Calories in Water?

Since when does water have calories? I have been seeing all of these commercials on water that has less calories than another water. Why? Because every business is looking for an edge. Beverage companies are now adding flavors, vitamins, minerals and other things in water in order to increase their market share.

Water should have zero calories, zero fat, zero protien, zero carbohydrates, zero everything! Just plain old water is what your body needs. There are some waters that have flavorings. As long as they have zeroes on the nutrition label you are fine.

Now I am going to take this a little further. Sports drinks. The adds say "if you sweat you lose electrolites and they need to be replaced". That is not entirely accurate. If you work out for 20 to 30 minutes you should be sweating. but you do not sweat enough that you need to drink a sugary sports drink. Sports drinks are good if you work out for more than an hour. Even then I would recommend you drink the less sugary stuff like Gatorade's G2. The regular sports drinks are really made for athletes that work long and hard almost every day. Water is plenty good for the rest of us.

My recommendation for anyone trying to lose weight is to look at what you are drinking every day. Even drinking diet colas should be replaced with water. I like to use the guideline of one ounce of water for every pound of weight. For instance, if you weigh 180 pounds then you should drink 180 ounces of water every day. that equates to 11.25 16 ounce bottles of water. That is a lot of water but it is effective in keeping you hydrated when working out and will aid in losing weight. You could also be more conservative and figure out how many cans of soda you drink in a day and aim to drink that much in water instead.

The bottom line is plain water is the best thing for you. Never mind the hype.