22 ms·

Obesity: Drink till you drop

125 points by jsyedidia 16y ago

hswolff 16y ago
I just started doing this myself a few days ago. I've found that I've bloated up a little bit at first (as water is prone to cause) but at every meal I am feeling 'full' earlier and not eating as much. My body seems to be enjoying it as well. I definitely say give it a try, the most painful outcome being an increased number of trips to the bathroom - the bladder can only hold so much liquid.
Maciek416 16y ago
I'd like to know how much obesity is caused by a structural "finish everything on your plate" problem. By this I mean the tendency of certain folks to finish everything that is served, no matter what their hunger level is. Also, I've heard it said that people who eat from smaller plates will consume fewer calories over time. In the study, the group given water also had their food portions slashed by a substantial amount. What happens if the portions stay the same size? How many people will read or see re-hashed versions of this study in their daily papers or news and simply prefix a large glass of water before their dinners, only to find that it has made no difference?
- obsessive1 16y ago
  Agreed. Most of the time, we don't eat until we feel full, we eat until we finish what we've got. I can see the benefit to those who like to snack because they're hungry during the day - regularly drinking water will help ward off the hunger until meal time. In the end, though, it all boils down to common sense: the less you eat, the less weight you put on.
- Goosey 16y ago
  Getting over the cultural teaching that I must eat everything that is served in that sitting was the KEY to my weight loss, personally. I had no real dietary changes. I found that if I just ate slower and stopped when I felt satisfied most meals were nearly twice the size they needed to be. Another upside of this is it is cost effective to grab lunch and have the left overs for dinner (or the reverse)
  - neilk 16y ago
    Agreed. I now try to stop eating the instant I feel the slightest desire to stop. It seems to me that I've been programmed to ignore this impulse. This is especially true of America where portion sizes are gigantic and people consider themselves primarily bargain-hunters rather than experience-seekers. It is amazing to me how much Americans will complain if a restaurant offers portion sizes just a little bit smaller than other restaurants in the area, even if the quality is much higher.
    - klenwell 16y ago
      "people consider themselves primarily bargain-hunters rather than experience-seekers" I suspect changing this attitude, more even than the promotion of local/organic/sustainable food production, could be the biggest social benefit of the foodie movement.
      - rdtsc 16y ago
        It is interesting how popular media plays into this. On a Food Network's chef competition on chef made a typical "American" size portion for one of the dishes. The judges really didn't like that. On the other hand typical American restaurants often insert sarcastic lines in their TV ads about how our portions are nothing like "French" portions -- you really get a bang for your buck when you eat here. So it seems like there are 2 very different attitudes and 2 very different types of consumers. Both are catered to by different types of businesses. I think the portion size has also been a hint as to how much a person should be eating. Those have been used more by the food processing industry to "mask" the caloric content of their products, rather than by consumers to modulate their food intake appropriately.
  - samratjp 16y ago
    A big problem with food in America is that High Fructose Corn Syrup is spiked in almost everything frozen and canned foods these days (sure, you may avoid it at home - but not all restaurants are treated equal). The biggest problem with HFCS is eating satiety (or feeling of fullness) is offset considerably.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Plenty of it, but that's also because typically people will prepare (or expect to be prepared for them in restaurants) unbelievable amounts of food. I weigh about 70 Kg and a half portion in any US restaurant is more than enough for me. I always feel bad about sending food back to the kitchen but I'd feel even worse for overeating.
  - davidw 16y ago
    Yeah, my wife and I always have to remember to split an entree at US restaurants. Once we split an appetizer, and, not having been that hungry in the first place, were basically good for the evening. The portions there really are huge.
    - pfedor 16y ago
      Well I can name one place where portions are exactly the right size and it's McDonald's. E.g., cheeseburger plus the Caesar salad w/o chicken, plus french fries plus two apple pies plus a coke is about half the size of a meal in a regular restaurant. Which of course doesn't stop people like my girlfriend from bashing McDonald's as non-healthy and preferring places where "gourmet" burgers range from 1/3 to 1lb, i.e., the smallest one is bigger than the quarter-pounder.
      - davidw 16y ago
