Are You Hungry or Thirsty? The Importance and Confusion of Hydration [Ep. 97]

0:00 This is the eat well think, well, live. Well podcast, I'm Lisa Salisbury, and this is episode 97. Are you hungry or thirsty? The importance and confusion of hydration. Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food. I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury. I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter. I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating. How many times have you heard, oh, are you hungry or are you just thirsty or water's going to really help you lose weight.

0:45 Um, I have said this and my clients know that I encourage them to be very well hydrated, but why. Why is that the case I wanted to delve into this and just get a little more understanding. And this is a quick episode, so it's not, hopefully. Isn't too much science for you, but I did delve into some of the research about why water is effective to help us lose weight. So 60% of your body is composed of water. That only just tells us that it's critical in every cellular activity in the entire body. Uh, water may suppress your appetite. It possibly can boost your metabolism. It might make exercise easier and more efficient.

1:28 All of this could contribute to results on the scale. So let's get into some of these things and know how I said it may do this and it might do that. I'm going to tell you why. So thirst, which is triggered by mild dehydration is often mistaken for hunger by the brain. Consuming water shortly before eating may help slightly fill the stomach and signal fullness. This is where the appetite suppression part comes in. So people who drank two glasses of water immediately before a meal in a small 2016 study. Eight 22% less than those who didn't drink any water prior to eating. There is a caveat to this.

2:10 When I was researching, I was reading an article on the John Hopkins website, and this is literally how they reported the study. People who drank the two glasses of water, et cetera. But when I went directly to that study, The people were actually young, non obese males who are included in this study. So does this mean it definitely does not apply to middle age women. Not necessarily. But it's just something to be aware of because 20 something males are not the same as 40 something females. As Dr. Stacy Sims likes to say, females are not just small males, so this study may be useful, but it's also worth doing your own study on your own body and see if this helps you to eat a little bit less.

2:58 In the boosting metabolism category, an eight week study was published in 2013. And this study used girls with overweight. So a little closer to probably some of you listeners. They drank 500 milliliters of water, which is about 16 ounces, a half an hour. Before breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So that's a total increase of 1500 milliliters for the day. They didn't make any additional dietary changes and they lost a statistically significant amount of weight and saw an improvement in body composition scores. This water was over and above the typical amount of water they were already drinking.

3:38 So it's about 50 ounces, more than what they had already been doing, which we don't have that number in the study, the amount they were already consuming, but it was just more. So why did this work? Drinking water appears to stimulate thermogenesis or heat production in the body. Particularly when you drink chilled water. The body has to expend energy, to warm the fluid to body temperature and the more energy expended by your body, the faster your metabolism, the process by which your body converts, what you eat and drink. Into energy. Runs. So the effect of this thermogenesis is small.

4:20 Just like we don't out exercise, poor quality or excessive food. We can't out hydrate it either. And think that thermogenesis on cold water is going to be enough for us to just lose all of our weight. This is all just additive to what we are already doing. And again, just as just part of the reason why I encourage you to stay hydrated. So drinking water also could help reduce your overall liquid calorie intake because water obviously contains no calories filling your glass with water instead of higher calorie alternatives. Like juice or soda or sweetened tea. Can reduce your overall liquid calorie intake.

5:00 Choosing water over the standard 20 ounce spending machine soft drink and you'll drink 250 fewer calories. Seems like not a lot for the day, but if you multiply that out by the week, it really can add up. Staying hydrated also helps the effectiveness of your workouts. Not only does it help distribute electrolytes throughout the body. That helps prevent cramping. It also keeps the muscles from breaking down as much of its protein. When the muscle cells are dehydrated, they tend to break down the proteins more quickly. And then build muscle more slowly. Even if you aren't an excessive sweater. the heat that's generated during exercise is shunted to the skin surface where perspiration and subsequent evaporation can then help with temperature regulation.

5:51 I often think, well, I work out in an air conditioned gym. Like how much water am I really losing due to perspiration. And it's not really about the water loss there that we need to replace. It's about the ability to be able to sweat in the first place. So if you're dehydrated, you won't have any excess to allow this process to take place at all. So even if you aren't like sweating, excessively, just staying hydrated allows this process to take place in the first place. Keeping your workout more effective. It also helps to maintain your blood volume, which also helps with working out. Water helps the body remove waste.

6:32 Obviously urine is primarily made up of water, but sufficient hydration is also needed to keep the stool soft and facilitate that movement. We could go deep into that topic, but I think that's pretty self-explanatory. The body needs water to burn fat. And this is probably one of the biggest reasons that we want to stay hydrated when we are on a fat loss trajectory. Studies aren't clear as to why or what the mechanism is, but mild dehydration actually decreases lipolysis. My policies is they break down. Of fats. So we need water to break down fats. We don't really know why we just know that we need it.

7:14 So how much water is needed for all of these processes. Obviously we've heard the classic eight, eight ounce glasses of water or 64 ounces a day. The national academies of sciences, engineering and medicine, actually recommends 91 ounces, oddly specific of water each day for women and approximately 125 ounces for men's. That's quite a bit more than the classic 64 ounces we've been hearing for a long time. Remember though that some of this water can come from foods like fruits and vegetables, especially, although it's difficult to calculate how many ounces of water are coming from that orange that you are eating.

