According to research out of the University of Birmingham, drinking half a litre of water 30 minutes before a main meal may be the secret to weight loss.

Over the course of the 12-week study, obese adult participants were recruited from general practices and monitored closely. Each of them was given a weight management consultation, where they were advised on how to adapt their lifestyle to improve their diet and levels of physical activity.

Of the recruits, 41 were asked to drink water before their meals over the 12-week period, while another 43 were advised to imagine that they had a full stomach.

At the end of the study period, those in the group who were instructed to “preload” with water lost, on average, 2.87 pounds more than those in the control group. Furthermore, over the 12 weeks, those in that same group reported a loss of 9.48 pounds while the others only lost an average of 1.76 pounds.

“The beauty of these findings is in the simplicity,” says Dr Helen Parretti, a lecturer at the University of Birmingham. “Just drinking a pint of water, three times a day, before your main meals may help reduce your weight.”

Continues Parretti, “when combined with brief instructions on how to increase your amount of physical activity and on a healthy diet, this seems to help people to achieve some extra weight loss at a moderate and healthy rate. It’s something that doesn’t take much work to integrate into our busy everyday lives.”