If you want to see a bigger impact on your weight, make sure that you drink 8 ounces of water immediately before each meal.  This should make you feel full sooner and thus reduce the amount you eat at each meal. 

In order for this to work, you need to be paying attention to how full you feel while eating and eating reasonably slowly.  (We'll discuss this more in the future.)  If you eat the same amounts as before, without paying attention to how you feel, drinking a glass of water just before meals may only make you feel painfully full.

If you have a problem with feeling hungry between meals, drink a glass of water and postpone eating for a while and you may find that the hungry feeling goes away.

If you have a problem with cravings for junk food, drink an 8 ounce glass of water with a little lemon juice in it or a twist of lemon zest or a drop or two of lemon essential oil (food grade, not furniture polish!) and if you wait a few minutes your craving will probably go away.

All of this works better if you are eating three meals a day at regular meal times.  Drinking water will not make cravings go away if you skipped breakfast or lunch or if your dinner is delayed by three hours!  That's not craving - that's natural hunger.

Back to Step One.