The importance of drinking water and the role it plays in your health and weight loss can not be underestimated. Considering that without water, life cannot exist and that 70 percent of your body is made up of water. Did you know that teeth are 10% water, muscle tissue 75% the brain 80% and blood 90%? There is not one function in the body that is not dependent on water. Just how important is your drinking water anyway?

When you have something in tremendous abundance, it’s presence everywhere so plentiful that you could never exhaust it’s supply, you cannot help but take it for granted. Such is the case with water.
-Harvey Diamond

My first weight loss guru was Harvey Diamond. I give him much respect for what he’s gone through in his life and his ability to use natural hygiene and natural health techniques to survive his exposure to agent orange during the Vietnam war. Harvey Diamond co-authored Fit for Life and Fit For Life 2 with his wife Marilyn Diamond and they were two of my first weight loss bibles.

From Fit For Life 2, we learn about the importance of water in the functioning of the human body.

When you reflect on how extensively water is involved in the functioning of the body, you can’t help buy be held in awe. Consider some of the more important functions of water in the body:

1. Water supports all of the nutritive processes, from digestion and absorption to utilization and excretion. From the moment food enters your mouth, every process necessary to transform it from a food to blood, bone, muscle and tissue depends on water.
2. Water holds nutrients in solution and transports all food necessary for life to the various parts of the body.
3. Water holds wastes and toxins that it picks up from the cells and carries them to the organs of elimination.
4. Water is essential constituent of all cells and tissues and of all body fluids. Without sufficient water you would have no saliva. Since gastric juices are practically all water, without it the food in your stomach couldn’t digest. Your vital lifeline, the blood, is over 90% water. The organs that perform the functions of life are all more water than anything else.
5. Water keeps the various mucous membranes of the body soft and prevents friction between tissue surfaces. Without some kind of lubricant in your body, organs would stick together and tear.
6. Water is the chief agent in regulating body temperature, serving much as does water balance in the body is so crucial to our health is this relationship to temperature control and regulation. An internal temperature change of only a few degrees can mean death.

Your body normally expels about one gallon of water per day which must be replaced every day as well. You may think that you don’t pee that much, but remember that water is expelled through feces and sweat as well.

The very next question is of course what kind of drinking water should I consume? Which drinking water is the best. More on that soon, however, for now, Harvey gives this simple tip on how to drink more water.

Tips For Drinking More Water

• When you’re thirsty, Drink
• Drink a glass of water upon rising in the morning
• Drink a glass of water 10 minutes before each meal

Water leaves the stomach quickly, in as little as 5 minutes, so drink your water before your meal, not during or after.

Drinking water with your meal or after your meal will dilute your gastric juices that are digesting your meal, and prolong or slow your digestive process. Drink your water before your meals for improved digestion. I wrote some other weight loss tips in regards to how to drink more water last week so have a look if you like.

I had the honor of interviewing Harvey for an hour and half, so if you’re interested in learning more about natural health and weight loss, have a listen to my Harvey Diamond Interview.