Is water making you fat?

 I deliberately made the headline very provocative.  I am going to go on a tangent but hear me out.

The cause of obesity is unknown, despite numerous studies.  A whole diet industry exists with the intention of keeping people fat, and 99.999% of diets fail.  The idea of CICO (calories in and calories out) is false, but there is obviously some correlation between calories eaten and weight.  Here is a hypothesis: when you eat polluted food, your body reacts to the toxin, which causes inflammation.  Fighting obesity requires eating less food (obviously), but also eating a better quality of food, and treating the inflammation.  We know that chronic inflammation is linked to weight gain, whether cause or effect. We know that inflammation is linked to fluid retention, whether cause or effect.  Inflammation could be caused by food allergies.  But could inflammation be partially treated by consuming less fluids?

If you hear someone say dismissively, “Oh, you just lost water weight,” they’re right (at first), because eating foods you are allergic to causes inflammation, which leads to swelling and fluid retention. Getting rid of this fluid by reducing inflammation is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. It is what will allow your body to start the healing process so you can achieve permanent weight loss and optimal health. Consuming a low-allergy diet for just 1 week will help you eliminate the excess swelling and fluid that accumulates in your tissues from food-induced chronic inflammation. Despite criticisms you may have heard about losing ONLY water weight, this is essential for you body to begin to heal and detoxify. And the side effect is that you lose significant weight — quickly and safely.

https://drhyman.com/blog/2012/01/27/inflammation-how-to-cool-the-fire-inside-you-thats-making-you-fat-and-diseased/

It is very important to reduce the inflammation.  The best way is by identifying the cause of it, a toxin or allergen, and eliminating it from your diet.  But it isn't always clear what the cause is.  Another way of reducing the inflammation is by consuming less water.

Boxers have a protocol to rapidly lose weight to qualify for a certain weight class.  It involves deliberately being dehydrated.  They can lose 15-30 lbs within a few days.  Then after the weigh-in, they regain the weight.

As your body is mostly water - the quickest way to lose weight is to get rid of most of that water. Over the course of five days, you'll push your body into a state of dehydration. At the peak of the protocol you'll have lost anywhere from 15-30lbs and then you'll put it all back on in the next 24 hours.

https://commandoboxing.com/quickest-way-to-lose-weight-fast

Being mildly dehydrated will reduce water weight, which is very important, and it will reduce inflammation.

Now let's talk about dry fasting.  This can be very dangerous, because some people could die with 3 days without water.  However, I think dry fasting for a short period of time, no longer than 16 hours, could be beneficial.  When the body needs water, it can extract it from fat.

advocates of dry fasting claim it helps to burn three times more fat than regular fasting. That’s because when our bodies are out of water, they start looking for ways to make it ourselves. Interestingly, our fat is full of water. For every 100 grams of fat, the body can produce 110 grams of metabolic water, while 100 grams of carbohydrates yields only 55 grams of water. This means that the body intensifies the fat burn in order to make more water.

https://dofasting.com/blog/dry-fasting/

The conventional wisdom is that you must drink 8 cups of water per day, that you should never become dehydrated, and that you must drink lots of water to lose weight.

I am challenging the conventional wisdom.  I would like to see the studies on this question.  I am certainly not opposed to drinking water, and if you are thirsty, you should drink.  I am against forcing yourself to drink some quota.  And I believe that being dehydrated for a short period of time could be healthy because you reduce inflammation and increase your fat burning.  If you never experience mild dehydration, you never experience these benefits.  

A further hypothesis is that if you just paid attention to your natural thirst and only drank when thirsty and ate when hungry, not out of habit or perceived requirement, that you would lose weight naturally.  It is the act of drinking water that is preventing you from this weight loss.  The water itself, while not making you fat, is keeping you fat.

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Update:  See also: https://simple.life/blog/dry-fasting/

A 2020 study concluded that dry fasting offers “short-term antioxidant, anti-ischemic, immune-stimulating, anti-edematous, and anti-inflammatory effects.” In other words, dry fasting can potentially boost immunity, decrease inflammation, decrease edema and fluid retention, and reduce ischemia – a restriction of the blood vessels.

Intermittent dry fasting is when dry fasting is done periodically. Your body gets a chance to rehydrate and refuel within each 24-hour period, which makes this the safest form of dry fasting.