Are You Hungry? Or Is It Something Else?
July 4, 2022 | Words by Gabe Yanez
HYdration & Fat Loss
To some extent, we all know that hydration is crucial. Yet, many of us still don’t drink enough water every day. Why is that?
Well, maybe we just don’t understand how water can impact our specific fitness and health goals. Maybe if we better understood how drinking more water could directly benefit us, we would be more likely to make this a non-negotiable healthy habit moving forward.
So why don’t we start by talking about weight loss or, more specifically, fat loss. This tends to be a very common goal for people. Whether it’s because you want to see body composition improvements or you’re just looking to be your healthiest self, burning off excess fat is a very common fitness goal that most aim for.
It’s important to note that weight loss and fat loss are sometimes used interchangeably, but we prefer to use the term fat loss here because seeing the number go down on the scale may not actually be the goal for some.
Muscle weighs more than fat, so it’s very possible for someone to see positive changes in body composition without the number on the scale getting smaller. This is why we like to talk about fat loss instead of weight loss.
With that being said, the only recipe for fat loss is very simple. You need to consume less calories on average than what you burn on average. This doesn’t mean food quality gets thrown out the window, but at the end of the day, fat loss does boil down to calories in, calories out.
So how does proper hydration play into all this? Well, satiety (feeling full) is a big component that needs to be in place in order for you to successfully stay in a caloric deficit long enough for your body to effectively burn off excess fat. One way to stay satiated is to be properly hydrated.
A lot of people — especially people who snack throughout the day — often don’t realize that the desire for those extra calories isn’t necessarily brought on by hunger, but actually brought on by thirst.
And even if those cravings for snacks or more food are brought on by hunger and you’re navigating through a fat loss phase, proper water intake will help to curb those cravings and make it easier to stay on track!
One Thing to Try This Week
If you’re prone to snacking throughout the day, make sure you have a water bottle handy at all times.
As soon as you feel the need to reach for a snack, drink 12-16 ounces of water instead and wait 15-20 minutes to see if that craving is still there or if it went away.
You’ll be surprised by how much of an impact this strategy can have on helping you curb your snacking and decrease those excess calories that add on throughout the course of your day!
