Water

The only thing you NEED to drink is water.  Civilizations from the beginning of creation have been built solely on its proximity to water.  Water is the only thing that you must drink to live a healthy, active lifestyle.  If you are interested in being healthy, losing weight, reducing your risk for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. ditch flavored drinks.

I already know what some will and have said, "I can't stand the taste of water!" Waaaaaah!!!  The wambulance is on its way to you.

Water.  Just drink water.  Stop with the flavored pouches, vitamin water, crystal light, and all those unnatural, highly processed chemicals, and just drink water.  If you really want to flavor the water, here are three things you can do:  squeeze an ACTUAL lemon wedge (not the plastic lemon juice bottle) into your water, squeeze a lime wedge into your water, make a pitcher of water with a real vanilla bean in the water.  All natural flavoring is key.  These add real nutrition to the water, and they add flavor to the water.

And stop drinking sports drink.  Unless you are in the middle of playing a sport, running a race, or in the midst of exercising where you are actually depleting your electrolytes and need to replenish them.  Even in that case, please limit the intake to only what you need, or make your own sports drink- there are a lot of good, wholesome recipes out there, including my own (to 10oz of water, add 1 TBSP Chia seed and 1 TBSP of evaporated cane juice- you could also use maple syrup if you want).  Even when I make my own sports drink for my 20 mile runs, I still only carry and drink 20oz of it.  All my other fluids are... well... WATER.

And stop with the juice.  At least cut your intake to a quarter of what you're used to.  Make sure whatever shooter of juice you drink is 100% all natural juice- without any added sugar or corn syrup.  Our pediatrician actually said to us once that there is never a good time to start our child on juice.  I know, some will say, "But... but... the vitamins!"  Guess where else you could get the vitamins... give up?  Eat the fruit.  Think about it, if you eat the fruit, you get all the fiber and vitamins and only a tiny fraction of the sugar you would get by drinking the fruit concentrate.  Seriously, take an apple and make apple juice with it.  You get like, what, a thimble full of juice?  So, imagine just how many "apples" you are consuming when you drink a full glass of apple juice.

Do I really need to say anything about soda?  Completely remove soda from your diet.  And I mean diet soda, too.  I mean "soda 1", "soda 0", "diet soda".  Soda has many uses, including cleaning your carburetor, mixing it with menthos and watching it spew into the air and dissolving flesh and bones.  Otherwise, there is no value in soda.  It's not even worth it to willingly have it in your presence.

I mean ultimately, one can say that certain teas (without sugar or any unnatural sweetener- with the exception of a drop of honey) have some value nutritionally.  Same goes for black coffee and wine.  Milk has good calcium, protein and, even though added after pasteurization, some vitamin content.  All of these can be good for you in moderation, but your primary source of hydration needs to be water.

The human body is 60% water, the brain is 70%, the lungs are 90% water, lean muscle is 75% water, body fat 10% water, bone is 22% water, and blood is 83% water.  Source:  http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/propertyyou.html 

We need to stop trying to "improve" water with chemical flavor enhancers and just drink it.  Filter it if you need to, but stop thinking that anything else will hydrate you.  Soda, juice, coffee, tea, wine, beer, and anything else will only make you thirstier, not refresh or hydrate you.  Even sports drinks need to be watered down to be effective.

So, if you want to live an active and healthy life, lose weight, and feel good- drink water.  If you don't like the taste, stop being such a wuss and learn to like it.  Entire countries are in desperate need for clean water, we have it abundantly, so much so, that we ruin all its benefits by sugaring or loading it up with chemical sweeteners.

I don't know how else to say it.  So I will simply end with this.  If the ingredients in your glass, cup, bottle, mug are usually comprised of anything except water- stop drinking it.

I'm not saying that an occasional deviation from water is a bad thing, but water needs to be- I'm picking a number here out of the clear blue sky- 90% of the liquid you consume.

In conclusion, drink lots of water, ditch everything else.

Thank you and good day.