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You've probably heard it a thousand times. Drink more water. But let's be honest, how often do we actually stop and ask why water is so important? Especially when your goal is weight loss. Well, if you're on a mission to feel better, lose weight and get more energy. Today's episode is going to have you reaching for your water bottle and understanding exactly why it matters. Welcome to the Why Wait podcast. I'm your host, Cheryl Takayama, qualified nutritionist, emotional eater and weight loss coach who walks the talk. I've maintained my 30 kilo weight loss for the past 23 years following a low carb plan, and now I coach other women online so they can do the same. It's my mission to help women get off this crazy diet wagon and find a way of eating in a way of thinking that works so you too, can lose your weight for life. Join me each week for lots of practical advice, tips, and motivation so you can start now. I want to start this episode today by sharing a cold, hard fact with you. One that I know to be true because I've said in my office coaching women for 13 years and when people drink more water, they lose more weight. It's as simple as that. Drinking water is one of the absolute top habits you want to get really good at. When weight loss is your goal, and not just weight loss, but also energy health, water is absolutely critical. So today I'm going to go over all of the ways in which water is so important in your weight loss journey. Just to remind you of the key reasons why you need to view this as such a top priority. Then we're going to look at exactly how much water you should be aiming to drink each day. And then comes the fun part. I'm going to share some really great tips with you, so you can get this habit entrenched so that drinking water becomes something you're going to do without even thinking about. Because when you get your water intake increasing each day, I know it's going to make a huge impact on your results, because this is what I see all the time when clients come to see me, when they've made more of a focus on water and they've been drinking more. All of a sudden they're burning more fat. It makes such a big difference. So the main reasons that water impacts our weight loss is to do with stress, toxins, our metabolism and digestion. Let's look at each of these things. So stress if you're dehydrated and you haven't had enough water this is a huge stress for your body. Now when our body's stressed and that cortisol hormone increases. Guess what that does? It turns off fat burning. So we want to look at every single thing that we're doing in our lifestyle that increases stress. And not drinking enough water is a huge one of those. Our bodies are about 70% water, both within your cells and outside of your cells. So if these levels aren't balanced, that's going to be incredibly stressful to your body. This stress is going to make cortisol increase, which of course is going to turn off fat burning straight away. But also your body's going to be using a lot of extra energy to try and get your fluid levels recalibrated. Now, this is energy that we want our body to use to burn fat. Fat burning is a very energy dependent process, so anything that our body has to do that's going to use extra energy is going to take energy away from what we actually want it to do, which is fat burning. So when you drink more water, your body's going to be well hydrated and your cortisol is going to go down, which is very helpful. The second reason water is so important is because water helps flush toxins. Now, one of the things that body fat does is your body actually stores toxins within that body fat, because it helps protect your body from those toxins. As in our body. Just so amazing. But as we burn fat, these toxins are released. So you want to make sure that you're getting lots of water so you can flush out those toxins as quickly as possible. Otherwise, your detox pathways. Think about your liver, your kidneys, your lymph nodes. They're going to get overwhelmed, which is going to slow weight loss down and leave you feeling sluggish. So some of the fact that we burn does actually come out in our urine. Not all of it. A large amount is actually also oxidized. So it's coming out in our breath. But some does come out in our urine. So you want to be drinking the water to just help flush all the fat out as well as those toxins. Now number three, think of water as your metabolic oil. Like I mentioned, our bodies are 70% water. We need to have water in our system for your metabolism to be able to function. I mean, every cell within your body needs water. Your hormones need water to function. So without water, everything is going to be sluggish, especially your metabolism. I always say to my clients, think of water like the oil that's going to be going into your metabolic engine, because with water everything is just going to flow better. It's going to be faster without it. Things are going to be very sluggish and they're going to grind to a halt. Now number four is digestion. And of course this is very closely linked to your metabolism because we want our body to be able to digest food, absorb nutrients as efficiently as possible and prevent constipation. So of course water plays a big part in this. And it's particularly important if you're starting out on a low carb food plan or making any changes to your nutrition because you're going to be getting different food coming in. It's already going to be an adjustment for your body to have to deal with. So we don't want then