Do you remember the Stillman Diet? It was an early form of the high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that was created by Dr. Irwin Stillman in 1967. Unlike the still-popular Atkins diet, it was also low-fat, so that your food choices were really limited; you could only eat lean meats, eggs, cottage cheese, and coffee, tea, or noncaloric soft drinks on this diet. Condiments such as butter or any kind of oil were forbidden. Talk about feeling like you were eating cardboard after a few days! AND, you had to drink at least eight 8 oz glasses of water a day.

This diet was quite popular when I was in college. You wanted to lose 5 pounds in the 5 days before your hot date? Go on the Stillman diet. I remember one college friend whose version of this diet was a quart of lowfat cottage cheese and several Tabs for each meal, in addition to the requisite water.

But… it did work. And we all thought that there was something magical about drinking all that water.

Now comes a recent study showing again that drinking water can aid in weight loss; although the directions for drinking water in this study are much more reasonable (and doable) than in the diets of old.  Funded by the Institute for Public Health and Water Research, a nonprofit, independent science and education organization, this study was presented at the 2010 National Meeting of the American Chemical Society held in Boston on Aug. 22-26, 2010, by its lead author and researcher, Brenda Davy, PhD, on faculty at Virginia Tech.

The study followed adults ages 55-75 who were placed on a low calorie diet. One group drank two glasses of water before each meal, and the other group did not; both groups were on the same low calorie diet. At the end of 12 weeks, the group that drank water before meals had lost nearly 5 pounds more, and kept it off for 12 months, than did the group that had not drank water before meals. The author noted that those who drank sugary drinks before each meal, and not water, did not lose the same amount of weight as those who drank water.

The hypothesized reason for this “magical” property of water on weight loss? The author says that other of their studies have shown that those who drink 2 glasses of water before each meal consumed between 75 and 90 fewer calories during the meal, leading to the assumption that people who drink water before meals are actually fuller when they begin to eat food, and thus eat less. Nothing magical about that!

The next question that always follows any discussion of the role of water in good nutrition is exactly how much water should you be drinking daily? The truth is that there is not a set amount that every person should drink per day; in other words, it depends on many things, such as how much activity you do, how much you sweat, and how balanced your fluid intake and output has been over the prior few days. What makes up your “output”? It includes how much you urinate, how much fluid there is in your stool (this occurs only with diarrhea), how much you’ve sweat, and how much you bring up if you vomit.  So you can see that how much fluid you need depends on what your day has been like. If you’ve worked out a lot and sweat heavily, obviously, you need more fluid than you do on days you haven’t worked out. Same goes for if you’ve had diarrhea. And in the specific case of menopausal women (us), we almost automatically need more fluids than earlier in our lives because of those hot flashes and night sweats.

So, again, how much fluid do you need in your diet? Some experts say that you should let thirst be your guide.  But thirst is not always the best indicator because some people may not notice their thirst until they are very dehydrated. Other symptoms of mild dehydration may occur before thirst, such as dizziness, headache, or very concentrated urine.

What do I usually recommend? I tell my patients that they should get in about 8  eight ounce glasses of fluid per day – including water, coffee, tea and other non-sugary beverages. Can you drink too much pure water? Not usually IF you have normal kidney and heart function; although with excessive amounts of pure water (more than about 8 glasses a day), even with normal kidneys and heart, one can get an unusual syndrome known as “water intoxication.”

Bottom line: Do drink fluids before your meals and do try to get in around 8 eight ounce glasses of fluids per day. This intake should include water, but not be limited to water. Drink more than this only if you are thirsty or if you have recently been very active or sweating a lot. And know that the added benefit of drinking water before you eat is that it can help you to lose or maintain your weight by causing you to eat less, especially if you are watching your calories.