Wu-Yi Health Tea

What else should you do to help weight loss when drinking Wu-Yi Tea, a few simple things

- go for an easy 30 minute walk (or swim, or cycle) three times a week
- don’t eat after 7:30pm (it slows down your metabolism)
- drink 8 glasses of water a day (most people are actually dehydrated) – this is VERY important point – read on below for more information.

Water is essential for your body to metabolize stored fat into energy. Your body’s metabolism can be slowed by even relatively mild levels of dehydration. The slower your metabolism, the slower your weight loss (and the greater your fatigue), until eventually your weight loss just crawls to a halt, and you hit the dreaded diet plateau.

Water is a natural appetite suppressant. In the hypothalamus, a region in your brain that controls appetites and cravings, the control centers for hunger and thirst are located next to each other, and there tends to be some overlap. This has both advantages and disadvantages for the dieter: on the down side, it means that chronic mild dehydration can confuse these control mechanisms, leading to feelings of hunger, rather than thirst. But on a positive note, it means you can use water to reduce your appetite. For example, in one University of Washington study, drinking a glass of water reduced nighttime hunger cravings for most of the dieters studied.

Water is an essential component of the processes that enable muscle to contract. This means that water helps to maintain muscle tone. Better muscle tone means a better looking body, and isn’t that what dieting and weight loss is about?

Water also helps to prevent the sagging skin that often follows weight loss – water plumps the skin cells, giving the skin a younger and healthier look.

Water helps rid the body of waste. During weight loss, the body has a lot more waste to get rid of, as a byproduct of all that metabolized fat. So adequate water is essential to your health while dieting.

So how much water should you drink daily, for a healthy and ‘adequate’ intake? First, a couple of basic principles:
The easiest way to tell if you are drinking enough water is to monitor the color of your urine: It should be clear or a very pale yellow in color. (but note that some supplements and medications may also affect your urine color).

1. Get in to the habit of drinking regular and adequate amounts of water. Never wait to drink until you’re thirsty, because if you’re feeling thirsty, then dehydration has already started to occur!
2. Having said that, an adequate water intake for a sedentary but normal-weight adult during cool weather, is generally recognized as 8 x 8 oz glasses.

Remember, you need additional water in hot weather, when you lose more water through sweat.

You also need additional water when you exercise. Athletes attempt to enhance their performance by maintaining an optimal fluid balance while exercising, estimated to require 6 to 12 oz of fluid at 15 to 20 minute intervals. Even if you’re not concerned about your athletic performance, you should consume a similar amount of water when exercising, in order to maintain adequate hydration.

And if you’re overweight, you’ll need an extra glass of water for each 25 pounds overweight, because the extra weight creates extra metabolic demand

But how do you manage to drink so much water? A typical recommendation from the weight loss experts is 3 glasses of water with every meal. That’s 3 glasses with breakfast, 3 with lunch, and 3 with dinner. Plus, of course, additional regular water between meals when you’re exercising or when its hot. It’s quite daunting to drink 3 glasses at a sitting, so spread them out, drink 1 glass 10-20 minutes before a meal, 1 glass during your meal (I recommend adding a squeeze of lemon juice), 1 glass after your meal. Plus it helps to replenish your hydration levels if your drink water after each visit to the restroom. Plus after brushing your teeth. These “events” are just reminder triggers.

So if you’re dieting, stalled on a weight loss plateau, or suffering some of the classic symptoms of dehydration, do, first of all, ensure that you have an adequate water intake. It could be the ‘missing ingredient’ in your diet regime.