One of the best catalysts to jump start your 2014 healthy living program is removing soda from your daily eating plan.

Whether your goal is to lower body fat, improve vitality or just generally be healthier, replacing the sugary, carbonated artificially flavored beverages with water will drastically increase your chance for success.

Everyone knows that soda has a lot of sugar. If you’re drinking three 12-oz cans a day, you’re consuming 116 grams of refined sugar with absolutely no nutritional value. That’s the same amount of sugar found in 7 cups of blueberries. The blueberries would also provide 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vitamin C and dietary fiber, as well as providing a healthy dose of antioxidants.

Soda also has a more pernicious impact on metabolism. Metabolism is the process in which ingested calories are broken down and converted into energy.  Some folks are born with a naturally efficient metabolism. Others struggle with slow metabolism and seek ways to improve their metabolic rate. No matter where you fall on that spectrum, I’ve never met a human being who wants to slow it down!

Soda can do precisely that.

In a study published in the European Journal of Nutrition in June of 2012, researchers found that people who drank one “Super Gulp” soda, with about 140 grams of sugar, per day over a four week trial saw their metabolism drop. A slower metabolism makes it more difficult to burn fat and lose weight.

Now for the full disclosure – I knew all the bad stuff about regular soda, so years ago, I developed an affinity for diet soda. I assumed that, since it was free of sugar and calories, I was making a healthier decision.

Researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of found a link between older adults who drink diet soda and increased odds of heart attack and stroke. Read a Diet Coke label and you’ll discover ingredients like caramel color, aspartame, phosphoric acid and potassium benzoate…yum. Read more about these tasty science experiments here.

While the link between regular soda and Type II diabetes is fairly well known, further studies have demonstrated a correlation between diet soda and insulin resistance.

Today, I drink two beverages daily: water and black coffee. I’ve found that my mind is sharper and my body healthier because of it.