Drinking Water to Lose Weight Fast! I Only Drink Water in BETWEEN Meals -- Easy and Painless!

Drinking water is one of the best things you can do for your body, but also when you drink is important. If you drink water between meals rather than with them, your body will thank you, and you will probably lose weight. How can this be? When you drink a lot of water with your meals, you might think this is a good way to fill up, so you won't eat so much. The only problem is that the water is diluting your digestive juices, which makes your body a lot less efficient at sorting and storing what it needs.

When I was about ten my lovely and loved diabetic aunt used to try to keep us kids from drinking so much when we ate. I didn't get it! I liked to eat and drink at the same time, and get it all over with. I was busy--bikes to ride, books to read: important stuff to do.

Now, thirty or so (!) years later, her words keep coming back to me. And now they make sense. She told us that drinking a lot while we ate would dilute our digestive juices and make the food less efficient. Well, I can't remember the exact words, and I can't remember what we were eating, but I remember thinking that eating and drinking should be done at the same time. Right?

Maybe not. Once I hit forty, (and had had two ten pound babies!), I noticed a definite change in my body. My eating was about the same, but slowly the pounds were adding on. I have a healthy diet, walk a lot, and do yoga, but still felt too heavy. I've been doing juicing (yum! good recipes coming soon), and mixing a bit of apple cider vinegar in with my water (when I think of it), but I have really noticed a difference now that I have started drinking water between meals.

I drink two big glasses of water before I even get out of bed. Before I brush my teeth. Before the alarm goes off. Recently my alarm has been my 20 month old baby waking up--I haven't needed an actual alarm for a while... Sometimes I even wake up and drink water in the middle of the night. This post is definitely not about drinking less water, just on when to drink it.

I eat breakfast, go to work, and just about the time I start thinking about lunch I drink another two big glasses of water. I try to do it about an hour before lunch/dinner,and an hour or two after lunch/dinner but it varies. Life is crazy! We can't always plan things. I know that it is hard to plan meals, eating right, and exercising regularly-- but drinking water is pretty easy!

I do have to say here that I am against bottled water. I know, I know, it is handy and available. My husband drinks it. However, tap water in the USA in general is of such high quality that I am happy filling my reusable bottles and feeling good about it. I also like my kids to drink a certain amount of unfiltered water for the fluoride. I grew up in the mountains of California with spring water... and wish I had had fluoride...

That being said, I do like our new fridge with the filtered water dispenser (what luxury!! plus ice, love it), and I also have an old Aquasana water filter which I was given when I was pregnant. I think this probably gives the best water, but for some reason I could only figure out how to hook it up in the laundry room--this is probably my fault and not of this filter. (I try to remember to fill my bottles here, but somehow mostly seem to use it for washing my hair--great for really soft hair!) I am curious to hear how people use water. Do you drink tap? Fridge filtered? Bottled? Reverse osmosis filtered? What do you think of fluoride in tap water?

Whatever type of water you drink, remember to drink enough. The Mayo Clinic suggests about 13 cups of water for men and about 9 cups for women--obviously this depends on your personal size and activity level. I think a glass of wine (probably with dinner rather than breakfast, but I guess that depends if you work days or nights...) is good too I think, but that is a discussion for another time.

I have been doing waterless meals for about six months and am ten pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight, with no dietary changes. So try drinking your water between meals rather than with them for a few weeks and let me know how it goes!