Water Intake while Dieting

Why Drinking Water Really is the Key.

 

Don’t roll your eyes! The potion for losing that excess body fat is all around you. It covers two thirds of the planet. If you eat right and exercise at the intensity, frequency and duration proper for you, but still can’t get rid of a little paunch here and there, you’re probably just not drinking enough water.

 

No need to get defensive. You’re actually quite normal. Most people don’t drink enough water. Most people are also carrying around a few more pounds than they would be if they did drink enough water. If you can’t seem to get that weight off, try drowning your sorrows in nature’s magical weight-loss mineral. It works, and here’s why:

 

“What on Earth is ‘metabolism’, anyway?” People use the term all the time, but ask them what it means and you’ll get all kinds of answers. Merriam Webster defines it as, “The process by which a substance is handled in the body.” A little vague, but that’s really all it means.

           

 

There are many forms of metabolism going on in your body right now, but the one everyone is talking about it the metabolism of fat. This is actually something that the liver does when it converts stored fat to energy. The liver has other functions, but this is one of its main jobs.

 

Unfortunately, another of the liver’s duties is to pick up the slack for the kidneys, which need plenty of water to work properly. If the kidneys are water-deprived, the liver has to do their work along with its own, lowering its total productivity. It then can’t metabolize fat as quickly or efficiently as it could when the kidneys were pulling their own weight. If you allow this to happen, not only are you being unfair to your liver, but you’re also setting yourself up to store fat.

 

“I’ve tried it and I couldn’t stand it!” The problem is that, though many decide to increase their water intake, very few stick with it. It’s understandable. During the first few days of drinking more water than your body is accustomed to, you’re running to the bathroom constantly. This can be very discouraging, and it can certainly interfere with an otherwise normal day at work. It seems that the water is coming out just as fast as it’s going in, and many people decide that their new hydration habit is fruitless.

 

Do take heed, though. What is really happening is that your body is flushing itself of the water it has been storing throughout all those years of “survival mode”. It takes a while, but this is a beautiful thing happening to you. As you continue to give your body all the water it could ask for, it gets rid of what it doesn’t need. It gets rid of the water it was holding onto in your ankles and your hips and thighs, maybe even around your belly. You are excreting much more than you realize. Your body figures it doesn’t need to save these stores anymore; it’s trusting that the water will keep coming, and if it does, eventually, the flushing (of both the body and the potty) will cease, allowing the human to return to a normal life. It’s true. This is called the “breakthrough point.”

 

One recent finding, as irresponsible as it may be, that caffeine increases the body’s fat-burning potential has many people loading up on coffee before going to the gym. This finding may hold some degree of truth in it, but caffeine is, in essence, a diuretic, and diuretics dehydrate. Caffeine may increase the heart rate, causing a few more calories to be burned, but this is at the expense of the muscles, which need water to function properly. This isn’t doing your heart any favors, either. It’s already working hard enough during your workout. Never mix caffeine and exercise. In fact, your best bet is to stay away from caffeine all together. It’s a big bully that pushes your friend water out of your system.

 

Water is the best beauty treatment. You’ve heard this since high school, and it’s true. Water will do wonders for your looks! It flushes out impurities in your skin, leaving you with a clear, glowing complexion. It also makes your skin look younger. Skin that is becoming saggy, either due to aging or weight loss, plumps up very nicely when the skin cells are hydrated.

 

In addition, it improves muscle tone. You can lift weights until you’re blue in the face, but if your muscles are suffering from a drought, you won’t notice a pleasant difference in your appearance. Muscles that have all the water they need contract more easily, making your workout more effective and you’ll look much nicer than if you had flabby muscles under sagging skin.

 

“Eight glasses a day? Are you kidding?!” It’s really not that much. Eight 8-ounce glasses amount to about two quarts of water. This is okay for the average person, but if you’re overweight, you should drink another eight ounces for every 25 pounds of excess weight you carry. You should also up this if you live in a hot climate or exercise very intensely.

