Water is the Celebrity Secret
Okay, so water is good for you. But do you really have to give up that diet soda? Can’t you just add water to your drink line-up?
Soft drinks are at best non-nutritious and at worst damaging to
your body. They are filled with all kinds of ingredients that can cause
abdominal bloating, retention of fluids, and ironically, dehydration. For the
heck of it, read a soda can sometime. You will be shocked at how many
artificial, hard-to-pronounce words make up the list of ingredients. What in
the world is gum arabic? Brominated vegetable oil? Phenylalanine? These words all
came off the side of a can of diet soda. If you were a fish, would you rather
swim in large, syrupy vats of unpronounceable concoctions, or a clear mountain
stream? Think of your inner "machinery" as that fish.
Breaking any detrimental habit—whether it’s cigarettes, soda pop,
or some other vice—means living through an uncomfortable re-adjustment period.
If your palate is used to the tingle of soft drink fizz, or to the distinct
flavor of cola, then suddenly switching to water will feel less satisfying. As
Jane remembers, "For those first few days, water is like a
non-taste." It helps to accept that the first two weeks without your
habitual substance will be hell. But after those initial two weeks, your taste
buds will begin to discern the quenching, satisfying properties of water as
appealing in their own right. More important, your entire body will begin to feel better. Jane confirmed that by her
third week without soft drinks, her skin looked brighter, her stomach felt
flatter, and her headaches, lethargy and abdominal discomfort had disappeared.
These positive differences motivated her to keep chugging water instead of soda
pop.
