Losing water weight is a part of any diet and most of the first pounds you lose, will be from water that may have been stored in your body for years; especially if you have spent years not drinking enough water.
It is very simple – if you are a person who never drinks a lot of water – and never have, you probably have been in a state of dehydration for years. Overtime your body begins to store water for your essential bodily functions; stores extra water in your ankles, waistline and other areas of your body. When you begin any healthy diet the first rule is always to drink at least 64 ounces of water or more a day. After a certain length of time, this regular hydrating with plenty of water will cause your body to realize that it no longer needs to store water and it will begin to eliminate all the water it has stored for years. So, in the first days and weeks, you will lose a lot of water weight and not much fat weight.
So for weight loss to work, it should not be just a diet but a health fitness program. You must add to your diet not only water but also proper nutrients – those foods most likely to give you energy. This means to add small amounts of protein to each meal and reduce food by counting calories gradually.
Also you will need to add some exercise (even if it is just to walk regularly). But because you don’t want to lose your strength, you need to also add some weight training so as to increase your muscle mass.
For real weight from any health fitness plan to work, your goal is to reduce the water weight loss as much as you can so that your body will need to burn your body fat – fat loss is where the real weight loss should come from.
This is why so many diet plans often fail. You experience a few great weeks of weight loss (which is really mostly water weight) and you reduce your caloric intake too fast but don’t follow these up with any exercise and strength training. So you hit a plateau for perhaps many weeks, where you don’t lose any weight or you even gain weight back. Then – you just give up and eventually you could be right back where you started.
So, yes, water helps with weight loss and is necessary for any health fitness program to not only help with your weight but also your overall health and well-being. Water is necessary to life – but so are exercise and a healthy diet. Please remember before beginning any diet or exercise program – to check with your family physician first.