JJ Virgin explains how dehydration triggers a metabolic chain reaction: your liver converts stored glycogen into fructose, then fat, letting your body store fat without extra calories. Even mild dehydration lowers metabolism and raises stress hormones that promote belly fat. Staying hydrated blocks this hidden fat-gain process.
Water is one of the greatest hacks for weight loss. Second of all, even mild dehydration can lower your metabolism. We know drinking water actually gives you a little bit of a metabolic boost. If you are mildly dehydrated, it also can impact stress hormones, which could cause some belly fat. But when you are dehydrated, what happens is your body has— you have carbohydrates you've stored in your liver as glycogen. What this has to do with dehydration is when you are mildly dehydrated, your body actually frees up the glycogen in your liver, converts it to fructose, which I didn't even know you could go back in the pathway that way. You can convert it back to fructose and turns it into fat. Here's how you can gain fat without changing any calories, right? You know, you didn't eat anything, you didn't drink anything, you're dehydrated. Your body is now holding onto and storing fat. So that if you were out in the desert, you could then burn that fat for fuel and liberate the water. So that's why you don't want to be dehydrated.
