Hot vs Cold Water Debate Keeps on Flowing
It has been an interesting week here at PICFIT. I have been reading with great interest, the debate on hot and cold water in the nutrition group. There are some very valid comments made by our health professionals on the site, that hot water or tea with a meal aids digestion. What started out as a question of whether you should eat fruit in the morning turned into a watery topic.
I also went online to learn more about this topic and there is much conflict but also some really valid articles on it as well.
Generally people do seem to agree about the fact that a warm drink with your meal is generally better for you, but drinking cold water after exercising or to sip on through the day while working is generally still healthy for you. Cold water helps to cool down the body after an active workout and let's face it, if it is a choice between drinking cold water or something with a high sugar content, water wins hands down. Even juice has a very high sugar content. Water has no calories and drinking cold water burns 17.5 calories to warm it up.
People with a fever or sunstroke shouldn't be given cold water as it could make them shiver which heats up your body even more. It is important to hydrate the body quickly in these cases so giving them room temperature or slightly warm water is actually better in this case as well.
I personally like drinking cold water and find it helps me to stay hydrated through the day and keeps my belly happy.
The purpose of water is to hydrate our body, so the most important thing is to actually drink water. Don't wait until you feel thirsty to have a drink of water. Always keep some with you so you can sip have a guzzle of it every few minutes.
Personally, I'm not much of a water sipper.. it could sit there for a couple hours then I just gulp it down. Others like to sip slowly all day. So go ahead, visit the Nuturion group and add your own comments about whether you drink warm or cold water and hey, even if you are a sipper or a gulper.. . http://picfit.ning.com/group/nutrition/forum/topics/eating-fruit-first-thing-in
Here are a couple other resource links to check out on the topic:
http://www.wisegeek.com/is-it-bad-for-my-body-to-drink-cold-water.htm
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_drinking_cold_water.htm
and the debate goes on.
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