        I don't think McDonalds is as bad as some people make it out to be, but it's not all that great either. You're not getting high quality food there, and in terms of a "dining experience", the ambiance leaves something to be desired:-)
        evilduck 16y ago
        Not to single out McDonalds...I went to Wendy's the other day and got a medium (i.e. smallest) combo meal. The "medium" drink I was given was a 32oz cup. If it were a HFCS drink, it probably would have been just as many calories as the food itself. The food quality/quantity is a secondary concern if you're doubling them with a sugary beverage.
- chipsy 16y ago
  Recently I crossed the country with my parents to visit my grandma. She was born in the 1920s and spent a large part of her childhood in the Lower East Side, so it's quite a culture shock to visit her. In her case, it's not that you have to finish everything on the plate - it's that as soon as you finish one item, you're compelled to try three more. Or in other words, large quantities of food is the only form of hospitality she's really familiar with. However this strategy arose, all her children have rejected it, which leads me to believe that these sorts of things can change quickly between generations. On the other hand, my parents are still erring on the side of "low-fat" style nutrition, even though I've told them repeatedly that it's been essentially debunked. I wonder, what bad nutritional advice will I cling to desperately when I'm older?
  - alaithea 16y ago
    My grandparents and other elders were "food pushers," too, and I sometimes wonder whether it all stemmed from them spending their formative years in the Great Depression. It seems like those of us raised by them, unless we reject it, could still be experiencing a ripple effect from a time when there was never enough food, and the consequences of still acting like there's not enough when there's in fact way too much.
- tlrobinson 16y ago
  When I was a kid I wouldn't feel obligated to finish everything on my plate. When I started buying my own food I almost always ate everything even if I was satisfied. I think subconciously I thought I should eat a little extra just in case I couldn't buy my next meal. Perhaps it's an evolutionary instinct.
- sambe 16y ago
  Whilst I haven't done the research to back up such a strong statement, I feel that this form of childhood conditioning is strong & damaging enough to qualify as abusive parenting (semi-forced feeding + impact in later life). Doubling up with sugary rewards (dessert) if they force themselves to eat too much in the first place surely makes it even worse. Of course, it's not the only factor that leads to obesity, but it's extremely outdated and idiotic practice.
rmanocha 16y ago
Not sure about the "science" behind this, but this technique has definitely worked for me. I've been drinking ~3 litres of water daily for the last year - and along with other changes in my lifestyle, have lost ~65lbs in that time. If for no other reason, drinking that water reduces my urges for fizzy drinks - which helps a lot. Additionally, as others have said - reducing the amount you eat, in whatever way that works for you, has helped a lot.
- carbocation 16y ago
  The "science" behind this is a randomized, controlled trial. Why the scare quotes?
  - WilliamLP 16y ago
    For one thing, though scientific, any conclusion is going to be rather soft if it's drawn from one study where human beings self-report calories, and where the difference in weight (2kg) is within the variance of how much our weight can vary within a single day.
    - carbocation 16y ago
      Heh, I agree with you. Sadly those concerns would also be valid for many other RCTs!
    - jules 16y ago
      Heck, if I go cycling in the morning and don't drink enough I can be 4kg heavier after dinner that day than right after cycling.
  - whatusername 16y ago
    because controlled trials that involve large groups of people are very difficult to actually control.
tommizzle 16y ago
While I completely agree with the gist of the article, Dr Davys counter-argument is terrible: "It is possible that the water displaced sugary drinks in the hydrated group, but this does not explain the weight loss because the calories associated with any fizzy drinks consumed by the other group had to fall within the daily limits." There is such a thing as good calories and bad calories - obviously getting your calories from healthy fats such as olive oil and avacados is going to be a lot more beneficial to your weight in the long run than getting your calories from sugary fizzy drinks such as coca-cola. Still, nice article.
- carbocation 16y ago
  Her argument is actually more cautious than yours. Yours begs the question, "Are there such things as good calories and bad calories?"
- WilliamLP 16y ago
  > obviously getting your calories from healthy fats such as olive oil and avacados is going to be a lot more beneficial to your weight in the long run than getting your calories from sugary fizzy drinks such as coca-cola. It may be "obvious", but I'm not sure if that's true!
  - tommizzle 16y ago