the extra stress of there not being enough fluid to help everything keep moving along. You don't want to go feeling bloated or heavy and tired because your whole system's just sluggish. If you are changing your nutrition, you want that everything else is really optimal so that your body can deal with the changes and your metabolism can keep firing, because that's what we want, especially when fat burning is the gold. Now, the last thing I should actually mention here is also appetite regulation, because dehydration is often mistaken for hunger. You might feel hungry between meals when actually it's thirst. Your body wants water. So making sure that you're having a good amount of water in between meals is going to really help with this. It can make such a difference, and studies have shown that it can actually lead to people eating fewer calories without even being conscious of it. So if you find that you're feeling a bit peckish between meals, but you know that you've had a good amount of protein, always start by having a drink of water first. Wait a few minutes before you make a decision to have a snack, because it might just be that your body wants water. And in that case, it's just going to be so much more beneficial for you to have a good ol drink and keep your engine going. So how much water do we actually need? There are varying opinions about this, and I like to think that we are all unique, so there's not going to be one magical number that's going to suit everyone. But it's always great to have a guideline. And as a very simple guideline, I usually recommend to my clients at least eight glasses of water or two liters per day. So as a general rule of thumb, you want to be having about 30 to 35ml of water per kilo of body weight. So if you're 70 kilos, you're going to need roughly between 2.1 to 2.5 liters per day. But this is a general guide. You might need more, especially if you live somewhere where the weather's hot. If you're doing lots of exercise, if you're somebody who drinks caffeine, caffeinated drinks, your coffees, you really need to replace those drinks one on one with water because caffeine can dehydrate us. So we need to make sure we're drinking a bit more water. If you're having a coffee or alcohol, of course. And if you are doing low carb or keto. You may need a little bit more water, especially in the beginning, just to help your system adjust to that, especially if you might be having a bit less fiber than your system is used to. So remember, caffeinated drinks do not count towards your water intake because they are diuretics. If you're having anything with caffeine, it's gonna encourage your body to let go of fluid. So make sure you are replacing water for every caffeinated drink that you have. Herbal teas, on the other hand, do count towards your water intake for the day, so as long as the drink doesn't have coffee, you can definitely count this towards your water intake. Soda water is okay. It's definitely not as good as drinking pure water, but it's better than having nothing. Just beware of bloating or gut irritation from that carbonated water. If you're someone who gets bloated really easily, just keep an eye on that to make sure that that carbonated water and the gas guests that it's bringing into your system isn't actually making your bloating worse. And of course, a good way to check in on your hydration levels is check the color of your urine. Your urine should be a light yellow color or clear. If you're finding that your urine is cloudy, dark, or strong smelling, then that's a good indicator that you are not drinking enough water. Of course, there's always an argument that you might be drinking too much water, and this is a risk too. We don't want to go too extreme in either direction. You don't want to drink not enough, but you don't want to flush out your system either. Now, again, there's no magical number to how much that might be, but if you find that you are constantly on the toilet with extremely clear urine, then I would cut back a little bit and just keep experimenting with that, because there is a small risk that you start getting unbalanced electrolytes if you're paying too much. Now, you can always remedy this by having an electrolyte supplement. There are some quite nice sugar free options out there, but I think for most people's lifestyle, it's not exactly going to be helpful. If you find that you're having to go to the toilet every ten minutes or so. So just keep working on that. Keep experimenting and find that optimal balance that works for you. And of course, if you find that you're going to the toilet too often at nighttime, then aim to have more of your water earlier in the day and taper off so you're not drinking as much at night. Because of course, I don't want to have you up on the toilet all the time and then disrupting your sleep. That is not going to be beneficial, especially when weight loss is your goal. So what I want to talk about now is how we create these habits. So drinking water becomes easy. So it's not something we have to think about. It's just something that we do naturally. Because in my experience, once we've created this water drink as a habit, that is when you get a lot better consistency. And I certainly see that clients are getting better result because all of a sudden they're not struggling to get there and taken and they're getting much better results on scales. So here are a couple of tricks that I use with clients to help make this far more consistent. Number one is set an alarm or reminder on your phone. I think this is a great one