Can You Urinate Calories Away?

I received a question from a reader who wanted to know if it's true you can burn calories urinating.

Not that I know of.

There's another popular myth going around that urine itself contains calories, and hence if by urinating you're removing some of the calories traveling through your bloodstream. But as far as I know, urine doesn't contain calories. It's mostly water, acid and minerals.

However, consider this...

It's often said that drinking lots of water is essential to weight loss. Well, if you can get yourself to a point where you're drinking about six bottles of water a day (typical 0.5 liter bottle), along with whatever water your body can extract from fruits and vegetables, then you'll find yourself having to urinate often.

That means having to get up out of a chair, walk to the bathroom, urinate, and walk back. If you're overweight, that's a low impact exercise. The heavier you are, the more energy it takes to do that.

I happen to live in a two-story house. My home office is upstairs. I have a bathroom downstairs and upstairs. I ought to walk downstairs, just because walking back upstairs is a good exercise, particularly if you're overweight.

So urinating itself doesn't burn calories, nor does it remove calories from your body, but the physical activity of getting yourself to the bathroom does. That's another reason why you should drink more water!