    I would say it's pretty common knowledge in the fitness world. I think this quote explains the concept nicely: "The second rule of fat loss is that healthy fat does not make you fat. Excess calories, in particular excess from the wrong calories makes you fat. This is a very hard concept to get across. People still believe that fat makes you fat and will argue without you to the grave while they eat a gallon of low fat ice cream that has the power to make you fat over night. ... Lets get back to fat. Low fat diets equal low testosterone and low progesterone production. Both are necessary for men and women for optimal fat loss and well-being. Without adequate levels of fat in your diet (30% of calories), you will not have adequate levels of testosterone. Without adequate levels of testosterone you will not be able to build muscle. Building muscle is the most effective way to get rid of fat and keep it off. " - Mike Mahler
shrikant 16y ago
Me and the significant other have known this for quite a while. Frankly, I'm REALLY surprised that this wasn't an established scientific result. The way it works IMHO is not too obscure - water fills you up and gives you the impression of being 'full' earlier, so you tend to reduce your regular food intake. Feeling 'fuller' equates to being satiated for a lot of people (including me), so the tendency to chow out at random times during the day is highly reduced/eliminated. I used to be 90+ kg in the middle of 2009. Once I decided to drink copious amounts of water during the day, by Jan 2010 I had come to about 60ish kg and lost 4 inches around the waist. My other breakfast/lunch/dinner eating habits remained the same, and the water meant I cut down on snacking between meals. Seriously, isn't there any research showing water fills you up?
- brownleej 16y ago
  In the study, they controlled for caloric intake by giving everyone a limit. This would seem to point toward an effect other than the fact that water makes you eat less. It's possible that the group drinking water actually stayed below their caloric limit, but I didn't see that mentioned in the article.
  - lars512 16y ago
    I imagine it's hard to enforce caloric intake limits effectively. Perhaps people who drank water simply had more success staying within (or close to) the allocated limit.
- carbocation 16y ago
  The GI tract is exquisitely sensitive to stretch, which is one of the many "fullness" signals. So it's not unreasonable to guess that this is part of what occurs. The single most likely explanation behind the weight loss is that the consumption of water displaced some portion of calorie consumption, causing participants to eat fewer calories.
  - nitrogen 16y ago
    Is it also possible that increased water in the bloodstream resulted in less food being stored as fat and/or more fat being used as energy?
b3b0p 16y ago
It would be interesting if restaurants cut the portion sizes in half, kept the same prices, but used higher quality products and better care in preparing. I guess it's wishful thinking.
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  Just a random anecdote here on portion sizes: Piper's in Raleigh has a really good fish n chips plate - my wife loves it. However, it's an insanely huge portion. $13.95, but it's more than enough for two people (she split it with a friend last time and they couldn't finish it). Dropping the sizes in half and making it $10.95 would still be a good value (well, in line with the rest of their portions, FWICT). The waitress has said that most people don't finish the fish because it's too much - it just ends up being thrown out. You can't easily reheat fried fish the next day as a leftover (well, I can't - any tips?) Getting Chinese takeaway always felt a bit expensive (for the good stuff around us). However, we've cut back on portion sizes, and my wife's dinner is enough for dinner, then lunch, then usually another dinner, all from an $11 menu item. In those terms, it's a good deal. But if you tried to eat it all in one sitting, it's too much. I just do not understand restaurant portion sizings.
  - iuytrfghj 16y ago
    >I just do not understand restaurant portion sizings. The food is a very small part of their costs. They can double the amount of food for a cost of $1, charge an extra $2 AND have many more customers for their great value! It's like selling home PCs with a 1Tb drive, most users don't need it but it only costs them $5 more than a 500Gb drive.
    - rdtsc 16y ago
      Why don't European restaurants do it. Is food more expensive there or is it just considered bad form or somehow un-sophisticated to serve giant portions. I would also guess that it depends on the type of food. High quality, fresh organic produce is a lot more expensive, so perhaps for some food items it really is about the price. For example the fish in fish and chips could be some really expensive fish. Doubling the portion would be a lot more than adding another $1 to the cost.
evanchen 16y ago
The problem with "solutions" like this is that they don't really fix the problem where it lies. Weight gain is attributed to caloric surplus, there's no two ways about it. Drinking water before a meal will help you feel a little fuller and ultimately, eat less. People ignorant to nutrition will begin to use this as a free pass to eating even more poorly. If you really take a step back and look at this, what they are suggesting is filling up with less calorie dense foods (water being the ultimate example), preferably with a high satiety index (here's a list: http://www.mendosa.com/satiety.htm http://www.mendosa.com/satiety.htm).
