Search icon

Fitness & Health

27th Aug 2015

This one simple trick could help you lose weight, scientists say

Genius...

Ben Kenyon

What’s the best way to lose weight?

The answer to that might sound obvious – expend more calories than you take in. You won’t win any scientific prizes for sussing that one out.

But a new piece of research says there’s one simple trick you can do every day that will help you on your way.

Just drinking one pint of water before each meal could help obese people shed the pounds, according to a new study.

time animated GIF

University of Birmingham researchers got one set of obese subjects to pre-load on 500ml of water before every meal and another set just to ‘imagine they were full.’

The pre-loaders lost an average of 4.3kg over 12 weeks while the group that just used their imaginations lost only 0.8kg.

Speaking in the Independent, Dr Helen Parretti, NIHR Clinical Lecturer at the university, said: “The beauty of these findings is in the simplicity. Just drinking a pint of water, three times a day, before your main meals may help reduce your weight.
“It’s something that doesn’t take much work to integrate into our busy everyday lives.”