Did you know it matters if you drink cold water versus warm water? It seems like there are always tips and tricks when it comes to losing weight. One of the tips I’ve heard is to drink water before you eat and there are a few proven reasons on why this is true. The first reason is that sometimes when your body is dehydrated it confuses the signal of being thirsty for hunger. The signal is sent to your brain and as a result you feel like eating. If it’s actually because you’re dehydrated, drinking a glass of water will help alleviate the urge to eat something.
The second reason to drink water before you eat a meal is because it will make you feel more full. You may have heard this already but do you know whether you should drink cold or warm water? If you are wanting to feel full for longer, you will want to drink room temperature or warm water. Warm water tends to stay in the stomach longer than cold water. The reason for this is because when you drink cold water, it has to leave the stomach faster so your body can heat it up quickly. So when choosing between the two, go for warm water.
Another trick I’ve heard over the years is that drinking ice cold water makes your body burn more calories. Is this fact or fiction?
When it comes to your body there is one word that can describe what it is constantly trying to achieve; homeostasis. This simply means your body is constantly working at maintaining a steady state of balance. Because your body is trying to maintain a constant temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, drinking ice cold water works to your advantage. Your body will immediately take the water from your stomach and quickly work on trying to heat it up.
I would say this trick is definitely not just a myth, but how many calories do you actually burn by doing this? Doing a little bit of math will help us figure this out.
Let’s say the ice water has a temperature of about 32 degrees Fahrenheit and you plan on drinking an 8-ounce (226.796 g) glass of ice water. We know that it takes 1 calorie to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. So this means your body must raise the temperature of 226 grams from 32 degrees F to 98.6 degrees F. Multiply 226 x 66 and you get 14,916 calories!
Before you get too excited that is calorie with a little ‘c’. When most people refer to calorie they are referring to Kcal (or Calorie with a big ‘C’) which is 1,000 little ‘c’ calories. So getting back to the eight ounces of ice water, you would burn 14.9 Calories. This doesn’t seem to be nearly as exciting but think about how many ounces of water we are supposed to drink every day. According to most guidelines an adult should drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day. This means you can burn about 70 Calories a day. This still may not seem impressive but over one year you will lose seven pounds simply from drinking ice cold water and that’s not too shabby!
July 5th, 2012