- rdtsc 16y ago
  > People ignorant to nutrition will begin to use this as a free pass to eating even more poorly. One danger would be that they would wash out too many useful substances out of their body by drinking to much liquid. I would also imagine so much liquid dilutes the stomach juices and the food doesn't digest properly. I don't have any scientific basis for this btw, just a hunch. > ... what they are suggesting is filling up with less calorie dense foods Another way to accomplish the same thing (for me at least) is to eat spicier, more flavorful foods.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    I would also imagine so much liquid dilutes the stomach juices and the food doesn't digest properly. I don't have any scientific basis for this btw, just a hunch. I've never heard of that happening, or anything like it. There is such a thing, supposedly, as water intoxication though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication It's not a serious concern for anyone not running marathon distances or taking part in a water-drinking competition, though.
    - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
      >There is such a thing, supposedly, as water intoxication Why do you doubt that water intoxication exists? Exertional Hyponatremia for example doesn't seem to have any gross reasons to doubt.
malkia 16y ago
Could that be related somehow with people drinking less and less tap water (I live in US, but also seeing this in my home country Bulgaria)? I mean nowadays you have to buy your water most places, you might as well get something "better" for that money, and that won't be water - some some kind of beverage, soft drink, etc. So you would be drinking less, simply because you have to pay (yes, you pay for tap-water too, but that's done as part of all your water usage bill, and it's done at the end of the month usually, and probably way cheaper than bottled water).
elptacek 16y ago
The advice I read (somewhere, so long ago I don't remember) is that sometimes when you think you're hungry or craving something, you're really thirsty. This has worked well for me for many years, and usually means I don't end up eating anything at all. Too bad it doesn't help with anxiety.
SoftwareMaven 16y ago
I was wondering if it altered the quality of calories taken in. The article mentioned that it wasn't just dropping calories from drinks, since they were counted as part of the allocated amount. On the other hand, if people were eating (for instance) more proteins in place of the simple sugars of fizzy drinks, they would drastically alter how their body was interacting with those 1800 calories. I was disappointed by the apparent attitude in the article that every calorie was equal, regardless of source. I really believe calories are to the nutrition industry what counting lines of code is to software: a number that is just too easy to calculate but absolutely meaningless in measuring anything.
- roel_v 16y ago
  "...absolutely meaningless in measuring anything." This is not true, not for calories nor for lines of code. Both are not sufficient measures when used on their own, and both need context to be interpreted in, but outright dismissing any measurement of them is just as wrong as blindly relying on them. Apart from this, this study was done by professional nutritional researchers - the article may have dumbed down their word a bit but I'd be hard-pressed to believe that they didn't account for things like that.
  - SoftwareMaven 16y ago
    I'm curious (please don't take this combatively, it's not meant that way) where you've seen value in measuring lines of code. What is the context that makes the measurement valuable? I ask because in the many years I've developed software or managed the development of software, I've never found it a useful metric to study because there are too many variables that impact it. However, if I'm missing something there, I'd like to know.
    - roel_v 16y ago
      When you have a team of people who do the same work, if there is one person who consistently writes half as much code as the rest that could be a reason to look deepen into that person's performance. When you have for example a new project, you split up all task to be done in several-hour long chunks and you assign those chunks to all team member in a way so that the work is comparable (roughly equal parts GUI, algorithm implementation etc.), it's reasonable to expect that everybody would product about the same amount of code (or checkins or similar). If someone is 2 or 3 standard deviations from the median, that says something. Maybe it says something about that person, maybe about the way tasks are allocated, either way it says something.
c00p3r 16y ago
s/water/beer/g and get the exactly opposite effect. ^_^
njharman 16y ago
I drink upwards of a gallon of water a day, maybe only 3/4 gal in winter. I'm very easily dehydrated. I weigh ~350lbs. Just a reminder that studies may find a typical or probable result. They do not find cause -> effect for everyone.

