Cheat days/meals and drinking lots of water?

Hi there!

I've seen it mentioned many times that if you decide to have a cheaty food that you should drink lots of water with it - but it's never been explained why and I can't find the answer searching the forums. So, just curious, as to how drinking water helps when eating a cheat food?

Thanks!

I'm not 100% sure what all the reasons would be, but I'll take a stab at it.  I think drinking a lot of water on a cheat day will:

1.  help keep you hydrated so you don't lose ALL the health benefits of eating well all week/month long

2.  will keep you feeling more "full" so hopefully you don't completely overdo it

3.  will start flushing that "bad" stuff out of your system that much faster so it any lasting effects are minimized

plus I guess its just always good for you. By the way... I myself cannot take a whole cheat day. I would go nuts and eat everything in the house... and then the grocery store! I make my "cheat" for a meal or an hour (or even two hrs if its maybe going to the movie). Make sure to decide your limits ahead of time. Just another option for you! Good luck

Drinking water helps our bodies to flush out the toxins that come from digesting food as opposed to absorbing them.

The age old saying to drink 8+ glasses of water a day is for a few reasons: Staying hydrated is essential for our bodies. Lots of water makes us feel fuller and helps us to avoid feeling a false sense of hunger caused by thirst.

The logic behind drinking lots of water on a binge or cheating day is probably to make you feel less inclined to eat so much, since you are fuller, and also help to cleanse your system of the ingredients that make the cheaty food bad for you. However, drinking water is not going to lower the calorie/ fat content of the food you are eating, though it may help to wash out the digested parts of food.

i found this by searching google: good explanation of why to drink water at all

"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."

(http://www.inch-aweigh.com/water.html)

singinfatlady gave you alot of good reasons, but I would like to add that since most 'cheat foods' especially if it is fast/resturant food, is loaded with sodium so the water felps flush that out.

You're right eleanor and that is what I meant to say. I didn't mean for it to sound like it would reduce the calories consumed... although wouldn't that be nice!! Just flushing out those toxins will help keep you on the right path.

Thanks guys, I figured it was something along those lines, I was just curious as to why people were like "I'm going to eat such and such and drink lots of water at the same time". Thanks for the advice too :) I'd never do a cheat day either, I'd just go eat everything.

I do cheat days, all the time now that I have lost over 20lbs....but I still drink about 128 ozs of water or more than that.....