 

This water consumption should be spread out throughout the day. It’s not healthy at all to drink too much water at one time. Try to pick three or four times a day when you can have a big glass of water, and then sip in between. Don’t let yourself get thirsty. If you feel thirsty, you’re already becoming dehydrated. Drink when you’re not thirsty yet.

 

Do you think water is yucky? Drinking other fluids will certainly help hydrate your body, but the extra calories, sugar, additives and whatever else isn’t what you need. Try a slice of lemon or lime in the glass, or if you really think you hate water, try flavored water. Just make sure you read the labels. Remember that you’re going to be consuming a lot of this fluid.

 

It’s probably a good idea to stop drinking water a good three hours before you go to bed. You know why.

“How cold should it be?” This is debatable. Most experts lean toward cold water, because the stomach absorbs it more quickly. There is also some evidence that cold water might enhance fat burning.

 

On the other hand, warmer water is easier to drink in large quantities, and you might drink more of it without even realizing it. Do whatever suits you, here. Just drink it!

 

When you drink all the water you need, you will very quickly notice a decrease in your appetite, possibly even on the first day! If you’re serious about becoming leaner and healthier, drinking water is an absolute must. If you’re doing everything else right and still not seeing results, this might just what’s missing.

Dietary Minerals

Dietary minerals are the chemical elements required by living organisms, other than the four elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen which are present in common organic molecules. The term “mineral” is archaic, since the intent of the definition is to describe ions, not chemical compounds or actual minerals. Furthermore, once dissolved, so-called minerals do not exist as such, sodium chloride breaks down into sodium ions and chloride ions in aqueous solution. Some dietitians recommend that these heavier elements should be supplied by ingesting specific foods (that are enriched in the element(s) of interest), compounds, and sometimes including even minerals, such as calcium carbonate. Sometimes these “minerals” come from natural sources such as ground oyster shells. Sometimes minerals are added to the diet separately from food, such as mineral supplements, the most famous being iodine in “iodized salt.” Dirt eating, called pica or geophagy is hypothesized to be a means of supplementing the diet with elements, but this has not been verified. The chemical composition of soils will vary depending on the location.

 

Vitamins, which are not considered minerals, are organic compounds, some of which contain heavy elements such as iodine and cobalt. The dietary focus on “minerals” derives from an interest in supporting the biosynthetic apparatus with the required elemental components. Appropriate intake levels of certain chemical elements is thus required to maintain optimal health. Commonly, the requirements are met with a conventional diet. Excessive intake of any element (again, usually as an ion) will lead to poisoning. For example, large doses of selenium are lethal. On the other hand, large doses of zinc are less dangerous but can lead to a harmful copper deficiency (unless compensated for, as in the Age-Related Eye Disease Study).

 

Dietary minerals classified as “macromineral” are required in relatively large amounts. Conversely “microminerals” or “trace minerals” are required relatively in minute amounts. There is no universally accepted definition of the difference between “large” and “small” amounts.

 

Essential minerals

 

At least seven minerals are required to support biochemical processes, many playing a role as electrolytes or in cell structure and function. In human nutrition, the dietary bulk “mineral elements” (RDA > 200 mg/day) are in alphabetical order (parenthetical comments on folk medicine perspective):

 

    * Calcium (for muscle, heart and digestive system health, builds bone, neutralizes acidity, supports synthesis and function of blood cells)

    * Chloride (for production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach and in cellular pump functions)

    * Magnesium is required for processing ATP and related reactions (health builds bone, increases alkalinity)

    * Phosphorus is a component of bones (see apatite) and energy processing and many other functions (bone mineralization)

    * Potassium is a systemic electrolyte and is essential in coregulating ATP with sodium

    * Sodium is a systemic electrolyte and is essential in coregulating ATP with potassium

 

 Trace minerals

 

Numerous minerals are required in trace amounts and are usually cofactors for enzymes. Some trace mineral elements (RDA < 200 mg/day) are (alphabetical order):

 