125 points by jsyedidia 16y ago

I just started doing this myself a few days ago. I've found that I've bloated up a little bit at first (as water is prone to cause) but at every meal I am feeling 'full' earlier and not eating as much. My body seems to be enjoying it as well. I definitely say give it a try, the most painful outcome being an increased number of trips to the bathroom - the bladder can only hold so much liquid.

Maciek416 16y ago

I'd like to know how much obesity is caused by a structural "finish everything on your plate" problem. By this I mean the tendency of certain folks to finish everything that is served, no matter what their hunger level is. Also, I've heard it said that people who eat from smaller plates will consume fewer calories over time. In the study, the group given water also had their food portions slashed by a substantial amount. What happens if the portions stay the same size? How many people will read or see re-hashed versions of this study in their daily papers or news and simply prefix a large glass of water before their dinners, only to find that it has made no difference?

obsessive1 16y ago
Agreed. Most of the time, we don't eat until we feel full, we eat until we finish what we've got. I can see the benefit to those who like to snack because they're hungry during the day - regularly drinking water will help ward off the hunger until meal time. In the end, though, it all boils down to common sense: the less you eat, the less weight you put on.
Goosey 16y ago
Getting over the cultural teaching that I must eat everything that is served in that sitting was the KEY to my weight loss, personally. I had no real dietary changes. I found that if I just ate slower and stopped when I felt satisfied most meals were nearly twice the size they needed to be. Another upside of this is it is cost effective to grab lunch and have the left overs for dinner (or the reverse)
- neilk 16y ago
  Agreed. I now try to stop eating the instant I feel the slightest desire to stop. It seems to me that I've been programmed to ignore this impulse. This is especially true of America where portion sizes are gigantic and people consider themselves primarily bargain-hunters rather than experience-seekers. It is amazing to me how much Americans will complain if a restaurant offers portion sizes just a little bit smaller than other restaurants in the area, even if the quality is much higher.
  - klenwell 16y ago
    "people consider themselves primarily bargain-hunters rather than experience-seekers" I suspect changing this attitude, more even than the promotion of local/organic/sustainable food production, could be the biggest social benefit of the foodie movement.
    - rdtsc 16y ago
      It is interesting how popular media plays into this. On a Food Network's chef competition on chef made a typical "American" size portion for one of the dishes. The judges really didn't like that. On the other hand typical American restaurants often insert sarcastic lines in their TV ads about how our portions are nothing like "French" portions -- you really get a bang for your buck when you eat here. So it seems like there are 2 very different attitudes and 2 very different types of consumers. Both are catered to by different types of businesses. I think the portion size has also been a hint as to how much a person should be eating. Those have been used more by the food processing industry to "mask" the caloric content of their products, rather than by consumers to modulate their food intake appropriately.
- samratjp 16y ago
  A big problem with food in America is that High Fructose Corn Syrup is spiked in almost everything frozen and canned foods these days (sure, you may avoid it at home - but not all restaurants are treated equal). The biggest problem with HFCS is eating satiety (or feeling of fullness) is offset considerably.
jacquesm 16y ago
Plenty of it, but that's also because typically people will prepare (or expect to be prepared for them in restaurants) unbelievable amounts of food. I weigh about 70 Kg and a half portion in any US restaurant is more than enough for me. I always feel bad about sending food back to the kitchen but I'd feel even worse for overeating.
- davidw 16y ago
  Yeah, my wife and I always have to remember to split an entree at US restaurants. Once we split an appetizer, and, not having been that hungry in the first place, were basically good for the evening. The portions there really are huge.
  - pfedor 16y ago
    Well I can name one place where portions are exactly the right size and it's McDonald's. E.g., cheeseburger plus the Caesar salad w/o chicken, plus french fries plus two apple pies plus a coke is about half the size of a meal in a regular restaurant. Which of course doesn't stop people like my girlfriend from bashing McDonald's as non-healthy and preferring places where "gourmet" burgers range from 1/3 to 1lb, i.e., the smallest one is bigger than the quarter-pounder.
    - davidw 16y ago
      I don't think McDonalds is as bad as some people make it out to be, but it's not all that great either. You're not getting high quality food there, and in terms of a "dining experience", the ambiance leaves something to be desired:-)
      - evilduck 16y ago
        Not to single out McDonalds...I went to Wendy's the other day and got a medium (i.e. smallest) combo meal. The "medium" drink I was given was a 32oz cup. If it were a HFCS drink, it probably would have been just as many calories as the food itself. The food quality/quantity is a secondary concern if you're doubling them with a sugary beverage.
chipsy 16y ago
Recently I crossed the country with my parents to visit my grandma. She was born in the 1920s and spent a large part of her childhood in the Lower East Side, so it's quite a culture shock to visit her. In her case, it's not that you have to finish everything on the plate - it's that as soon as you finish one item, you're compelled to try three more. Or in other words, large quantities of food is the only form of hospitality she's really familiar with. However this strategy arose, all her children have rejected it, which leads me to believe that these sorts of things can change quickly between generations. On the other hand, my parents are still erring on the side of "low-fat" style nutrition, even though I've told them repeatedly that it's been essentially debunked. I wonder, what bad nutritional advice will I cling to desperately when I'm older?
- alaithea 16y ago
  My grandparents and other elders were "food pushers," too, and I sometimes wonder whether it all stemmed from them spending their formative years in the Great Depression. It seems like those of us raised by them, unless we reject it, could still be experiencing a ripple effect from a time when there was never enough food, and the consequences of still acting like there's not enough when there's in fact way too much.
tlrobinson 16y ago
When I was a kid I wouldn't feel obligated to finish everything on my plate. When I started buying my own food I almost always ate everything even if I was satisfied. I think subconciously I thought I should eat a little extra just in case I couldn't buy my next meal. Perhaps it's an evolutionary instinct.
sambe 16y ago
Whilst I haven't done the research to back up such a strong statement, I feel that this form of childhood conditioning is strong & damaging enough to qualify as abusive parenting (semi-forced feeding + impact in later life). Doubling up with sugary rewards (dessert) if they force themselves to eat too much in the first place surely makes it even worse. Of course, it's not the only factor that leads to obesity, but it's extremely outdated and idiotic practice.

