Water is boring, what else can I drink?

I often get asked if it is okay to drink flavored waters or bottled juices or store-bought smoothies or other pre-packaged "health" drinks. What do you think I say?

A
"No! Never! You must drink only the purest filtered water carefully shipped in from the fountain of youth instead of drinking that sugary, chemical-laden, bazillion calorie crap in a pretty BPA-infested plastic jug that's going to expand your abdominal girth and eventually kill you!"

B
It depends. Let's talk about your thoughts on the drinks you're asking about, how much water you're drinking and what other types of things you drink during the day or week. (Begin an actual information exchange).

My response is usually something like B.
You hypocrite! You talk about water all the time! You drink out of BPA free containers! You read Jillian Michael's book Master Your Metabolism! How can you not respond with A?

Whoa, Nellie.
Except for the fountain of youth part I think option A is pretty much right on, but a lot of the people
I talk to are new at making changes. They're determined, learning, asking the right questions and taking action. If I throw an answer like that at them they're going to run the other direction. Sometimes it's a good thing to find out where a person is now, and where they can handle going next, before we give an answer.

Plus, I've been there. I spent most of my teenage years to adult life drinking everything but water. Juice, soft drinks, diet drinks, milk, coffee, tea, Yoo-Hoo (ok, stop laughing), lemonade, fruit punch, blah, blah, blah. Once I did that, water was just plain boring and didn't taste good. I had to acquire a taste for water as an adult. Now that I'm reminiscing about my drinking habits I am suddenly reminded of two kidney stones and renal colic due to dehydration. But that's a story for another day. Now water is my primary drink, although I can't give up my coffee entirely. I also drink hot green or black tea. I'm working on giving up diet soft drinks entirely, but for some reason if I eat a treat meal like Mexican I still want a diet Coke with fresh lime.

Sometimes it's difficult for people to be drinking lattes, soft drinks, frozen drinks, alcohol, etc, or hardly anything at all and then all of a sudden go to just straight, plain water and maintain it. I know people who nurse a diet soft drink all day long, and when they start changing their eating and thinking about their drinking they want to know if there is anything else they can drink besides just water. When that happens, it's easy to be deceived by something that seems like it should be healthy. And sometimes it's better to temporarily transition to something less than optimal than to not make a change in the right direction at all!

So I spent a little time in one of our health food stores reading labels of all the bottled options of "healthy" drinks to see if I could find any viable options. You know, things with words like naked, fresh, vital, natural, energy, electrolytes, 100%, enriched, vitamins, boost, etc. Some of them do have natural ingredients, and some are quite impressive. Some of them also have 400+ calories and over 70 carbs in an 8 oz container. You also have to be careful with smoothie bars too in terms of portions, calories, and any syrups or other things they may be adding. I didn't find anything that I thought I would recommend, but I did buy and try this one:

Fuze Slenderize in Strawberry Melon. It has 2 servings in the 19 oz bottle, for a total of 20 calories, 4 carbs, 5 mg sodium, no protein. It has sucralose and 5% juice. The flavor is good, but intense! Honestly, a person could take this one bottle and add it to multiple gallons of fresh water for a hint of taste. Better yet, see below. This one is not righteous, it's just the one I tried. It is not going to make you slender!

The real answer is, if you need flavored water or a smoothie, make your own at home! Use ingredients like water, ice, fresh fruit, whey protein, veggies, agave nectar or a dash of honey, cinnamon, non-fat milk, non-fat plain yogurt. Shakeology is one I'm getting into since starting Beachbody programs and coaching, you can add any of these things to it, or nothing at all. Other than that, start adding water while you cut back on or eliminate other drinks. Use lime or lemon to add some flavor if necessary, It helps with thirst you may not realize you have, and the other drinks aren't so enticing any more.

What do you do when you get bored of water, or when you want something different to drink? What is out there that I am missing? Leave a comment!

The link above for Shakeology will take you directly to my Shakeology website as an Independent Team Berachbody Coach, http://www.shakeitwithkelley.com/