When people say they want to lose weight too many think about food only, but forget that drinks also make up a huge percentage of every person’s diet. AND drinking is important – without it you won’t reach your weight targets, that’s for sure!

Without taking in enough liquid you won’t lose weight. The scoriae that are created when you lose weight have to leave your body somehow. Especially the kidneys do lots of the work when you are shedding pound after pound and you should support them by drinking enough.

Apart from supporting weight loss drinking has many other advantages. You will get better skin, your concentration will get better, you will look better and you will feel better.

How much should I drink?
As a general rule one should drink 40ml for every 2 pounds of bodyweight. If you tend to eat lots of fruit and vegetables you can deduct around 750ml from this amount.

BUT you have to be careful – not everything that is fluid counts in this equation. For every cup of coffee you drink you have to add another cup of water as coffee deprives your body of water.

What to drink?
As mentioned before not every drink you can buy out there will support your weight loss efforts. Therefore, I have listed drinks in 4 different categories:

• Category 1 – drink this a lot

Mineral water, tap water, water with ginger, herbal tee, fruit tea, lapacho tea, mate tea, miso soup

• Category 2 – drink this every now and then

Furit juice, tea, kefir, buttermilk, glass of red wine, vegetable stock, green tea (is great for weight loss but contains lots of caffeine)

• Category 3 – don’t drink a lot of this

Coffee, alcohol, milk

• Category 4 – hands off if possible!

Sweetened drink, light drinks

The best diet drink certainly is pure water. It is optimal for your metabolism and gives the necessary moisture to your body quickly.

How do I manage to drink the necessary amount?

Starting to drink quite a big amount of water every day isn’t easy, especially if you are not used to it. But it is very important to your diet success!
Therefore you should create lots of occasions for you to drink and reach the necessary amount. In the morning you should already put the water bottles containing the amount you need to drink at work on your table. Take a big glass and make it full. As soon as you finished it pour in some more!

Often people tend to forget to drink when they have to go to different places on the same day. Always take a small bottle of water with you in your handbag.

Make drinking part of your daily routine. If you have to make lots of phone calls during the day, for example, make it a habit to drink something after finishing each call. At first you will still need to think of reaching over to the glass of water, but after some time you will get used to it and do it unconsciously.

Don’t start drinking only when you are feeling thirsty, but during the whole day. Take notes of how much you drink to find out if you reach your drinking quota every day.

You have read this article and think that you may change your drinking habits. Great! Don’t start tomorrow, start today.

Review your drinking habits (what should you drink more/less), write down a shopping list for drinks to buy, think about where you could place the bottles. It is not much effort but it will have a great effect!