rmanocha 16y ago

Not sure about the "science" behind this, but this technique has definitely worked for me. I've been drinking ~3 litres of water daily for the last year - and along with other changes in my lifestyle, have lost ~65lbs in that time. If for no other reason, drinking that water reduces my urges for fizzy drinks - which helps a lot. Additionally, as others have said - reducing the amount you eat, in whatever way that works for you, has helped a lot.

carbocation 16y ago
The "science" behind this is a randomized, controlled trial. Why the scare quotes?
- WilliamLP 16y ago
  For one thing, though scientific, any conclusion is going to be rather soft if it's drawn from one study where human beings self-report calories, and where the difference in weight (2kg) is within the variance of how much our weight can vary within a single day.
  - carbocation 16y ago
    Heh, I agree with you. Sadly those concerns would also be valid for many other RCTs!
  - jules 16y ago
    Heck, if I go cycling in the morning and don't drink enough I can be 4kg heavier after dinner that day than right after cycling.
- whatusername 16y ago
  because controlled trials that involve large groups of people are very difficult to actually control.

tommizzle 16y ago

While I completely agree with the gist of the article, Dr Davys counter-argument is terrible: "It is possible that the water displaced sugary drinks in the hydrated group, but this does not explain the weight loss because the calories associated with any fizzy drinks consumed by the other group had to fall within the daily limits." There is such a thing as good calories and bad calories - obviously getting your calories from healthy fats such as olive oil and avacados is going to be a lot more beneficial to your weight in the long run than getting your calories from sugary fizzy drinks such as coca-cola. Still, nice article.