    * Cobalt is required for biosynthesis of vitamin B12 family of coenzymes

    * Copper is required component of many redox enzymes, including cytochrome c oxidase

    * Fluorine participates in formation of tooth enamel which contains fluoroapatite (see Water fluoridation)

    * Iodine is required for the biosynthesis of thyroxine

    * Iron is required for many proteins and enzymes, notably hemoglobin

    * Manganese is a cofactor in function of antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase

    * Molybdenum is required for xanthine oxidase and related oxidases

    * Nickel is present in urease

    * Selenium is required for peroxidase (antioxidant proteins)

    * Sulfur is an essential component of cysteine and methionine amino acids and participates as an enzyme cofactor

    * Zinc is pervasive and required for several enzymes such as carboxypeptidase, liver alcohol dehydrogenase, carbonic anhydrase

 

 Other trace minerals

 

Many elements have been suggested as required in human nutrition, but such claims have usually not been scientifically proven. One problem with identifying efficacy is because many elements are innocuous at low concentrations, so proof of efficacy is lacking. Definitive evidence for efficacy comes from characterization of a biomolecule with an identifiable and testable function. Of the many trace elements still lacking solid proof, chromium is often cited. Chromium(III) is implicated in sugar metabolism in humans, leading to a market for chromium picolinate.

 

    * Vanadium (There is no established RDA for vanadium. No specific biochemical function has been identified for it in humans, although vanadium is found in other organisms)

 

 

 Food sources

 

    * Dairy products, calcium-fortified foods, canned fish with bones (salmon, sardines), and green leafy vegetables for calcium

    * Nuts, soy beans, and cocoa for magnesium

    * Table salt (sodium chloride, the main source), sea vegetables, olives, milk, and spinach for sodium

    * Legumes, potato skin, tomatoes, and bananas for potassium

    * Table salt is the main dietary source for chlorine

    * Meat, eggs, and legumes for sulfur

    * Red meat, leafy green vegetables, fish (tuna, salmon), eggs, dried fruits, beans, whole grains, and enriched grains for iron.

 

Essential Nutrients in Diets

An essential nutrient is a nutrient required for normal body functioning that cannot be synthesized by the body and must be obtained from a dietary source. Some categories of essential nutrient include vitamins, dietary minerals, essential fatty acids, and essential amino acids.

 

Different species have very different essential nutrients. Most essential nutrients are substances that are metabolically necessary but cannot be synthesized by the organism. Dietary minerals, for example, cannot be synthesized in biological systems, so (for example) a human must obtain the iron they need to build hemoglobin from their diet. Of course, this iron is recycled, but some is inevitably lost, for example during menstruation.

 

Many essential nutrients are toxic in large doses (see hypervitaminosis or the nutrient pages themselves below). Some can be taken in amounts larger than required in a typical diet, with no apparent ill effects. Linus Pauling said of vitamin B3, (either niacin or niacinamide), “What astonished me was the very low toxicity of a substance that has such very great physiological power. A little pinch, 5 mg, every day, is enough to keep a person from dying of pellagra, but it is so lacking in toxicity that ten thousand times as much can [sometimes] be taken without harm.” A similar statement can be made about vitamin C and some other vitamins.

 

List of essential nutrients

 

    * Essential substances often not considered to be nutrients:

          o Oxygen

          o Water

          o Sunlight

    * Essential fatty acids:

          o Linolenic acid (the shortest chain omega-3 fatty acid)

          o Linoleic acid (the shortest chain omega-6 fatty acid)

    * Essential amino acids necessary for all humans:

          o Histidine

          o Isoleucine

          o Lysine

          o Leucine

          o Methionine

          o Phenylalanine

          o Threonine

          o Tryptophan

          o Valine

    * Essential amino acids necessary for human children and not adults:

          o Arginine

    * Vitamins:

          o Biotin (vitamin B7, vitamin H)

          o Choline (vitamin Bp)

          o Folate (folic acid, vitamin B9, vitamin M)

          o Niacin (vitamin B3, vitamin P, vitamin PP)

          o Pantothenic acid (vitamin B5)

          o Riboflavin (vitamin B2, vitamin G)

          o Thiamine (vitamin B1)

          o Vitamin A (retinol)

          o Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine, pyridoxamine, or pyridoxal)

          o Vitamin B12 (cobalamin)

          o Vitamin C (ascorbic acid)

          o Vitamin E (tocopherol)

          o Vitamin K (naphthoquinoids)

