WIELDING STELLAR HYDRATION HABITS AS PART OF YOUR DEFENSE AGAIN DIET-INDUCED HUNGER CAN PROVE TO BE AN INVALUABLE TOOL. LEARN WHY WATER IS THE WARRIOR YOU NEED!
The war on hunger consists of a daily series of tiresome battles during a diet. It’s not for the faint of heart, and the weak don’t survive. And although the reasons many don’t survive could be debated at great length, often it’s because they don’t employ the greatest warrior of their army to defend against the strong, frequent hunger attacks their body deploys in response to taking in less food.
Fortunately, after reading this article, you’ll be armed to face each battle with your strongest warrior and ready to press on one battle after the other!
UNDERSTANDING AN ALLY CLOSE TO THE HEART
Your stomach is a crescent-shaped, hollowed out portion of your digestive tract that sits between the small and large intestine and serves as an intermediary in the digestive process. This hub can hold upwards of a thousand calories worth of food at once, yet, it’s roughly the size of your fist.
I’ll let you digest that for a moment…
The stomach is unique in that it can communicate directly with the hunger control center in your brain. It’s able to provide immediate feedback based on its environment to influence whether hunger or satiety signals are sent out across the body.
This is related to the fact that the stomach wall is lined with nerve endings, also referred to as stretch receptors. When these stretch receptors are stimulated – which occurs when the stomach walls are stretched due to incoming food or fluid – they send signals to the brain to shut down any further hunger signaling.
Imagine if you could continually stimulate this stretch and the subsequent sending of satiety signals at the expense of zero calories…
WIELD THE WATER WARRIOR
In a matter of minutes, the liquid that was on your tongue moments ago, is already in your stomach. And if you drink enough liquid in a short amount of time –think chugging versus sipping – your stomach will have no choice but to expand to accommodate what you’ve consumed.
The result: the stretch receptors lining your stomach wall are stimulated as your stomach expands, and ultimately, satiety signals are sent to your brain. And by choosing water as your primary fluid, you achieve a strong suppression of hunger cues without spending any of your daily calories to do so.
Now, digest that!
MISSION FLUID OVERLOAD
It’s important that when you employ this strategy you guzzle your water – safely, of course – rather than sipping periodically. The advantage of the former is that you provide a large amount of fluid in a short time, which overwhelms the stomach and causes it to expand. If you casually sip on your water, by the time you take your next sip, the water from your previous sip will already have passed through your stomach.
At Meals: Before and after your meal, drink 12 – 16 ounces of water. This will enhance the amount of volume in your stomach and work to stretch it out as much as possible, thus enabling you to feel physically fully.
Between Meals: When hunger hits between meals, turn to another 12 – 16 ounces of water. This will stimulate the stretch receptors and help you experiencing a moment of satiety and remove the hungry thoughts from your brain.
ONE FINAL DEFENSE
If you begin to wield your water warrior as suggested above, please make sure you’re lightly salting all your meals. Drinking more water without simultaneously increasing your sodium intake is like going to battle with the bet weapons and defense, yet without the supporting ammo you need. It can put you at risk for hyponatremia, a condition with similar consequences to dehydration, and one that may prove to be even more dangerous if sodium levels dip too low.
Thanks, you’ve made a Salter happy.
