Burn Calories by Drinking Water

Did you know you can burn calories by drinking water? It’s true. Aside from facilitating virtually every process in the body, water can be used to burn calories if consumed at the right temperature.

Every movement you make requires energy: every step, every jump, every word you say, every heartbeat every nerve impulse, and by processing cold water!

For every gallon of ice cold water (40 degrees F) you drink, you burn 123 calories¹. You can put this calculator on your website by visiting my calculators page.

You can figure the calories burned by taking the liters of water you consume times the temperature difference between your core body temperature (37° C) and the temperature of the water in Celsius.

Remember to drink 2.0 liters of water per day as discussed in a previous post.

1. Darden, Ellington (2004). The New High Intensity Training, pg. 196. Rodale.

Tags: Calories, Water, Weight Loss

How Much Water Should I Drink per Day?

Water Makes You Healthy

People often wonder, “How much water should I drink per day?” That is a good thing to wonder because water is so essential to weight loss, health, and nutrition. We learned in my Nutrition Basics post that water is one of the 6 basic nutrients for the body.

You commonly hear you should drink 8 cups or 8 glasses of water per day. The best way to gage how much you should be drinking is to look at your urine. The optimal color is mostly clear with a slight hue of yellow. Dark yellow means you aren’t drinking enough.

More accurately, scientists have found the body requires 1 mL water for every calorie burned. As the average person is said to consume 2,000 calories per day, the body would need 2,000 mL or 2 L (liters) of water per day. This equates to 67.6 US fluid ounces (oz) or 8.45 cups.¹

There are additional factors to be considered. You can lose water in four ways: sweat, urine, vapor when you breathe, and feces. Under normal conditions, you lose 500-700 mL per day through sweat. If you exercise, it will be more (up to 1 L per hour). You normally lose 1.0-1.5 L of water through urine each day. You lose 250-350 mL of water each day by exhaling water vapor when you breathe. Hotter air, increased humidity, and increased physical activity greatly increase water loss through sweat and breathing. Fecal mater is 70% water, and the human body will normally lose 100-200 mL water per day through this avenue. Vomiting or diarrhea can cause a loss of up to 5.0 L.²

My apologies if the images painted by the above paragraph were discomforting. However, this is all stuff you should know on your quest to becoming as fit as you can be.

You can also drink too much water. A condition called hyponatremia can occur when the sodium content of blood becomes diluted with water. However, this condition is more likely to happen when athletes lose too much sodium through perspiration.³

Also, you can also lose weight if you drink water at the right temperature.

Remember that you also get water through the foods you eat. If you are pregnant, you may want to drink more water depending on how you feel. The biggest concept here is that you want to listen to your body. If you are thirsty, take a drink. If your urine is too yellow, drink more. That rule should cover most any circumstance you come across. As always, consult your doctor for personal recommendations.

1. Fink, Heather Hedrick & Burgoon, Lisa A. & Mikesky, Alan E. (2005). Practical Applications in Sports Nutrition –1st ed, pg. 232. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

2. McArdle, William D. & Katch, Frank I. & Katch, Victor L. (2007). Exercise Physiology –6th ed, pg. 77-78. Baltimore, MD: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

3. Benardot, Dan (2006). Advanced Sports Nutrition, pg. 90. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Tags: Water