Could Drinking Water Before Meals Aid Weight Loss?
Consuming 500 ml of water 30 minutes before a meal could help obese adults lose more weight, according to a recent study.
Researchers evaluated 84 obese participants over a 12-week period. All of the participants were advised on how to improve diet, lifestyle, and physical activity levels as part of an initial weight management consultation.
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Of the participants, 41 were instructed to drink water ahead of meals while 43 were asked to imagine that their stomachs were full before their meals.
The study showed that those who “preloaded” with water lost 2.87 lbs more than those in the control group, on average. Those who drank water before all 3 meals lost an average of 9.48 lbs compared to an average of 1.76 lbs loss among those who drank water before only 1 meal per day or not at all.
“When combined with brief instructions on how to increase your amount of physical activity and on a healthy diet, this seems to help people to achieve some extra weight loss – at a moderate and healthy rate. It’s something that doesn’t take much work to integrate into our busy everyday lives,” said Helen Parretti, MD, an author of the study and NIHR Clinical Lecturer at the University of Birmingham.
The complete study is published in the August issue of Obesity.
-Michelle Canales Butcher
Reference:
University of Birmingham. A bottle of water before each meal could help in weight reduction, researchers say. August 2015. www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2015/08/Abottleofwaterbeforeeachmeal260815.aspx. Accessed August 26, 2015.