Another sparkling water quandary!

[Twinklecheeks]

I'm so confused...

A couple of weeks ago we established that we should only drink sparkling water in moderation. One person thought that this might be due to the sodium quantities in some bottled water which may make you retain some water. Since then I've been looking at the ingredients on bottled water and yes, some do have much more sodium than others. I've found one bottled sparkling water that contains much less sodium than most others, including still bottled water.

My question is this...most bottled waters both still and sparkling have "bottled at source" on them. How can they vary so much? I don't understand what happens to it at 'it's source' to make some contain much more than others. Obviously the 'fizz' has to be added to sparkling but does that really mean a load of other stuff is added too? I'm now wondering what the sodium quantities is in tap water. Does anyone know? I wonder if all water just contains it naturally from the ground? If so, then surely tap water contains all these ingredients too, we just don't think about it cause we can't read it on a label so we presume it hasn't got it in.

Again, this all boils down to...Why can't we drink bottled sparkling water freely? Especially if on the label it shows much less quantities of all the ingredients than say 'Buxton' spring water that we would buy and drink without blinking an eyelid...

The mind boggles....

Soz for the long post. My little mind is on over drive (cause I'm hungry and my BF is sat eating Bombay Mix and I want some lol) xxxx

 

[*lesley*]

I missed all this so not sure what happened but fizzy water is just water with fizz so whats the problem? it certainly did me no harm on TFR!
If you like it, best just get a sodastream as that really is just water with fizz and will most probably save money in the long run.

 

[Twinklecheeks]

Lesley, that was my argument when we were discussing it a few weeks ago. But somebody rang lipotrim and they said that we can have it but just in moderation and that most of our water intake should be plain water. Didn't give an explanation though as far as I know xx

 

[*lesley*]

it would be good to hear there reasoning behind it! x

 

[Shinypurple]

*sigh* Yes, I'm fed up of LT's pronouncements that have no explanations. Like why you can't count tea or coffee. Granted, caffeine is slightly diuretic, so you'll pee more, but that will only cancel out about a third of the liquid that comes with it. And it still doesn't explain why you can't count de-caff tea or coffee!

For your question about mineral waters - they vary depending on the geology of the particular area - ie the composition of the rocks that the water percolates through before coming back to the surface (the "source"), and therefore what minerals get dissolved into it along the way. This percolating can be an effective natural way of filtering and purifying the rainwater, and sometimes the water can actually come out very slightly gassy! In ancient times of course, these natural springs were very precious and desirable. Modern standards, however, are rather stricter (not least because so many pollutants have built up in the ground), so even when it's a "proper" mineral water, it will have to go through extra man-made purification and sterilisation as well. If you check the small print, even if it claims to be "naturally sparkling" they will have knocked any natural sparkle out of it while they're purifying and then they'll add more sparkle at the end!

Tap water will also depend a lot on the local geology, though it's likely to have been running in rivers and then left sitting in a reservoir for yonks. For example, "hard water" areas are where there's a lot of limestone. Limestone is made entirely of a mineral called calcium carbonate which dissolves very easily, but also comes back out of solution quite easily. In nature, that gives us amazing caves full of stalactites, and in our kettles gives us limescale. Can you guess I did geology at uni?! Anyway, tap water will have gone through a ton of filtering and purification and had stuff added to kill off germs and what have you before it gets to us. It may also have had some minerals added artificially, to give it some taste. Again, it varies an awful lot around the country.

So, personally, if I want still water, I get it out of a tap. If I want fizzy I get supermarket value-range "table water" (which is essentially the same as tap water) and a snip at 17 or 18p!

I've been doing LT for about 10 weeks in total and besides my shakes, virtually EVERYTHING else I drink is coffee/tea (some caffeinated, some de-caff) or fizzy table water. I reckon I've had barely a couple of litres of actual, plain water in that time. And you know what? I'm doing very well thank you very much, Lipotrim! I'm losing plenty of weight and I'm not dying of de-hydration.

Go figure!
Mx

 

[Louloubellehoney]

Hey girls I got this from wikipeadia,
It explains why they add salt.... and THAT is the MAIN culprit in the fizzy water syndrome... hence reason for drinking more plain tap or STILL bottled water (again watch the labels for salt content) Hope that helps a little... Lou xx

Carbon dioxide and water form carbonic acid (H2CO3),[2] which gives the water a slightly sour taste with a pH between 3 and 4.[3] An alkaline salt, such as sodium bicarbonate, may be added to soda water to reduce its acidity.
Carbon dioxide dissolved in water at a low concentration (0.2%–1.0%) cannot be tasted by humans, but the sour flavour of carbonic acid can be. The addition of a sodium or potassium salt can neutralize some of the acidic flavour of drinks that are made with soda water.