carbocation 16y ago
Her argument is actually more cautious than yours. Yours begs the question, "Are there such things as good calories and bad calories?"
WilliamLP 16y ago
> obviously getting your calories from healthy fats such as olive oil and avacados is going to be a lot more beneficial to your weight in the long run than getting your calories from sugary fizzy drinks such as coca-cola. It may be "obvious", but I'm not sure if that's true!
- tommizzle 16y ago
  I would say it's pretty common knowledge in the fitness world. I think this quote explains the concept nicely: "The second rule of fat loss is that healthy fat does not make you fat. Excess calories, in particular excess from the wrong calories makes you fat. This is a very hard concept to get across. People still believe that fat makes you fat and will argue without you to the grave while they eat a gallon of low fat ice cream that has the power to make you fat over night. ... Lets get back to fat. Low fat diets equal low testosterone and low progesterone production. Both are necessary for men and women for optimal fat loss and well-being. Without adequate levels of fat in your diet (30% of calories), you will not have adequate levels of testosterone. Without adequate levels of testosterone you will not be able to build muscle. Building muscle is the most effective way to get rid of fat and keep it off. " - Mike Mahler

shrikant 16y ago

Me and the significant other have known this for quite a while. Frankly, I'm REALLY surprised that this wasn't an established scientific result. The way it works IMHO is not too obscure - water fills you up and gives you the impression of being 'full' earlier, so you tend to reduce your regular food intake. Feeling 'fuller' equates to being satiated for a lot of people (including me), so the tendency to chow out at random times during the day is highly reduced/eliminated. I used to be 90+ kg in the middle of 2009. Once I decided to drink copious amounts of water during the day, by Jan 2010 I had come to about 60ish kg and lost 4 inches around the waist. My other breakfast/lunch/dinner eating habits remained the same, and the water meant I cut down on snacking between meals. Seriously, isn't there any research showing water fills you up?

brownleej 16y ago
In the study, they controlled for caloric intake by giving everyone a limit. This would seem to point toward an effect other than the fact that water makes you eat less. It's possible that the group drinking water actually stayed below their caloric limit, but I didn't see that mentioned in the article.
- lars512 16y ago
  I imagine it's hard to enforce caloric intake limits effectively. Perhaps people who drank water simply had more success staying within (or close to) the allocated limit.
carbocation 16y ago
The GI tract is exquisitely sensitive to stretch, which is one of the many "fullness" signals. So it's not unreasonable to guess that this is part of what occurs. The single most likely explanation behind the weight loss is that the consumption of water displaced some portion of calorie consumption, causing participants to eat fewer calories.
- nitrogen 16y ago
  Is it also possible that increased water in the bloodstream resulted in less food being stored as fat and/or more fat being used as energy?

b3b0p 16y ago

It would be interesting if restaurants cut the portion sizes in half, kept the same prices, but used higher quality products and better care in preparing. I guess it's wishful thinking.

mgkimsal 16y ago
Just a random anecdote here on portion sizes: Piper's in Raleigh has a really good fish n chips plate - my wife loves it. However, it's an insanely huge portion. $13.95, but it's more than enough for two people (she split it with a friend last time and they couldn't finish it). Dropping the sizes in half and making it $10.95 would still be a good value (well, in line with the rest of their portions, FWICT). The waitress has said that most people don't finish the fish because it's too much - it just ends up being thrown out. You can't easily reheat fried fish the next day as a leftover (well, I can't - any tips?) Getting Chinese takeaway always felt a bit expensive (for the good stuff around us). However, we've cut back on portion sizes, and my wife's dinner is enough for dinner, then lunch, then usually another dinner, all from an $11 menu item. In those terms, it's a good deal. But if you tried to eat it all in one sitting, it's too much. I just do not understand restaurant portion sizings.
- iuytrfghj 16y ago
  >I just do not understand restaurant portion sizings. The food is a very small part of their costs. They can double the amount of food for a cost of $1, charge an extra $2 AND have many more customers for their great value! It's like selling home PCs with a 1Tb drive, most users don't need it but it only costs them $5 more than a 500Gb drive.
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    Why don't European restaurants do it. Is food more expensive there or is it just considered bad form or somehow un-sophisticated to serve giant portions. I would also guess that it depends on the type of food. High quality, fresh organic produce is a lot more expensive, so perhaps for some food items it really is about the price. For example the fish in fish and chips could be some really expensive fish. Doubling the portion would be a lot more than adding another $1 to the cost.

