Listen. I understand you. You love your tea, your coffee, your soda, your limeade and lemonade. I have been there. Sugar and caffeine were a way of life for me for over 35 years, and the thought of drinking water only gave me full body shivers. And yes, I will admit, it took some drastic measures for me to finally get on the right track.

Last year, I got a tonsillectomy at the ripe age of 37. The tonsils had large craters in them, called tonsilloliths, which accumulated large amounts of bacteria which wasn’t doing me any good. Before the surgery, I had to get a pre-test at the hospital where they checked my blood pressure, among other things. While I was nervous about the surgery, I knew there were other mitigating factors for why my blood pressure seemed so high when the nurse took it that day and had a shocked look upon her face: I needed to cut the caffeine.

One of the benefits of the immediate post-op tonsillectomy is that there are very few things that the throat will then tolerate very well. Though I did have Gatorade and , the rest of the time it was water, water, water.

I’m also very choosy about the water I drink. My local city tap water had a swampy muddy taste that turns me off. Dasani’s water is actually just tap water and so is Aquafina. It’s a taste that, when combining their “purified” water with added minerals makes my throat irritated and bloated. Why pay extra for that?

I do pay for water, and have been fortunate enough to experiment and find that Ice Mountain water is that tastiest and most affordable water I can drink on a full time basis. If I was dripping with money, then I would no doubt drink Evian, though. It’s the smoothest stuff ever!

How do I feel a year after switching to a water only life? I’m still an insomniac and get plenty of migraines, so I understand it will not fix everything. But my blood pressure went down in a big way and my skin looks a million times better. Stay hydrated and stay pretty!