What do we think about water when we think of it as a part of a meal? Usually, people (me included) think about two things:
- Water dilutes the gastric (digestive) juices and may make digestion more difficult and taxing for the body, and..
- Water makes us feel full faster, thus causing us to eat less
I will not discuss the first line of thought. But, I want to share with you what I found out about the second…
There are two ways we can include water in a meal: 1) in a glass, available for us to drink during the meal; and 2) added to the meal.
Well, it turns out that when water is in a glass it doesn’t seem to influence satiety (the time that passes to your next meal, because of how full you felt during the previous meal). In other words, with or without water available (and consumed) at a meal we tend to leave the table with the same level of satiety. On the other hand, when water is added to the meal itself (like, you make a soup by adding water to a casserole dish), we tend to eat approximately 27 percent less at the next meal. This is very interesting. I’ve linked to the study above.
So, if your goal is to eat less Calories – as if you were trying to lose fat/decrease body weight – and one of your big problems is lack of satiety and subsequent overeating, you may want to try adding water (or broth) to your meal instead of having it available in a glass during your meal.