All you do is...

Stop drinking soda.
Seriously.

We had a nutritionist come into one of my classes at uni the other day. She yakked and yakked about drinking fresh water, eating your veggies, and excercising.

But then, the big one came.
If you stop drinking soda, in one year you can lose up to 26 pounds.
Yep, 26 pounds.

She said that you don't have to start a new exercise program or change your diet completely. Just stop drinking soda. Each 20 oz soda has 17 teaspoons, that's nearly 6 tablespoons, and almost 1/3 cup, of sugar in it. You take in that much sugar a day, of course you're going to be packing around some extra poundage.

If it helps any, I drink water, water, water. I tell myself that all that water is helping detoxify my body, it clears out all the bad stuff that I've been drinking in the past, and helping my body function like it's supposed to. Soon you stop even craving or desiring what ever your previous drink of choice was.

If you don't think you can give up soda cold turkey, use what is known as the Step Down Principle. Say you drink a soda at lunch and a soda at dinner. To Step Down, just drink a soda at lunch. Another way to Step Down after that would be to drink soda only when you go out to eat, or only on weekends. Just keep Stepping Down until you don't have soda in your diet anymore.

It will be worth it! Up to 26 pounds worth it!