Liquids have more of an effect on your weight than you might realize. The effects, of course, vary depending on the type of beverage, and it is a big help if you can familiarize yourself with the ways in which beverages can interact with your calorie intake and metabolism.

Beverage Components and Your Body

Some of the research into how your body reacts to beverages has focused on components of the drinks. For example, green tea contains catechins, which may speed up — at least temporarily — your body’s ability to drop weight. The effect does appear to be short-lived, and you’d need to drink green tea fairly often. And if you’re a diet soda drinker, the jury is still out regarding whether diet sodas contribute to weight gain or weight loss.

Liquid Calories and Filling Up

Components aside, most liquids have calories. These count toward your daily calorie limits just as much as food does. If you tend to drink mindlessly (alcohol or not), you could also end up munching on bar nuts and other snacks.

On the flip side of this is the ability of calorie-free or low-calorie beverages to fill you up and make you feel like you no longer want to eat. Research released in 2015 found that drinking a lot of water before each meal did seem to be linked with weight loss.

Dieters also need to remember that sometimes your mind misinterprets thirst as hunger. You can end up eating too much if you don’t keep those signals straight, so a handy piece of advice is to drink some water if you feel hungry but don’t actually feel or hear your stomach growling.

Water Weight and Water Retention

As you continue with your weight loss efforts, you have to remember to take water weight and water retention into account. Your body can easily retain a couple of pounds of water, affecting what you see on the scale.

Not drinking enough water can also lead to more water retention and thus more water weight. If you become dehydrated, your body starts to conserve the water it has. Drinking more water can actually prompt your body release the retained water.

You do need water, and your tastebuds benefit from other beverages. When you know how these drinks interact with your body, you can change your diet to better work with the effects.