SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Could this large glass of water really be the "diet game changer" some mainstream media make it look like? Or, are we - once again - dealing with the abuse of science to attract readers by propagating dubious dieting myths? The advice to "drink a glass of water before every meal" is about as old as human efforts to lose weight. Yet despite the fact that an increase in daily water consumption is widely advocated as a useful tool to aid weight loss and even included in popular weight loss programs like Weight Watchers , there is, according to the latest systematic review of the association between water consumption and body weight,  little evidence to support this practice outside of energetically restricted interventions (Muckelbauer. 2013). In other words: While we do have evidence that replacing caloric beverages with water/diet beverages works (Tate. 2012), we have little evidence that simply drinking more will accelerate weight loss and almost no evidence...

Grazing not allowed! Usually, I don't do this in the introduction of an article, but in this case, it fits so nicely that I just can't resist to prepend todays SuppVersity article with a citation from the conclusion of a recent paper in Pyschology and Behavior, a journal of which I believe that it covers the true reasons of the obesity pandemic... but I am digressing, here's your quote (Allroit. 2014): "Even if subjective and physiological data suggest a beneficial effect of frequent eating on appetite in obese men, no effect was demonstrated on energy intake. Moreover, the decrease in diet induced thermogenesis and lipolysis, reflected by NEFA profiles, could be deleterious on energy balance in the long run." What? Grazing ain't good for me? But my doctor (Oz?) said so! If you are still in the "I believe every word my doctor" says phase of your development as a free-thinking individual, it's probably a waste of time to read the rest...

Image 1: If you are still putting your Happy Meal on a scale, you should not wonder why your weight loss falls short of your "calculations" - especially if you happen to be a woman (img. elementsofwellness.com) While I would hope that most of you have by now embraced the notion that a calorie is not a calorie (at least, when it comes to nutritional calories), I suspect that one or two of you have still just been reviewing how much "calories" they have already eaten, or how much "cardio" they will have to do to compensate for the piece of pizza they are going to eat tomorrow at a friends party... > "STOP!" < this is what you should tell yourselves whenever thoughts like that are passing your mind (well, unless you are in the end-stage of your prep for a bodybuilding contest, I guess ;-) After all, a very recent study that is based on the results of two large-scale weight-interventions ( Heymsfield. 2012 ), i.e. the CALERIE study, condu...