Reprinted with the permission of
THE HARTFORD COURANT
Copyright (c) 1999, The Hartford Courant Company
DATE: Wednesday, January 27, 1999
By Claudia Van Nes
Courant Staff Writer
Let Us Drink Water

Drink eight glasses of water a day, says the nutritionists and anumber of readers who say capacious water consumption is a key to their weight-loss success.

Well, I like water; drinking a lot of it is not that horrid a chore. Also, I’d rather chew my calories than drink them, so, except for coffee and tea, water’s the only liquid I drink nowadays.
Still, I’m finding at the end of the day, when I check off my water consumption in my food diary, that I’m falling short of the goal, sometimes far short.

It’s winter; I’m not thirsty. Besides, despite its promise to fill me up, water has never come anywhere close to a chicken leg.

Then I hear from Pam Oliver, a personal weight-loss counselor in Rocky Hill, that a number of her clients lately are dehydrated because they’re not keeping up with their water. And I picture all these people emaciated and shriveled up, crawling into her office.

She says it’s not that dire, but that not drinking eight to 10—10!— glasses (64 to 80 ounces) of water a day can dehydrate you and hamper your weight-loss efforts.

There’s a fair number of physiological reasons for this, but the bottom line is water helps balance your body, and that’s important. Dehydration can cause fatigue, headaches, dizziness, but you can still be dehydrated somewhat without obvious symptoms. You can tell if you’re short on water consumption if you pinch the skin on the back of your hand and it stands up for a while instead of returning immediately to its pre-pinch state.

OK, but what about this supposed promise of water filling you up? Water will do this if you drink it an hour before your "hunger" — real or imagined — starts, Oliver says. You need to drink in advance of the hunger pang, because it takes the brain about 10 to 20 minutes to figure out what to do with the stuff stuffed into the body, she says. So it’ll take a while before you’ll feel satiated by the water, and if you wait until the pang hits, the water will not seem an adequate substitute for the chicken leg.

This makes sense. If I drink water when I really want to eat, I feel cheated. Also, food sometimes tastes a little flat when you drink water just before you eat.

How do you know when you’re going to feel hungry? Hey, this is not a problem for people addicted to food. We know, and it’s going to take a lot of water to ward off the frequency and intensity of these "hunger" pangs.

Protein snacks will quell the need to stuff your face; but protein has more calories and fat than water.

Also, Oliver says, water drinking aids weight loss because it helps get rid of excess body waste and releases excess sodium from your tissues, which allows your body to metabolize quicker.
Still, it’s hard to drink so much water, especially in the winter. Oliver has some suggestions: Work your way up by increasing your consumption by a glass a week, and always drink a glass one hour before each meal and at bedtime.

We now come to one of the problems with all this water — peeing a lot, which is particularly annoying when you have to wake up to do it and then stay awake recounting your shortcomings and fretting about all manner of things.

Oliver suggests having a calcium snack with the water to help you sleep and to make sure there’s a bathroom handy.

She likes to flavor water with squeezes of orange, lemon or lime. Oliver is a citrus enthusiast. She frowns, however, on water substitutes — even seltzer, which she says can upset some people’s stomachs, or bottled water, which may not contain fluoride.

I’m glad I talked with her. I’ve drunk three glasses of water while writing this, and now you know where I’m headed.