Top 10 Nutritional Boosters: Water

When I first started working at Wal-Mart at 16 years old I would get a Mountain Dew on each break. Most days during the week that was just one but on the weekend that was 2, sometimes 3 Mountain Dews. I look back on that with horror for what I was doing to my body. I rarely drank water because when I wasn't drinking Mountain Dew, it was sweet tea, or some other kind of sugary drink. I was ingesting an awful lot of sugar, caffeine, and tanic acid. None of those are any good for you and I imagine that I spent most of my time being dehydrated. I hardly ever buy soda now, even when I am out to eat. I actually have some Hansen's pomegranate soda in my fridge right now because I was in Charlotte last week and got to go to Trader Joes but that kind of thing rarely happens. Part of that came from realizing that getting anything other than water from a restaurant increases the price of your bill a lot and the other part came from just wanting to change my habits. I drink water almost exclusively and so do my husband and kids.


I feel like the benefits of water have been spelled out numerous times and that you already know about it. For me, drinking water has less to do with the benefits of water and more to do with avoiding the crap in sodas and other sugary drinks. I find that I just prefer it now. The other day while at Wal-Mart I thought, 'hmm, I think I'd like to treat myself to a soda' and so I bought an orange soda (my all time favorite flavor) but when I started drinking it I didn't enjoy it nearly enough to justify the cost and sugar. I would have thrown it out except that seemed wasteful. It's funny how when you avoid things that are bad for you, you start to dislike them, you don't have a taste for them. It becomes easier and easier to avoid them. That's how addiction works. You can be addicted to anything, not just cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol. Behaviors are also addicting and so is drinking soda and eating sugar. 


A few months ago I was driving by myself with the kids and it was several hours of driving and I was exhausted just trying to make it home. I thought I would stop and get something with caffeine in it to keep me going until I made it home. So I got a Mountain Dew and was on my way. I drank about 1/2 of it and started to feel the effects of the caffeine. Let me tell you, those of you who are caffeine addicts, it was not pleasant. Considering I used to drink Moutain Dew daily you would think I would have more tolerance for it. Not only did it make me feel almost nauseous, lightheaded and almost too dizzy it also tasted gross. I could literally taste the bitterness of the caffeine because there is so much of it in Mountain Dew. How grateful I was that I wasn't subjecting myself to these toxins regularly. I was so thankful for the testimony I have of the Word of Wisdom that councils us to avoid substances that can impair us and cause us to fall into addictive behavior. The caffeine did its intended job though and I was quite awake the rest of the drive. 


I suppose my point here is that water is a simple and cost effective means of improving one's health. It may seem boring and it may seem like you can't give up your daily soda but you can and you should. I get so sick of people saying things like "I just want to enjoy my life and eating what I want makes me happy." That is such a load of crap. That is your excuse for avoiding doing the right thing. If you can't do the right thing when it comes to taking care of your body, how will you ever handle the bigger things in life? Doing the right thing by your body brings happiness, it brings better understanding of God's essential truths and makes our minds more pliable to what he would have us know. Taking care of our body is one of many steps in mastering ourselves and proving to Him that we can be responsible with what He has given us.