I love to drink seltzer with a squeeze of lemon or lime, and I'm curious if I can substitute this form of water for just plain water.

Dear osuzana,

This is a hot potato on this board. There are the pure waterists who swear it must be water and nothing else and others who say you can drink what you like.

Everyone agrees you need to drink sufficient fluids - which means quite a lot. This diet is naturally diuretic so you need to make up the fluids. Also you need to flush out all those unburned ketones.

I just drink what I like and keep my head down.

Robert

At the very least, make sure your seltzer has no sodium . . .

In my opinion (and I know other's will disagree), plain carbonated water is the equivalent of plain water. If it has added sweetener or salt, that's another story. I personally love seltzer water with a squeeze of lemon or lime and I think it does just as good a job of keeping me hydrated as plain water.

The best rule is always to listen to your own body, because some of these things work differently for different people. Does drinking seltzer water instead of plain water make you feel any different or does it interfere with your weight loss? IMHO, if you answer "no" to those questions, you are probably fine with the seltzer water.

It IS water. There are places here where the water is naturally carbonated. It's isn't like water, or almost water- it IS water. Ofcourse if before bottling it's *messed* with then ofcourse that changes things. But here it's bottled with nothing extra added. It's just carbonated water.