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When you eat out at a restaurant, never order any drinks with ice to go with your meal, and not even chilled ones without ice.
Why? There are very good reasons, which we will reveal to you in this article.
Imagine what happens to your body and skin when you plunge into the cold water of a mountain lake where the ice has just melted.
Although the outside temperature may be pleasant, the water in the lake is still extremely cold and causes the pores on your skin to close immediately and the skin to tighten.
Cold water does exactly the same to your digestive tract.
Risks of drinking ice-cold water
But there’s more. Let’s take a closer look now at everything that happens in your body after drinking ice-cold water.
1. Ice-cold water constricts the blood vessels in the digestive tract. The digestive tract sort of closes and its hydration is reduced.
2. Your body must expend a lot of energy to restore its normal temperature after drinking cold water. This leaves little energy for the digestive tract to digest food and absorb nutrients.
3. Excess mucus begins to form in the body. This affects the proper functioning of the immune system and increases the risk of catching a cold, developing a chill, or another illness.
4. Drinking cold water and other beverages during or immediately after a meal can make you gain weight. In the stomach and intestines fats solidify, which are then insufficiently digested and remain undigested in the intestines or enter the bloodstream.
5. Drinking cold water leads to dilution of stomach acids, which further disrupts digestion, especially of proteins.
Although some people think that drinking cold water will help them burn more calories, that is not true. The overall effect of disturbed digestion has exactly the opposite effect on the body and, moreover, harms it.
Benefits of drinking lukewarm water
Instead of drinking ice-cold water, favor water at room temperature or lukewarm water.
However, drink it either 10 to 15 minutes before a meal or up to an hour after a meal, so as not to dilute stomach acids.
The main benefits of drinking lukewarm water include:
- faster hydration
- support for digestion, because warm water before a meal stimulates the production of digestive juices and enzymes
- better transit of food through the intestines (ideally lukewarm water with fresh lemon juice every morning)
- blood purification
- improved detoxification through the lymphatic system, the skin, and the kidneys
Try to develop the habit of drinking lukewarm water and you will soon notice its beneficial effects on yourself. It may even eliminate various food cravings, such as the desire for sweets.