7:56 Just know that if you are shy of that 91 ounces by, by a little bit, But you're also eating plenty of produce. You're probably good. Personally, I feel good when I'm drinking close to a hundred ounces of water per day. In addition to my foods, I like to get all the water in liquid form and let my food be the insurance on top. The best way to know if you're hydrated enough is to check your output, check your urine. you want to avoid darker yellow colors and strong smelling urine can also be a good indicator of needing some extra water. You are going for pale odorless and plentiful. Which is by the way, the most common complaint about drinking more water is the plentiful part.

8:38 Those increased trips to the bathroom. I know this can be inconvenient when you're at work or in meetings or traveling. Just do what you can on those days, try to increase hydration when you're home, like in the early morning hours, when you're getting ready for the day. And again, after work, when you're back home. Don't be afraid though, just to say, Hey, I need a break. I need to use the bathroom. I mean. Okay. I know there are professions out there where it's difficult if you're scrubbed into a surgery, or if you're a kindergarten teacher with no aids. I mean, there are reasons we don't leave our jobs, but if you are home or if you have flexibility in your work, try not to get annoyed. At the bathroom trips. So that's all of the science. But here's where I think we can get sort of crazy part two of the podcast is where this goes wrong.

9:25 It's the almond bomb question. Are you really hungry or are you just thirsty? There's a tone there and you can hear it even in your thoughts from your own brain. It's judgy. Yes, thirst can masquerade as hunger for sure. This is a valid question. If it's been like an hour, since you last ate and you get a hunger signal and you're like, wait, is that right? Something seems off there. If your higher brain is thinking, this seems a little early to be hungry. And for whatever reason, it doesn't make cognitive sense that you're hungry, then yes, you might be thirsty. What I don't want you to do with this question is gaslit yourself into thinking.

10:08 You aren't physically hungry or to use water as a way to go longer and longer. In between meals to the tune of six or seven hours between breakfast and lunch. The idea is to make sure that you are properly hydrated and not get sucked into diet mentality of just have a class of water and make the hunger go away. That is not the point of this episode or of that question. Second area where drinking water can go wrong is sacrificing your sleep over it. If you are trying to cram in all your water at night, because you're like, oh no, I'm behind. And that is causing you to get up and use the bathroom. Let's not do that if you're only at 50 ounces and it's 9:00 PM, like you're done for the day, that's it.

10:54 You got to start again the next day. I know that late night water intake is not the only reason you might be using the bathroom and the night. But I also know for me that if I finish a big water bottle while I'm watching TV in the evening, I'll for sure have to get up in the night. I try to make those trips without turning on any lights and barely opening my eyes so I can go right back to sleep. But it's still so annoying to me. What I notice is that if I front load my day, making sure I'm well, hydrated prior to dinner. Then eight ounces or so of water in the evening. Won't cause me to wake up to use the bathroom. But you need to do your own experiment. I'm all about preserving sleep above all else. So if you find this as the case for you to really focus on water early in the day, so that we aren't waking up unnecessarily for bathroom usage, if you are waking up for a different reason, that's another episode.

11:46 I just don't want to compound any sleeping issues you may have with increased hydration to the point of waking you up for that. Lastly, this maybe goes wrong. When you are thinking only plain water accounts, anything that adds Tierra hydration counts. Some people might say things like coffee, tea, or diet soda don't count because of the caffeine content and that's dehydrating. I think the debate is really still out on that, because you can find arguments for both sides. Personally, I think most of that liquid counts, meaning it's primarily made up of water. So it's going to help your hydration. I'm not interested in doing any complicated math with my water, just like I don't do any complicated macro counting or calorie gymnastics in my head anymore.

12:34 So trying to figure out if only 12 of the 16 ounces of diet Coke counts towards my hydration goal for the day is just silly. I don't drink those often enough for it to be an issue for me. But if you're drinking something like that every day, then I would just pay attention to how you feel. And if those things are seeming to help with your hydration or hurting it, when you're looking at your output. What I definitely count is mix-ins to water. So things like true lemon packets. I talk about those all the time. I like The strawberry lemonade one is probably my favorite electrolyte packets. My mix, hers packets, all of those count. If you use BCAs after a workout or you're mixing Creotine supplements into your water, all of that counts.

13:19 I also love to use my soda stream and sparkle by water. So whether you are doing it yourself with a soda stream or purchasing sparkling water, think things like Waterloo or Spindrift. That all counts as well, as long as we're not talking about. Sugar sweetened soda. That's the only thing I would say. Even though that's liquid. I would probably not count that towards your hydration goal. Those are the kinds of things I count towards my desserts. I know that's like probably something I haven't actually said on this podcast, but if I have a soda, I consider that my dessert because, um, that would be the amount of sugar, probably more so than I might have, like an, a cookie or something like that.

14:01 So if I decide to have a sugar sweetened beverage, then I just skip the dessert that night, but that's just how I do it. You can do it how you want. That's just the only. Thing. I wouldn't. Count towards hydration, just because of that sugar. All right. So the bottom line is. It's true. Nothing sends up a false hunger signal, like being dehydrated. But also don't use that in a judgy way against yourself to try to go much longer in between meals. Basically don't almond mom, yourself on water. Good flavor packets and sparkling water you like and let more of this fun water crowd out your desires for sodas and other high calorie beverages.

14:45 This is the kind of practical advice and help I offer my clients. I'm not just about working on your thoughts and feelings, although that is really important to me. I'm also not afraid to get into your action line and really help you figure out what's going to work for you. If you're ready for more help with your weight loss, be sure to make a free coaching call appointment with me today. Link is in the show notes. As always thank you for listening and sharing the eat. Well think, well live well podcast.