While it is true that that water reduces hunger, many diet gurus and weight management experts also claim that drinking water aids weight loss because it helps your body burn more calories. How does water help your body burn more calories? It does not, well, technically it does, but the number of calories that you can expect to burn is very small.

But let’s assume you enjoy drinking a lot of water and would like to see for yourself if drinking water for weight loss actually works. How much water do you need to drink? According to the latest research, you need to drink two full cups of water every hour, which may help your body burn only about 20 extra calories.

Why only 20 calories? Because that is how many calories your body needs to expand to process two cup of water. By now you are probably thinking something like this: “Wait, man. If I can burn 20 extra calories every hour for at least 12 hours a day, it means I can burn 240 extra calories a day and about 6,720 calories a month. This is awesome!”

Right, there is just one problem. Yes, you can burn 240 extra calories a day, but to do that you need drink 24 cups of water, which is a lot of water to drink. If you think drinking water is harmless, think again. Excessive water intake can quickly lead to what is known as water intoxication, which could be deadly.

Bottom line: Drinking water for weight loss with a goal of burning extra calories is just not practical and potentially dangerous.

Side note: Did you know that you can accomplish the same result by jogging for 2 minutes? Yep, jugging for just 2 minutes burns 20 calories. Want to burn 240 extra calories a day? Jug for 24 minutes.