Does Drinking Lemon Water REALLY Help You Lose Weight?

Sad news for lemon water lovers—lemon water doesn’t really help all that much with weight loss.

Don’t lose hope quite yet. Drinking lemon water is still a healthy thing to do because it contains vitamin C. Vitamin C has a lot of functions in the human body. It can help strengthen immune systems weakened by stress, which is great if you’re juggling a lot of things in your life. It can also boost your immune system, reduce the risks of stroke, among many other health benefits.

However, lemon water shouldn’t be the end-all, be-all of your weight loss diet plan. It can help you lose weight in some way, but as of yet, there’s no hard evidence to prove that drinking lemon water will definitely help you lose weight.

Lemon water is one of the newest things in an extensive line of diet fads. There are a lot of benefits of weight loss, which is why these fads pop up now and then. Lemon water has great benefits. For one thing, it can be an effective way to start the day. If you’re staying away from caffeine but you need something to kickstart your day, warm lemon water is an appropriate alternative.

Not only that—lemon water also contains vitamin C. Vitamin C can boost your immune system and give you a lot of other health benefits, which are like the benefits of weight loss.

So, if you’ve been drinking lemon water regularly, that’s a good thing and you should continue. However, don’t put much stock into its weight loss capabilities and get your hopes up. It’s not really the most scientific of weight loss 2017 fads, mostly because of misinterpretation and not because the research behind it isn’t sound. Drinking lemon water is an effective way to maintain your overall health, and it does somewhat help people lose weight—just not in the way you’d think.

The Science Behind Lemon Water

It turns out that the lemon water-making technique leaves out the part of the lemon that has an impact on losing weight: the rind.

In 2008, a group of Japanese researchers claimed that polyphenols, which are antioxidant micronutrients, in lemons reduced weight gain and increased metabolism in mice. This study may have been the provenance of this latest weight loss 2017 fad.

It’s kind of the perfect recipe for an extremely marketable diet craze. There’s research behind it, and it’s relatively easy to do. Unfortunately, the claims about the effectiveness of lemon water in losing weight took the findings of the study and kind of just ran with it. Knowledge about scientific studies may be one of the benefits of weight loss efforts, but not if the results aren’t analyzed properly.

Lemon water isn’t a very effective part of weight loss diet plans. These claims failed to take a few considerations regarding the study into account. One is that the researchers tested their claims on mice, not humans. Though mice and humans may have a lot of genetic similarities, it’s always best to test the effectiveness of a claim, especially if it’s about diet, on humans. There hasn’t been an in-depth study on the effects of lemon water on humans yet.

Another thing is that in the study, the mice were fed lemon rinds, not lemon water or even lemon juice. This is something that proponents of the fad kind of conveniently left out or didn’t independently consider properly. It’s the lemon rinds that contain much of the polyphenols in a lemon fruit. Even if you place lemon rinds in lemon water, however, you still won’t be consuming as much as the mice in the study did. In fact, even consuming entire lemons won’t be effective as a weight loss technique. That’s not a good addition to your weight loss diet at all. It’s kind of a huge oversight, but here we are. Therefore, your weight loss 2017 plans shouldn’t hinge around drinking lemon water.

Loading up on lemons is also a bad idea. Lemons are acidic, and including a lot of them in your diet can damage your teeth. Even if vitamin C in lemons is great for your health, the acidity in the lemon juice can upset your stomach if you drink too much. It’s therefore best to keep your consumption of lemons moderate.

Don’t Write Lemon Water Off Just Yet!

Drinking lemon water can still help you lose weight in other ways, though, and you should keep it in your weight loss diet. If you’re trying to cut down on your food intake, you can opt to drink lemon water. This is especially good if you’re not fond of water and you’d like something that tickles your taste buds. Thus, you don’t have to kick lemon water out of your weight loss 2017 plans. Just make sure that you consider how much lemon water is safe to drink to avoid an upset stomach.

Lemon water is also a great alternative to soda and juices packed with sugar. If you’ve ever checked the sugar content in most sodas and commercial juices, you might have wished you hadn’t looked at all. There’s a lot of sugar in these drinks, which is good for neither your health or your weight.

Drinking lemon water can thus help you maintain your health as well as your diet plan by giving you alternatives that will stop you from gaining weight. One of the benefits of weight loss regimens is that it pushes you to stay healthy.

As far as actually losing weight, though, lemon water won’t be all that effective. Next time you see a celebrity sing praises of this beverage, you’ll know better than to believe them. In fact, from now on, it may be best to take celebrity-endorsed fads with a grain of salt and a healthy dose of skepticism.

Still, drink up! Lemon water may not be great for weight loss, but it’s great for other things. If you keep consumption at moderate levels, it’s a healthy choice of beverage.

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