The amount of water you need for your health and for efficient weight loss really depends on your make up. The general rule for water intake is half your body weight in pounds. That is, if you are 150 pounds, then 150/2 = 75 ounces. Thus, you should be taking 75 ounces of water a day.

Thats only a general rule though, and you do need to adjust it.

That is because, for as a 150 pound person, these 75 ounces assumes that you are not doing any exercise and are in a moderately hydrated location where you won't experience excessive water loss. For example, if you are exercising, work in an air conditioned place or mostly outdoors on a really hot day, and then you'll need to drink more to replace this extra water loss. Again, the formula is assuming that you are not doing any sort of extra strenuous activity, not overly sweating or losing water rapidly in some form or another.

So again, if you weigh 150 pounds, then 150/2 = 75 ounces per day would work great. Since one cup is usually about 8 ounces, that means that you need to have over 9 glasses of water a day just to flush toxins out of your body and give the body the water it needs to function optimally. Don't forget, if you workout intensely and experience a lot of sweating, or sit in an air-conditioned office all day long, you will need to add another couple of glasses in your day to replace this extra water loss.

By the way, these 9 glasses for a 150 pound person does not include soda, juice or any other fluid with 'high water content'. It has to be pure water only. My recommendation is pure spring water. Evian is my favourite - and it's not because of the branding. Most lower brand water is nothing more than slightly filtered tap water.

If you drink anything with caffeine in it (coffee, tea or soda's), then you will have to drink at least 2 glasses of water on top of your 9 -10 glasses a day JUST to replace all the water lost through your drink. Caffeine is a diuretic - what this means to you is that it is leaching more water from your body than what it is putting in. You are definitely going to need an extra glass for each caffeinated drink that you consume.

Just on that thought, let's take a side bar for a minute....

Ok so you know about diuretics, that cause you to lose water - but are there any foods or drinks that add to the water in your system. Yes there are. I am talking about raw fruits and vegetables. Now, I don't recommend you count them towards your daily water intake, but treat it as a bonus. Please understand that I am talking about the actual fruit and vegetable, not the juice form of it, as I mentioned above. Since you are trying to lose weight, having a certain type of vegetable can actually decrease the amount of calories you eat, apart from hydrating you. In fact some of these vegetables make up what is popularly known as the Negative Calorie Diet. Yes, it does exist, and you can read about it by clicking on that link.

Ok, back to how much water you should be taking in...

For a 150 pound person, 9 - 10 glasses a day is a great place to start, but you also need to gauge your fluid outflow.

Fluid outflow?

Basically I am talking about the frequency and the colour of your urine because this is the best gauge of how much water your body is in need of.

Healthy urine should be colourless and fairly odourless. Slightly discoloured urine means you are ALREADY dehydrated. If you start feeling thirsty, then you are severely dehydrated.

If you're someone who does not put enough water into their body like most of the population, then when you do start properly hydrating your body, you will initially end up visiting the bathroom very frequently. That's because it feels like it needs to flush out the toxins right NOW when it does have an excess of water. With your toxins flushed out, your kidneys are now free to break down your fat for energy more efficiently.

Give your body a few days to adjust; it will catch on to the fact that you are adequately hydrating yourself so your visits to the toilet will be a lot less frequent. You will still be going to the bathroom more than you did when you weren't having enough water. That's because your body is flushing out all the toxins at regular intervals - a really good thing.

Adequate hydration stops your body retaining excess water because, now, it doesn't feel like it is going through a drought anymore. It also helps your body realise that it can use the water for its natural biological processes in your body. All this contributes to your body functioning optimally so that you have the best chance to burn more fat.

Of course, if you are serious about weight loss you need to have a balanced diet including enough nutrition to support your body, as well as a comprehensive exercise program. This is apart from making sure you are hydrated.

So how can you get this done?

To create a balanced diet and an effective exercise program have a look at Tom Venuto's "Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle" Program. He goes into detail about these how to put everything in your weight loss plan together.