Drinking more water can actually help you stay lean. Your kidneys depend on water to do their job of filtering waste products from the body. In a water shortage, the kidneys need backup, so they turn to the liver for help. One of the liver’s many functions is mobilizing stored fat for energy. By taking on extra assignments from the kidneys, the liver can’t do its fat-burning job as well. Fat loss is compromised as a result. Researchers from Basel, Switzerland, investigated the role that cellular hydration plays in fat-burning and protein synthesis by looking at well-hydrated versus poorly hydrated cells. They found that under conditions of hypo-osmolality—which is essentially hyperhydration (lots of hydration in cells)—the subjects burned more fat because their bodies tapped into fat, rather than carbohydrate, for fuel. They also found that dehydration prevents adequate protein synthesis. If gaining muscle is your goal, you should care about the hydration state of your muscle cells (also called cell volumization). In a well-hydrated muscle cell, protein synthesis is stimulated and protein breakdown is decreased. On the other hand, dehydration of muscle cells promotes protein breakdown and inhibits protein synthesis. Cell volumization has also been shown to influence genetic expression (the process by which a gene carries out DNA instructions), enzyme and hormone activity, and metabolism. Bottom line: When you guzzle down that bottle of water, you’re potentially boosting not only fat burning but also the maintenance of normal cell volume levels that are important for muscle protein levels. In addition, water can help take the edge off hunger so that you eat less, and it has no calories. If you are on a high-protein diet, water is required to detoxify ammonia, a by-product of protein energy metabolism. And, as you burn off stored fatty acids as energy, you release any fat-soluble toxins that have been benignly stored in your fat cells. The more fluid you drink, the more you dilute the toxins in your bloodstream and the more rapidly they exit the body.
