Water of Life

I just returned from Nigeria about two weeks ago and spent a good portion of my time in a region that didn't have any potable water. I was foturnate to be able to get some bottled water each day, but it made me starkly aware of the importance of water.

Most of my friends and many of my blog readers know that a couple of months ago I embarked on a journey from fatness to fitness. I was nearly 40 lbs overweight, had GERD (severe acid reflux), high blood pressure, sore joints, etc., etc. After signing up for the Advocare 24 Day Challenge I have lost 36 lbs. and started exercising again. The results have been so amazing that I decided to start sharing all I have learned about health and fitness on my blog. Today we take a look at water!

The discipline of dieting and exercise are hard, the principles are pretty simple and one very important factor is the importance of hydration. The average person should be drinking 1 ounce of water per day for every two pounds of body weight. In my case that is about 87 ounces (or a little more than 5 bottled waters a day). Since I started dieting on April 2nd the only real drawback from all the water I have been drinking are the number of trips I make to the rest room each day. Here are a few facts about water/hydration:

• Drinking one bottled water before and/or with your meal can increase your metabolism as much as 30%. Of that metabolic increase 40% is attributed to the energy your body expends trying to heat the water in your system.
• If it is the heating of the water that drives up your metabolic rate then it makes sense that the colder the water you drink the better.
• Water maximizes your exercise and workouts. When you don't drink enough and become even slightly dehydrated you lose significant benefits to your workouts and can even have a negative impact on your lean muscle mass.
• Water helps supress the appetite and helps the body metabolize stored fat. When your kidneys don't get enough water, they throw the excess load on to the liver. One function of the liver is to metabolize fat, but if it is has to carry the extra load thrown on it by the kidneys the task of metabolizing fat is lost.
• In what seems to be a contradiction, the body retains more water when it is poorly hydrated. When you deptirve the body of water, it responds by "storing water" for future needs causing swelling in the hands and feet.
• Water adds elasticity to our muscles improving the benefit from our workouts and helps keep skin from sagging.
• Water helps rid the body of waste. If your urine is clear - it is sign you are drinking plenty of water.

These are just a few of the benefits of water - if you want to get more healthy drink lots and lots of it. One caution, a small dose of coffee or coke is acceptable, but keep in mind that caffiene also causes dehydration in the body - thus requiring you to drink more water.

www.advocare.com/12044713