 

[Deezer]

Hey girls I got this from wikipeadia,
It explains why they add salt.... and THAT is the MAIN culprit in the fizzy water syndrome... hence reason for drinking more plain tap or STILL bottled water (again watch the labels for salt content) Hope that helps a little... Lou xx

Carbon dioxide and water form carbonic acid (H2CO3),[2] which gives the water a slightly sour taste with a pH between 3 and 4.[3] An alkaline salt, such as sodium bicarbonate, may be added to soda water to reduce its acidity.
Carbon dioxide dissolved in water at a low concentration (0.2%–1.0%) cannot be tasted by humans, but the sour flavour of carbonic acid can be. The addition of a sodium or potassium salt can neutralize some of the acidic flavour of drinks that are made with soda water.

How interesting is that???

Thanks chick!! x

 

[Twinklecheeks]

But isn't soda water different than sparkling water? Lou, I totally get what you're saying but if I look on the ingredients of a bottle of still water and say, it contains 34 whatever's of sodium and a bottle of sparkling water says that it contains 9 whatever's of sodium, would the still water still be better than the sparkling?

And thanks, Shinypurple, that was a very interesting read xxx

 

[Mackie197]

Hi ladies, it was my good self that rang Lipotrim and no they didn't give an explanation as to why we couldn't drink it. They said that both soda water and fizzy water should be drank in moderation. Personally I was looking for a reason as to why my weight loss was slow (2lb per week) and the week I stopped drinking fizzy I lost 5lbs. It may be a coincidence and for a lot of people, like Shinypurple it hasnt made a difference, so go for it! I just didnt want to go through the pain of this diet and inadvertently sabotage my chances of succeeding through not adhering to it fully! I reckon it must be down to the sodium levels as you've said...and am still temped to get a soda stream as Deezer says...good luck finding the answers any way! X

 

[Louloubellehoney]

But isn't soda water different than sparkling water? Lou, I totally get what you're saying but if I look on the ingredients of a bottle of still water and say, it contains 34 whatever's of sodium and a bottle of sparkling water says that it contains 9 whatever's of sodium, would the still water still be better than the sparkling?

And thanks, Shinypurple, that was a very interesting read xxx

Hiya, I wondered if the Soda Water might confuse you, Sparkling/fizzy water and soda water both contain sodium (salt) Hope that helps and clarifys..... And thanks Dee I thought it was interesting too XX

 

[Louloubellehoney]

Hi girls agin, To make it even plainer SALT in anything including water will make our bodies retain water instead of naturally losing it in our wee..... hence how it may affect weight loss... but same as Shinypurple says it made no differnce to her. Persoanlly I retain water in any case, so don`t need another pre~cursar to retaining anymore!! L xx

 

[Twinklecheeks]

Hiya, I wondered if the Soda Water might confuse you, Sparkling/fizzy water and soda water both contain sodium (salt) Hope that helps and clarifys..... And thanks Dee I thought it was interesting too XX

I'm still confused!!! But so does STILL water!! Both the STILL and SPARKLING Buxton bottled water contain EXACTLY the same amount of sodium...so how does it work??? Xxx

 

[Shinypurple]

Ok. So... We have to use Sodium (Na) as the best indicator of salts (NaCl, NaHCO3, etc).

We need (as an essential nutrient) about 1500mg daily of Sodium (Na), and 3 LT shakes gives us exactly that amount, so that's fine. The recommended upper limit for daily sodium is about 2300mg, so we definitely want to be having less than 800mg extra in our water (tea and coffee are pretty negligible).

Moving on to water, the levels for Na in mg/litre are what we need to be comparing (I'm going to round all numbers up or down to the nearest 0.5), so here are some bottled sparkling waters (taken from Tesco website):

Badoit = 165 (this also contains a lot of bicarbonates, suggesting that they have added Sodium Bicarbonate, as Louloubellehoney found in the wikipedia article...)
San Pellegrino = 36
Buxton = 24
Perrier = 12
Harrogate = 6
Highland Spring = 5.5
Isklar = 1

And here are "typical" values given for tap water in various places (from a number of local water authority websites):

Carlisle (CA3) = 18
Durham (DH1) = 7.5
Blackburn (BB1) (me) = 37
Liverpool (L1) = 10.5
Liverpool (L25) (my bf) = 19.5
Sheffield (S1) = 10.5
Norwich (NR3) = 24.5 to 31.5
Birmingham (B3) = 8
Gloucester (GL1) = 42
Walthamstow (E17) = 26 to 43
Wandsworth (SW17) = 27.5 to 37
Poole (BH15) = 12

(I'm not deliberately ignoring Scotland, NI, Wales etc - just couldn't find the info. If anyone's interested, I'll give you the links I found...)

So, (excluding the somewhat anomalous Badoit) these sparkling bottled waters are on average lower in sodium than the tap waters. My personal tap water is higher than ALL of them!

Of course, I can’t find definitive values for the basic fizzy table water that I drink. It just says “0g” for everything (which is useless to a scale of 1000!) but I am presuming that this is because they will use multiple water sources, with varying compositions, just the same as tap water. I’ve sent them an email query anyway, just on the off chance…

So. Armed with such logical evidence against this notion that fizzy water is bad because of the salt content (not that I'm clear on why that affects fat-burning, anyway) I phoned Lipotrim up today, ready to have an argument, if I didn't get a good explanation...

