When it comes to water, everybody knows the main thing about its consumption – you need to drink the right amount of it. Not too much, though, and not too little – just enough. But have you ever found yourself confused about the temperature of water you should be drinking? And are cold water and weight loss interconnected in any way? There might be more than one way to answer it.
Health Benefits of Drinking Cold Water
Drinking icy liquids has in fact some advantages over room temperature or hot aqua. Exercise authorities such as International Society of Sports Nutrition do recommend sipping on chilled H2O during and after exercise. But does that mean that drinking cold water helps you lose weight? Not exactly.
The benefits of drinking cold water in terms of weight loss are not direct. The main reason why your gym coach would like you to drink chilled liquids while active is thermoregulation. There's no reason to argue that ice aqua pura during a hot summer day has amazing powers to make you feel refreshed, but that has little to do with weight loss and everything to do with preventing you from overheating.
A lower body temperature does actually help you with your performance and endurance when exercising. A healthy and sustainable way to lower your body temperature can be achieved by eating a raw plant-based diet (see The Thrive Diet by Brendan Brazier, 2017) and drinking chilled or even ice liquids. So it may be a good idea to freeze your bottle of sugar-free liquid and let it melt off a little while running, hiking, or sweating out at the gym.
You might have heard people saying that cold water burns fat, but rest assured that there is no scientific evidence to support this claim. This misunderstanding, though, might have stemmed from the fact that icy aqua does indeed help you lose a few extra calories and that's because your body has to work harder to get you to maintain a normal core temperature. However, the loss of these few extra calories are not enough to make a big difference, really.
Another major factor why many trainers would recommend drinking icy liquids is that many people think it tastes better. This reason alone motivates people to want to drink more aqua in general, thus staying hydrated and healthier.
Health Benefits of Drinking Warm Water
Drinking cold water is not in any way bad for losing weight nor does it make you fat, as some people may claim. But there are some reasons to make you incorporate warm and hot liquids into your daily liquid consumption.
One of the main things you want to have when trying to lose weight is flawless digestion. Drinking warm water is known to help with that enormously. Regular bowel movement and toxin-free gut is the key to your overall health, including your physique, your psychological well-being, and your skin tone and smoothness. Digestion is still largely underrated, but it does start to get more attention from medical professionals and our guts even get to be called our second brain more and more often.
Warm aqua is also important as it doesn't compromise your sinus and throat flora the way chilly water consumption might. On the contrary, it actually does help you breathe easier and soothes your sore throat.
So it's a great idea to start each day with a warm or hot cup of aqua pura to kick-start your metabolism, your blood circulation, and your digestion. Squeeze in some lemon juice to help with an otherwise bland taste and to help boosting your immune system while you're at it. Later, you can sip on a warm or room temperature aqua and leave the cold liquids for when you're really hot or doing your workout.