because most of us usually have our phones with us, and it's so easy to just set an alarm every hour. Drink some water. Hopefully you're not going to have to do this forever. It's just trying to reset you into drinking more water regularly throughout the day. The other really good action you can do is carry a large water bottle with you every time you go in the car, especially if you're a busy mum. We're always in the car, aren't we? Whether it's school pick up, drop off after school activities. If you're someone who drives a lot, having that water bottle in the car is a great habit. And what I do is I always drink my water bottle when I'm stopped at the lights. I live in Aucklanders, so there are traffic lights everywhere. So this is just a really helpful habit that I've created because as soon as I stop at the lights now, I just have to grab my water bottle because my body knows that that's the time to have a drink. The only downside of this habit is that usually whenever I get to my destination, I have to go to the toilet straight away. So you don't want to get caught out on a long trip. But certainly anywhere that you find yourself going frequently during the day, whether that's in the car, whether that's I know a certain place in your house. Having water there makes it a lot easier to make this a habit. Another really neat action you can do is anchor the habit of drinking water to something else you might do during the day. For example, every time you go to the toilet when you leave the bathroom, go straight to the kitchen and have a drink of water. That's actually quite a helpful anchor, because of course, the more often that you're going to the toilet, the more often you're then going to drink your water. And it's just going to create this really nice habit of getting a little bit of water in as soon as you've gone to the bathroom, and keeping that consistency throughout the day. Some other things you can do is obviously start your day with a big glass of water before you have a coffee. And another nice tip is to put a squeeze of lemon in there, because that's really good for your liver and a great way to rehydrate after you've been sleeping. Use visual cues. So put that water bottle on your desk, beside the bed, on the kitchen bench, anywhere that you're going to frequently, because if you see it, you've got a far better chance of drinking it. Why don't you track your intake? You could have a list that you'd check off during the day. You might put something on the fridge and give yourself a nice big tick every time you have a drink. Look, whatever it takes to just make this top of mind. And is always going to be really helpful. And if you don't like the taste of plain water, you can flavor it up by adding some lemon, maybe some mint, some cucumber, even some fresh berries. If that makes water more appealing to you, then go for it. There are the water drops, which is a product you can get at the supermarket here in New Zealand, which is sugar free, and it adds a bit of flavour to your water. And I recommend my clients to give this a try, because if it means that they're going to enjoy water and therefore they're going to get their daily intake up far more easily, well, it's a win win. Another little tip is to buy a beautiful water bottle that you just love. I know that might sound silly, but if you have a bottle that you feel proud to carry around, sometimes that might just make a difference. There's a little mantra that I use with my clients which is the more you drink, the more you shrink. I love saying this because it's just so true. When my clients increase their water intake. They usually feel better. They've got better energy and yes, they get better results. I see it all the time. It's so important when it comes to reducing cravings, helping regulate your appetite and boost your energy. It can make such a difference, which is why I really wanted to devote a whole podcast on this very simple topic. That should be simple, but for some reason people really struggle with it. So just to summarize, water is the oil for your fat burning engine, and it's going to make a massive difference to your metabolism when you drink enough each day, which is around about two liters or eight glasses. And I always finish this podcast with a little challenge to you. And of course, today's challenge is going to be go and grab a big glass of water right now and just start tracking your intake. See if you are getting at least two liters per day. And if you're not, just start increasing that each day. So if you're only having four glasses today. Aim for five glasses tomorrow. Do that for a couple of days and then increase it to six. And just increase slowly till you are getting that optimal eight glasses of water per day. And just keep noticing how it feels for you. And I certainly hope it's going to make you feel great and really help improve your health. Water is free, so don't let your fat loss be stopped by a free tool that's right in front of you. Drink up and remember, the more you drink, the more you shrink. Thanks so much for listening. And if you want supporting your weight loss journey, I would love to help. You'll see the links in the show notes for my socials, as well as my fab freebie, a five day low carb meal plan, and five delicious dinner recipes. You'll also see the link for my four week Foundations of Fat Loss program. This is the program I've designed specifically for the fat burning needs of women over 35. Remember, the only thing that's going to stop you reaching your goal is if you quit. Never, ever give up.