I asked about the fizzy water debate and the (very lovely-sounding) woman I spoke to said yes, limit it to one or two glasses a day. I asked why, and she said she'd need to ask someone else and phone me back. She asked what I drank in a day, so I told her I drink about 1.5 litres of fizzy water, and everything else is tea or coffee.

She phoned back within minutes and told me that the doctor says... (drumroll please...)

That's fine.

Oh.

As long as it's not flavoured water.

It's not.

That's perfectly fine, then.

Right.

I am now a little deflated...

 

[Louloubellehoney]

Ok. So... We have to use Sodium (Na) as the best indicator of salts (NaCl, NaHCO3, etc).

We need (as an essential nutrient) about 1500mg daily of Sodium (Na), and 3 LT shakes gives us exactly that amount, so that's fine. The recommended upper limit for daily sodium is about 2300mg, so we definitely want to be having less than 800mg extra in our water (tea and coffee are pretty negligible).

Moving on to water, the levels for Na in mg/litre are what we need to be comparing (I'm going to round all numbers up or down to the nearest 0.5), so here are some bottled sparkling waters (taken from Tesco website):

Badoit = 165 (this also contains a lot of bicarbonates, suggesting that they have added Sodium Bicarbonate, as Louloubellehoney found in the wikipedia article...)
San Pellegrino = 36
Buxton = 24
Perrier = 12
Harrogate = 6
Highland Spring = 5.5
Isklar = 1

And here are "typical" values given for tap water in various places (from a number of local water authority websites):

Carlisle (CA3) = 18
Durham (DH1) = 7.5
Blackburn (BB1) (me) = 37
Liverpool (L1) = 10.5
Liverpool (L25) (my bf) = 19.5
Sheffield (S1) = 10.5
Norwich (NR3) = 24.5 to 31.5
Birmingham (B3) = 8
Gloucester (GL1) = 42
Walthamstow (E17) = 26 to 43
Wandsworth (SW17) = 27.5 to 37
Poole (BH15) = 12

(I'm not deliberately ignoring Scotland, NI, Wales etc - just couldn't find the info. If anyone's interested, I'll give you the links I found...)

So, (excluding the somewhat anomalous Badoit) these sparkling bottled waters are on average lower in sodium than the tap waters. My personal tap water is higher than ALL of them!

Of course, I can’t find definitive values for the basic fizzy table water that I drink. It just says “0g” for everything (which is useless to a scale of 1000!) but I am presuming that this is because they will use multiple water sources, with varying compositions, just the same as tap water. I’ve sent them an email query anyway, just on the off chance…

So. Armed with such logical evidence against this notion that fizzy water is bad because of the salt content (not that I'm clear on why that affects fat-burning, anyway) I phoned Lipotrim up today, ready to have an argument, if I didn't get a good explanation...

I asked about the fizzy water debate and the (very lovely-sounding) woman I spoke to said yes, limit it to one or two glasses a day. I asked why, and she said she'd need to ask someone else and phone me back. She asked what I drank in a day, so I told her I drink about 1.5 litres of fizzy water, and everything else is tea or coffee.

She phoned back within minutes and told me that the doctor says... (drumroll please...)

That's fine.

Oh.

As long as it's not flavoured water.

It's not.

That's perfectly fine, then.

Right.

I am now a little deflated...

WOW Now thats what I call a full comprehensive factual report... thank you!! Sounds like Lipotrim need to make their minds up! Anyways chick so basically then we CAN HAVE fizzy water as its no diff to tap as per amounts of sodium....Is that right?
L xx

 

[Deezer]

I think when they say 'plain' water they may mean tap water.... and just not bottled!!!

 

[Shinypurple]

][/COLOR]...Anyways chick so basically then we CAN HAVE fizzy water as its no diff to tap as per amounts of sodium....Is that right?
L xx

I reckon so.

I'm still not sure how salt will affect fat loss, anyway. Firstly, the amounts of sodium in any of these waters (perhaps excluding Badoit) are so tiny, compared with the 1500mg that's in our LT shakes, that I reckon it's not a huge deal whether you drink one brand or another, or even what your local tap water is like...

Secondly, even if we have perhaps 10% extra salt, and IF that is enough to trigger water retention (which I just don't know!) does it actually affect the fat-burning process? I don't know that either... It might make a slight difference to the number on your scale, but if it doesn't affect fat-burning then it's not a problem!

I'm thinking about how so many of us retain water at TOTM - we might lose a pound or two less than average, that week, but we lose the same pound or two above average the week after. It doesn't seem to affect overall (fat) loss.

I think when they say 'plain' water they may mean tap water.... and just not bottled!!!

I was wondering if there's been a misunderstanding at some point (within LT, I mean), where someone interpreted "plain water" to mean tap water, when really it just meant "not flavoured water"?

The original info I got from the pharmacist, from the LT plastic bags and (possibly most significantly) the LT video all say quite clearly, that water can be plain tap water OR bottled water, sparkling or still, just not flavoured water. The video goes on to add "soda water is ok too, but not tonic water...". (It's at about 6mins 30secs into the video, which is on the bottom of the Lipotrim home page, in case anyone didn't see it yet...)

Mx