     Dietary minerals: Biochemical studies reported in 2006 indicate that the following elements (aside from constituent elements of other essential nutrients) are required for human health:

          o Calcium (Ca)

          o Chloride (Cl-)

          o Copper (Cu)

          o Iodine (I)

          o Iron (Fe)

          o Magnesium (Mg)

          o Manganese (Mn)

          o Molybdenum (Mo)

          o Nickel (Ni)[5]

          o Phosphorus (P) (as phosphate)

          o Potassium (K)

          o Selenium (Se)

          o Sodium (Na)

          o Sulfur (S)

          o Zinc (Zn)

 

The body’s requirements vary widely. At one extreme a 70 kg human contains 1.0 kg of calcium but only 3 mg of cobalt.

 

 Elements with speculated role in human health

 

Many elements have been implicated at various times to have a role in human health. For none of these elements has a specific protein or complex been identified:

 

    * Boron (B)

    * Chromium (Cr)

    * Fluorine (F) (necessity unknown in humans)

    * Silicon (Si) (also present in rice husk).

Vitamins General Information

A vitamin is an organic compound required as a nutrient in tiny amounts by an organism. A compound is called a vitamin when it cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantities by an organism, and must be obtained from the diet. Thus, the term is conditional both on the circumstances and the particular organism. For example, ascorbic acid functions as vitamin C for some animals but not others, and vitamins D and K are required in the human diet only in certain circumstances.

 

Vitamins are classified by their biological and chemical activity, not their structure. Thus, each “vitamin” actually refers to a number of vitamer compounds, which form a set of distinct chemical compounds that show the biological activity of a particular vitamin. Such a set of chemicals are grouped under an alphabetized vitamin “generic descriptor” title, such as “vitamin A,” which (for example) includes retinal, retinol, and many carotenoids. Vitamers are often inter-convertible in the body. The term vitamin does not include other essential nutrients such as dietary minerals, essential fatty acids, or essential amino acids, nor does it encompass the large number of other nutrients that promote health but are otherwise required less often.

 

Vitamins have diverse biochemical functions, including function as hormones (e.g. vitamin D), antioxidants (e.g. vitamin E), and mediators of cell signaling and regulators of cell and tissue growth and differentiation (e.g. vitamin A). The largest number of vitamins (e.g. B complex vitamins) function as precursors for enzyme cofactor bio-molecules (coenzymes), that help act as catalysts and substrates in metabolism. When acting as part of a catalyst, vitamins are bound to enzymes and are called prosthetic groups. For example, biotin is part of enzymes involved in making fatty acids. Vitamins also act as coenzymes to carry chemical groups between enzymes. For example, folic acid carries various forms of carbon group – methyl, formyl and methylene - in the cell. Although these roles in assisting enzyme reactions are vitamins’ best-known function, the other vitamin functions are equally important.

 

Until the 1900s, vitamins were obtained solely through food intake, and changes in diet (which, for example, could occur during a particular growing season) can alter the types and amounts of vitamins ingested. Vitamins have been produced as commodity chemicals and made widely available as inexpensive pills for several decades, allowing supplementation of the dietary intake.

 

History

The Ancient Egyptians knew that feeding a patient liver would help cure night blindness.

The Ancient Egyptians knew that feeding a patient liver would help cure night blindness.

 

The value of eating a certain food to maintain health was recognized long before vitamins were identified. The ancient Egyptians knew that feeding a patient liver would help cure night blindness, an illness now known to be caused by a vitamin A deficiency. The advancement of ocean voyage during the Renaissance resulted in prolonged periods without access to fresh fruits and vegetables, and made illnesses from vitamin deficiency common among ship’s crew.

