Does Drinking Ice Water Burn More Calories Than Tepid Water?

For years, we’ve all been under the impression that drinking ice water can boost metabolism, burn more calories, and help you lose more weight.

The idea seems to stem from the fact that your body has to expend more energy to convert ice water to a warmer temperature to be absorbed.

While that is “technically” true, the difference between drinking ice water and tepid water is so insignificant that it’s barely worth trying.

How Your Body Absorbs Water

After you drink a glass of water, your body has to use up energy in order to convert it to a temperature it can use to keep you hydrated. Let’s say you drink one 8-ounce glass of ice water right now. While the numbers may vary, your body really only expends about 1 to 8 calories to convert that entire glass of water. If you consume the recommended 64 ounces of water a day, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll burn any more than 8 to 64 calories solely from drinking ice water.

Burning Calories To Lose Weight

In order to lose just one pound of body fat, you would have to burn more than 3,500 calories. So, if you’re trying to lose weight by drinking gallons of ice water, you’d better start drinking—because you would need to consume 400 to 3,500 glasses every day to see a difference! Even if you could physically force yourself to drink that much water (which you can’t), you would probably make yourself sick before you even started losing weight.

Water & Healthy Weight Loss

Drinking ice water may not help you lose weight, but staying hydrated overall is critical to burning fat. In fact, making sure you drink enough water can give your body a sense of fullness to keep you from overeating. Water also helps keep your digestive system function properly to flush out excess waste that may cause you to look bloated and heavy. The American Heart Association recommends drinking no less than 64 ounces of water each day, but you should add about 8 ounces more for every 30 minutes that you exercise. As far as drinking tepid or ice water goes, the difference is so small that you should just opt for the temperature that feels most comfortable to you.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

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