You might already order soup or a salad at a restaurant before your main entree, but this practice helps you eat less at your meals. You can also do this “preloading” with water. According to a 2018 article in Clinical Nutrition Research, when people drank 300 milliliters (about 10 ounces) of water before a meal, they ate significantly less than people who either drank water after a meal or didn’t drink any water.
A 2014 article in the Journal of Natural Science, Biology, and Medicine looked at how drinking extra water before meals might result in weight loss. The study asked 50 women who were overweight to drink 500 milliliters of water (about 17 ounces) 30 minutes before each meal for eight weeks. The women’s body weight, BMI, and body fat decreased after eight weeks.
You might have heard that drinking cold water burns more calories. That’s based on a 2014 article in Acta Physiologica, which found that drinking cold water boosted the body’s energy expenditure by almost 3%. However, Beth Kitchin, Assistant Professor of Nutrition Sciences at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, says drinking cold water for weight loss is a myth. “While there may be a few extra calories lost, it won’t be nearly enough to make a dent in your weight-loss endeavors,” she said.