 

In 1749, the Scottish surgeon James Lind discovered that citrus foods helped prevent scurvy, a particularly deadly disease in which collagen is not properly formed, causing poor wound healing, bleeding of the gums, severe pain, and death. In 1753, Lind published his Treatise on the Scurvy, which recommended using lemons and limes to avoid scurvy, which was adopted by the British Royal Navy. This led to the nickname Limey for sailors of that organization. Lind’s discovery, however, was not widely accepted by individuals in the Royal Navy’s Arctic expeditions in the 19th century, where it was widely believed that scurvy could be prevented by practicing good hygiene, regular exercise, and by maintaining the morale of the crew while on board, rather than by a diet of fresh food.[8] As a result, Arctic expeditions continued to be plagued by scurvy and other deficiency diseases. In the early 20th century, when Robert Falcon Scott made his two expeditions to the Antarctic, the prevailing medical theory was that scurvy was caused by “tainted” canned food.

The discovery of vitamins and their structure Year of discovery Vitamin             Source

1909    Vitamin A (Retinol)                                                                                  Cod liver oil

1912    Vitamin B1 (Thiamin)                                                                               Rice bran

1912    Vitamin C (Ascorbic acid)                                                                        Lemons

1918    Vitamin D (Calciferol)                                                                              Cod liver oil

1920    Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)                                                                             Eggs

1922    Vitamin E (Tocopherol)                                        Wheat germ oil, Cosmetic and Liver

1926    Vitamin B12 (Cyanocobalamin)                                                                  Liver

1929    Vitamin K (Phylloquinone)                                                                          Luzern

1931    Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic acid)                                                                     Liver

1931    Vitamin B7 (Biotin)                                                                                      Liver

1934    Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine)                                                                              Rice bran

1936    Vitamin B3 (Niacin)                                                                                     Liver

1941    Vitamin B9 (Folic acid)                                                                                Liver  

 

In 1881, Russian surgeon Nikolai Lunin studied the effects of scurvy while at the University of Tartu in present-day Estonia. He fed mice an artificial mixture of all the separate constituents of milk known at that time, namely the proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and salts. The mice that received only the individual constituents died, while the mice fed by milk itself developed normally. He made a conclusion that “a natural food such as milk must therefore contain, besides these known principal ingredients, small quantities of unknown substances essential to life.” However, his conclusions were rejected by other researchers when they were unable to reproduce his results. One difference was that he had used table sugar (sucrose), while other researchers had used milk sugar (lactose) that still contained small amounts of vitamin B.

 

In the Orient where polished white rice was the common staple food of the middle class, beriberi resulting from lack of vitamin B was endemic. In 1884, Takaki Kanehiro, a British trained medical doctor of the Japanese Navy observed that beriberi was endemic among low ranking crew who often ate nothing but rice but not among crews of Western navies and officers who were entitled to a Western-style diet. Kanehiro initially believed that lack of protein was the chief cause of beriberi. With the support of Japanese navy, he experimented using crews of two battleships, one crew was fed only white rice, while the other was fed a diet of meat, fish, barley, rice, and beans. The group that ate only white rice documented 161 crew with beriberi and 25 deaths, while the latter group had only 14 cases of beriberi and no deaths. This convinced Kanehiro and the Japanese Navy that diet was the cause of beriberi. This was confirmed in 1897, when Christiaan Eijkman discovered that feeding unpolished rice instead of the polished variety to chickens helped to prevent beriberi in the chickens. The following year, Frederick Hopkins postulated that some foods contained “accessory factors”—in addition to proteins, carbohydrates, fats, et cetera—that were necessary for the functions of the human body. Hopkins was awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Christiaan Eijkman for their discovery of several vitamins.

