peanuts, biltong and porridge in the house,  no diet sodas (i lie i have had 1 can), no fruit juices and definitely no extra thick double malted Oreo and hazelnut praline shakes which are never any good because the Oreo bits get stuck in the straw making it a faff to drink.  And the result of mostly drinking between 2 to 3 litres of water a day i am still seeing remarkable weight loss but more importantly fat loss, why is that?  How does water team up with a balanced low calorie diet and help us shed the kilos but most importantly make that t-shirt fit better or enable us to wear that ill fitting pair of jeans consigned to the top of the cupboard a year ago?  The effects of water on our bodies is astounding.

First of all water is needed to transport energy giving carbohydrates and proteins to our blood, when we urinate the water carries away toxins from our bodies, water keeps us hydrated and taxis nutrients to our cells, is free of fat, cholesterol and calories as well as being very low in sodium, and more importantly for us water aids fat burning, without enough water in our system our kidneys do not function properly and because the main function of a kidney is to filter blood and clean toxin free blood is quite important for life to exist the brain will pull in the liver to help out, due to the liver now having a part time job it didn't really want it finds itself torn between effectively metabolising  fat which is it's proper day job to helping it's neighbour of sorts out with blood cleaning duties, so the moral of the story is in order to keep your liver in peak condition for fat burning both your kidneys need to be lubricated with plenty of water.

It's not only the kidneys which require plenty of water, the liver also requires plenty of H2O if the liver decides it does not have enough water to metabolise our fat intake it will do what we all do when we do not have the correct tools for a job and cut corners, make a plan, procrastinate a bit by storing the unmetabolised fat around the body, for the liver out of sight out of mind appears to be it's idiom of choice, and as with all with all biological fasts the body not only knows how to bulk up it's fat and carbohydrate stores for future use it can also store water for future use, i am trying to get my head around this but i think i am correct in saying that the body prefers to store water within a carbohydrate called glycogen and the storage facilities of choice are the muscle tissue in the ankles, face and stomach, when we start a diet by creating a calorie deficit the body initially looks to our glycogen stores for energy and as the glycogen burns it also releases the water it has been holding onto which generally attributes to the initial loss of water and that instant weight loss in the first two weeks when we find people telling us or us ourselves telling others that the reason is 'just losing water weight'.

There are studies or dietitians who also believe that drinking cold water can burn more calories than room temperature water, when we drink cold water our bodies create a thermogenic environment to warm the water, for the heat the body needs energy and calories are burned for energy therefore the more energy the body requires the more available calories it will burn.

Now there are nutritionists out there who say that drinking water has very little effect on weight loss but still maintain the health benefits of water cannot be ignored, i say to them for the obese any effect no matter how little on weight loss is a huge step forward for us so any advantage we can give ourselves over gaining weight has to be seen as a positive one.

How much water to drink?  It turns out that there are guidelines within physics on the amount of water a person should consume on a daily basis and this is based on their weight, i cannot find the source of this equation but it is as follows:

 Your weight (kg) multiplied by 0.033 = Water (litres) to drink per day

So my equation looks like this:

152.3 x 0.033 = 5.026 litres of water per day.

I currently drink between 2 and 3 litres per day, never any less than 2, one quick fire way of checking if you are adequately hydrated is to check the colour of your urine, if it is dark and yellow you may be dehydrated if your urine is clear or almost colourless then chances are you are in fact adequately hydrated.

Although i believe i am adequately hydrated i will now try to add an extra 2 litres of water to my day and report back if it made any noticeable difference.

Obviously as i lose more weight i will be able to reduce my water intake too.

My top tip to hydrating throughout the day is always have water at hand, for example i have 2 x 1 litre bottles, one is on my desk right now and the other in the refrigerator down stairs, i always aim to finish the first litre in the morning before lunch then the second one in the afternoon, when i get home i fill both bottles back up and put them in the refrigerator, then i drink 1/3 of a litre of water and go out for my walky runny thing, when i get back i drink another 1/3 and then during the rest of the evening i finish the remaining 1/3, on the downside i also wee every hour but i believe i am ridding myself of all the harm my food addiction has caused and flushing it down into the sewer where it belongs...