When you start a weight loss program - almost any weight loss program - you almost always lose at least 10 pounds fairly quickly. Sometimes you lose it in mere days, while with others it might take you a couple of weeks to do.
Why is it that almost any diet or weight loss program seems to give you this result? Because usually you're not actually losing the ugly fat you really want to get rid of. Instead you're simply losing water weight.
Some diets cause you to lose this water weight quicker than others. Low carb diets for instance, are great at getting you to drop a quick ten pounds. And believe it or not: Some people can actually lose weight by simply drinking more water.
It sounds like an oxymoron doesn't it? Drink water and you'll lose water weight! But it's true. You see, your body tends to hold onto things it thinks it may not get more of very soon. If you deprive it of food for instance, it'll work extra hard hanging onto the resources from that food because it assumes there may be a long time before more is given to it.
The same thing happens with water. When you don't give your body enough water, it tends to try holding on to what it has in reserve. This way it's able to supply you with reduced capacity for a longer period of time. You may not operate at full efficiency with this rationed approach - but you'll live. And that's what your body is trying to do... just keep you alive.
If however, you start giving your body all the water it needs... more than it needs in fact... it will realize there's plenty of this, and it'll have no problem shedding the extra. After all, there's more coming in all the time, right?
And that's a secret to many diets that you don't see mentioned often. Almost every diet or weight loss plan on the market today starts out by telling you to drink more water. And yes, it is quite true that most people need to have more water throughout the day. But since so many people don't actually drink enough water to start with... when they do start as part of their new "diet", their body starts releasing the water it's been holding in reserve all this time.
The result? You see five or ten pounds gone when you step on the scale to weigh yourself! Often your clothes start to feel more comfortable too... because when your body retains water it has a bloated-ness to it. So shedding that extra water helps you to not be bloated anymore.
Now, this is an excellent first step to losing weight... but it's not one that creates a long lasting effect. Once you've gotten past that first hurdle of shedding the water weight and losing some of the bloatedness, then you must move on to actually shedding the real problem: Body fat. We'll cover that in more depth with future articles.