 

In 1910, Japanese scientist Umetaro Suzuki succeeded in extracting a water-soluble complex of micronutrients from rice bran and named it aberic acid. He published this discovery in a Japanese scientific journal. When the article was translated into German, the translation failed to state that it was a newly discovered nutrient, a claim made in the original Japanese article, and hence his discovery failed to gain publicity. Polish biochemist Kazimierz Funk isolated the same complex of micronutrients and proposed the complex be named “Vitamine” (a portmanteau of “vital amine”) in 1912. The name soon became synonymous with Hopkins’ “accessory factors”, and by the time it was shown that not all vitamins were amines, the word was already ubiquitous. In 1920, Jack Cecil Drummond proposed that the final “e” be dropped to deemphasize the “amine” reference after the discovery that vitamin C had no amine component.

 

 

Throughout the early 1900s, the use of deprivation studies allowed scientists to isolate and identify a number of vitamins. Initially, lipid from fish oil was used to cure rickets in rats, and the fat-soluble nutrient was called “antirachitic A”. The irony here is that the first “vitamin” bioactivity ever isolated, which cured rickets, was initially called “vitamin A”, the bioactivity of which is now called vitamin D. What we now call “vitamin A” was identified in fish oil because it was inactivated by ultraviolet light. In 1931, Albert Szent-Györgyi and a fellow researcher Joseph Svirbely determined that “hexuronic acid” was actually vitamin C and noted its anti-scorbutic activity. In 1937, Szent-Györgyi was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery. In 1943 Edward Adelbert Doisy and Henrik Dam were awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery of vitamin K and its chemical structure.

Fad Diets

Description

 

A fad diet is believed by its practitioners to improve health. It is often promoted by parties that publish books about the diet, or sell specialized ingredients or supplements that are part of the diet, despite being unconfirmed by legitimate scientific studies. A fad diet may do nothing at all, or even have an adverse result if it is nutritionally unbalanced or otherwise unhealthy. Weight loss experts such as Richard Simmons, who tried numerous diets in his youth at the cost of his health, strongly discourages them as not only unhealthy, but also counter-productive in the long term.

 

Belief in fad diets by adherents is often irrational. Many individuals who adhere to fad diets will not consider recommendations made by nutritionists and dieticians.

 

There are three categories of food fads. Some food fads incorporate a combination of categories:

 

   1. The virtue of a particular food or food group is exaggerated and purported to cure specific diseases, and is therefore incorporated as a primary constituent of an individual’s diet.

   2. Foods are eliminated from an individual’s diet because they are viewed as harmful.

   3. An emphasis is placed on eating certain foods to express a particular lifestyle.

 

Zen macrobiotic diets were once considered to be the most dangerous type of food faddism[1]. George Ohsawa, in his book Zen Macrobiotics, promoted a 10-stage diet to create a spiritual awakening or rebirth. The nutritional plan claimed to prevent and cure all diseases. The 10 stages of dietary restriction gradually eliminated certain foods such as animal products, fruits, and vegetables; emphasis was placed on whole-grain cereals. Each stage had a recommended percentage of each type of food group to include in the diet. By the tenth stage, cereals constituted 100% of the dietary intake. Nowadays, such extreme guidance is not found in macrobiotic diets, though.

 

Extreme faddist diets often lack the energy, suitable protein, fat-soluble vitamins, and some minerals that are essential for growing children. Parents forcing children to adhere to fad diets to the point of severe nutritional disorders is considered a form of child abuse.

 

 Scientific view

 

Many forms of food faddism are supported by pseudo-scientific claims. Fad diets claim to be scientific but do not follow the scientific method in establishing their validity. Among the scientific shortcomings of the claims made in support of fad diets:

 

    * Not being open to revisions, whereas real science is.

    * Observations that prompt explanations are used as evidence of the validity of the explanation.

 

Some in the scientific community comment that food faddism is born of ignorance about basic scientific dietary facts. The evidence supporting weight loss enhanced by anything other than caloric restriction is lacking. There is also a lack of evidence to support that fad diets produce sustainable weight loss. Fad diets generally ignore or refute what is known about fundamental associations between dietary pattern and human health.