The biggest health hack you keep on ignoring.

Hint: It doesn't require you to buy anything.

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Who doesn't want to feel healthier?

The challenge always seems to be the amount of things that need to be done to get there.

Exercise more, eat healthier meals, drink more water, go to bed earlier, spend less time on your screens. You've heard it all before, yet hearing it isn't exactly the same as doing it day after day. It's much easier to buy the product or pill with promises of increased health benefits on its label, isn't it?

Now your health is no different to you home in the sense that some things are more important than others. Having the electricity safely installed takes priority over the colour we select to paint the walls. Similarly, eating a majority of whole unprocessed foods daily takes priority over pretty much any type of supplement advertised to do x, y or z.

Going back to the list of things you should do (more of) above.

To exercise more you might need more time, to eat healthier you might need more time too, especially at the start, drinking more water is always easier said than done and the list goes on. So that hack I want to offer you is one of substitution. You need to think of it not in terms of what you remove but what you add, a 2-in-1 if you will. You don't need changing your habits or what you do right now with one exception. Replace every drink you have with water.

There goes your two-in-one. More water intake, less "other drinks".

Other drinks really include everything else.

But we're not kamikaze maybe we can start with small steps, in whichever order you think might be right for you. The one I listed below simply reflects what I see causes the most issues across the variety of my past and present nutrition coaching clients.

Step 1: alcohol. All this step requires is that every time you're about to pour yourself some alcohol, order at a bar, or someone offers to brings you some, you swap it for water. The effort it takes is about swapping one word. The benefit is double: more water, less alcohol. Try this for four weeks and see how you feel.

Step 2: coffee and caffeinated drinks. If your favourite mug or tote bag says "but first, coffee", this is going to sound insane but bear with me. Caffeine doesn't give you energy, it changes your perception of fatigue. I'm not going to lie, if your daily consumption is at 3+ a day, you may start with a progressive decrease. It sounds counterintuitive because pop culture and Starbucks have made coffee sound like a 21st century. must have but it really isn't. If you love the flavour, opt for decaf but keep in mind that decaf isn't caffeine free so look at the crutch for what it is. Try this for four weeks and see how you feel.

Step 3: fizzy drinks and fruit juices (incl. those with sweeteners). The swap in itself can be easily made with water. I used to have a diet fizzy drink after lunch at work to wash off onion taste that seems to come with every meal made at my workplace canteen. Eventually, I found out that bringing my own lunch and/or brushing my teeth was even more effective at getting rid of the terrible aftertaste, no more bubbles. And actually, if you want to taste of a fruit, you're so much better off having an actual fruit. Sure peeling and eating a fresh orange can be more work so I you can't spare the time for the fruit and the additional time to wash your hands afterwards just stick to the otiringal plan: swap with water.