Guzzling an extra couple glasses of water a day not only enhances fat mobilization, it might also positively influence body composition. Researchers at Virginia Tech put 48 subjects on a reduced-calorie diet for 12 weeks. Half of the test subjects drank 17 ounces of water before each meal. At the end of the experiment, the subjects in the non-water group lost about seven pounds of fat, while the water group lost almost 12 pounds of fat, or about 64 percent more. This is important news for anyone on a diet. Losing muscle while cutting calories is a major concern, and the results of this study suggest that drinking extra water means more of the weight lost on a diet comes from broken-down body-fat stores rather than catabolized muscle.
