An excessive amount of calories from liquid sources that are blasted with calories, sugar, artifical flavors, and colorants are sabbatoging your health and fitness goals.
A great recommendation for people to begin making better choices and improving their health is to think about what they are drinking. Without making any changes to what you eat, we can pay attention to what we drink. What do you drink? How many calories does it have? How much sugar is there? Are there artifical sweetners, colors, and/ or flavors? When you get a craving for a sweet drink, what happened before to trigger that craving? Have you established a habit of having a soda at a certain time every day? What is this habit helping you to cope with?
As you can see, there are many questions you can ask yourself when you sit down and reflect upon what sort of drinks you are having everyday. I will not bore you to death with details about how water is important, because it is. I know that is not a reason. There is already a ton of information regarding why we need to drink plenty of water. So if you are not sold on why you should drink more water, well there are way more experienced experts and professionals than myself that can go into meticuluous details on why you need to drink water and the scientific benefits.
Anyway, this article is for people drinking excessive amounts of soda, highly processed fruit juices, and other “natural drinks” with artifical flavors and sweetners. Although alcohol would also qualify as liquid calories, I would prefer to touch on that in a separate post. In any case, taking control of your health means working to eliminate extra calories and artifical substances from your life. Our body has an easier time processing nature. Plus, there are other consequences for artifical substances. Artifical sweetners, although they will not spike your blood sugar, can still spike your insulin. Troubles with insulin control are not good for your long term metabolic health. Other than that, we all know we need to try and limit our intake of sugar. It is so addictive and easy to over do it. Even sports drinks, which are marketed for their electrolytes, can be a detriment, especially if they are laced with high fructose corn syrup and other artifical substances. I am not saying to completely abstain from sports drinks, but if your main sources of exercise for the day has been sitting in front of a screen, well, you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Instead of continuing on the negative consequences of artifical substances and sugar in drinks that are not so natural, lets move on to steps that can be taken to help choose healthy alternatives.
When you are having tea, coffee, and other beverages, it is time to put down the powdered creamers and sugars. Get creative and find other ways to make your beverage delicious. Find something like a healthy organic milk, or some other plant based milk. You could try a splash of vanilla extract (very small as it can be potent; but it might be easier to find a vanilla flavored plant milk) and something like stevia, erthrytol, or monk fruit extract. You could opt for a raw honey or even molasses. Coconut milk can be great too. If you are feeling adventurous, there are many recipes for keto and bulletproof coffee and tea.
As far as water is concerned, putting a splash of lemon can make it more interesting. Some people also do fruit infusions to make their water more interesting. You could also find some sort of electrolyte powder with no artifical flavors, colors, or sweetners that would help you to replenish your electroyltes, stay hydrated, and not blast your system with artifical garbage.
Coconut water can also be great as it is a natural source of electroyltes and has a nice sweetness to it that is not going to destroy your health. Like everything you need to be committed and open to solutions. If you constantly tell yourself you cannot drink soda, juice, sports drinks, and other artifical garbage, you will be reminding yourself of what not to do. It will be more constructive to remind yourself of what you do get to drink? Remember that doing healthy things feels awesome. Remember your goals. Create a list of healthy alternatives you have tried that you like and are excited about. From coconut water, to raw organic honey or molasses, all natural and organic electrolyte powders, and other natural and organic alternatives you might add to your tea or coffee are just some examples. Problems have solutions. Being healthy can also be seen as a skill that takes practice. Find a way to remind yourself of the healthy choices you love and positively trigger yourself.
You are the problem, and you are the solution. Take charge and take action. You can do it.
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