Drink Water!

While you were sipping your soda (diet or otherwise), you know what you weren’t doing? Drinking water. Water is one of the few magic potions on the planet that work (just ask our editor, Emily). A study published in the journal Obesity found that drinking a liter or more of water per day helped women lose weight in two ways. For one, by swapping out 80 percent of sweet drinks with water, the participants cut enough calories to lose more than five pounds (replacing 80 percent of sweet drinks with diet soda, on the other hand, resulted in only a 3.5-pound loss.) Impressive, though not surprising, findings -- replacing sugar (or chemicals) with all-natural, zero-calorie water is bound to result in a healthier body.

But what's interesting is that the researchers also found that drinking more water was independently associated with dropping five pounds in a year, regardless of soda swaps. They attributed this connection to previous research that found that drinking half a liter of water daily increased energy expenditure. Translation: Simply drinking water makes your body burn more calories, even when you’re just sitting still.