Most people have heard the recommendations from doctors that say to drink eight glasses of water a day. However, there are so many exceptions to this rule that really confuses people. Like, when you are sick or sweating a lot, you should drink more than eight glasses. Or, if you drink too much water, there is a possibility to dilute vital nutrients from you diet. There are so many confusing exceptions that you need not worry about if you want to stay healthy by drinking water.

It is really this simple: replace all beverages in your diet with water. Every doctor will tell you that water is the best drink out there. Soft drinks, juices, and other beverages are what I like to call “hidden calories”. So you drink a bottle, or even a few bottles, of Snapple or Gatorade or something like this. Bam, you just consumed over 200 calories just by drinking! Did that beverage fill you up? I doubt it.

Ok, let’s say you replace every beverage with water, as per your doctor’s recommendation. Hypothetically, let’s say you usually drink two cans of Pepsi, a glass of orange juice, a glass of milk, and a Snapple iced-tea everyday. Here’s the breakdown on calories:

Two cans of Pepsi – 300 Calories
One Snapple Iced Tea – 250 Calories
One 12 oz glass of O.J. – 183
One 12 oz glass of Milk – 183

This brings us to a whopping total of 916 calories a day. That’s 6,412 calories a week; 25,648 calories a month; 307,776 calories a year!

Now imagine your doctor tells you that you need to lose weight. Now, without dieting or exercise and simply drinking only water, you can cut out 307,776 calories a year! Figuring that roughly 3,500 calories equals a pound, you could lose up to 87 pounds just by drinking only water!

Of course you could argue that you could drink diet beverages and not ingest any calories as well.  That may be true, however, there are major health concerns regarding artificial sweeteners that are just not worth it, i.e. cancer, central nervous system damage, and other unknown long term risks. While the United State Government and several other countries say the risk of cancer caused by artificial sweeteners is highly unlikely, I personally would rather not take my chances. How many times has the government said “Oops, we were wrong, sorry”? I’ll trust my doctor who says water is the best beverage to drink.

Ok, so here are some of the benefits of water:

•    Reduced risk of heart attack – a study published in 2002 suggests that drinking five glasses of water a day can reduce risk of heart attack by 41%.
•    Hydration – yes, this is an obvious one, but dehydration is the culprit of many common ailments, including headaches, fatigue, dry skin, digestive problems, depression, etc.
•    Reduced risk of cancer -drinking plenty of water a day has been shown to reduce the risk of colon cancer, bladder cancer, and potentially breast cancer.

This list can go on and on. Now, listen to your doctor and switch over to drinking water instead of mass marketed beverages that claim to be “healthy”. All you need is a tall glass of water and your body and doctors bills will thank you.