evanchen 16y ago

The problem with "solutions" like this is that they don't really fix the problem where it lies. Weight gain is attributed to caloric surplus, there's no two ways about it. Drinking water before a meal will help you feel a little fuller and ultimately, eat less. People ignorant to nutrition will begin to use this as a free pass to eating even more poorly. If you really take a step back and look at this, what they are suggesting is filling up with less calorie dense foods (water being the ultimate example), preferably with a high satiety index (here's a list: http://www.mendosa.com/satiety.htm http://www.mendosa.com/satiety.htm).

rdtsc 16y ago
> People ignorant to nutrition will begin to use this as a free pass to eating even more poorly. One danger would be that they would wash out too many useful substances out of their body by drinking to much liquid. I would also imagine so much liquid dilutes the stomach juices and the food doesn't digest properly. I don't have any scientific basis for this btw, just a hunch. > ... what they are suggesting is filling up with less calorie dense foods Another way to accomplish the same thing (for me at least) is to eat spicier, more flavorful foods.
- hugh3 16y ago
  I would also imagine so much liquid dilutes the stomach juices and the food doesn't digest properly. I don't have any scientific basis for this btw, just a hunch. I've never heard of that happening, or anything like it. There is such a thing, supposedly, as water intoxication though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication It's not a serious concern for anyone not running marathon distances or taking part in a water-drinking competition, though.
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    >There is such a thing, supposedly, as water intoxication Why do you doubt that water intoxication exists? Exertional Hyponatremia for example doesn't seem to have any gross reasons to doubt.

malkia 16y ago

Could that be related somehow with people drinking less and less tap water (I live in US, but also seeing this in my home country Bulgaria)? I mean nowadays you have to buy your water most places, you might as well get something "better" for that money, and that won't be water - some some kind of beverage, soft drink, etc. So you would be drinking less, simply because you have to pay (yes, you pay for tap-water too, but that's done as part of all your water usage bill, and it's done at the end of the month usually, and probably way cheaper than bottled water).

elptacek 16y ago

The advice I read (somewhere, so long ago I don't remember) is that sometimes when you think you're hungry or craving something, you're really thirsty. This has worked well for me for many years, and usually means I don't end up eating anything at all. Too bad it doesn't help with anxiety.

SoftwareMaven 16y ago

I was wondering if it altered the quality of calories taken in. The article mentioned that it wasn't just dropping calories from drinks, since they were counted as part of the allocated amount. On the other hand, if people were eating (for instance) more proteins in place of the simple sugars of fizzy drinks, they would drastically alter how their body was interacting with those 1800 calories. I was disappointed by the apparent attitude in the article that every calorie was equal, regardless of source. I really believe calories are to the nutrition industry what counting lines of code is to software: a number that is just too easy to calculate but absolutely meaningless in measuring anything.

roel_v 16y ago
"...absolutely meaningless in measuring anything." This is not true, not for calories nor for lines of code. Both are not sufficient measures when used on their own, and both need context to be interpreted in, but outright dismissing any measurement of them is just as wrong as blindly relying on them. Apart from this, this study was done by professional nutritional researchers - the article may have dumbed down their word a bit but I'd be hard-pressed to believe that they didn't account for things like that.
- SoftwareMaven 16y ago
  I'm curious (please don't take this combatively, it's not meant that way) where you've seen value in measuring lines of code. What is the context that makes the measurement valuable? I ask because in the many years I've developed software or managed the development of software, I've never found it a useful metric to study because there are too many variables that impact it. However, if I'm missing something there, I'd like to know.
  - roel_v 16y ago
    When you have a team of people who do the same work, if there is one person who consistently writes half as much code as the rest that could be a reason to look deepen into that person's performance. When you have for example a new project, you split up all task to be done in several-hour long chunks and you assign those chunks to all team member in a way so that the work is comparable (roughly equal parts GUI, algorithm implementation etc.), it's reasonable to expect that everybody would product about the same amount of code (or checkins or similar). If someone is 2 or 3 standard deviations from the median, that says something. Maybe it says something about that person, maybe about the way tasks are allocated, either way it says something.

c00p3r 16y ago

s/water/beer/g and get the exactly opposite effect. ^_^

njharman 16y ago

I drink upwards of a gallon of water a day, maybe only 3/4 gal in winter. I'm very easily dehydrated. I weigh ~350lbs. Just a reminder that studies may find a typical or probable result. They do not find cause -> effect for everyone.