The basics: Stop buying soda

The soda aisle at my local grocery store.
Everything's on sale.

This might seem basic, but I want to write about it because I believe that it's really difficult.

Stop buying soda.  

And make drinking it something that you absolutely only do on occasion.

At the risk of oversimplifying the science, which I am going to do anyway, here's the deal.  Your liver is essentially responsible for two jobs. First, it regulates your blood sugar and metabolism.  When it's doing its job well, you are processing energy efficiently and your body is not creating extra fat. Second, it removes poisons from your system so that you don't get sick from them.

When you consume something really sugary, like soda, your liver works overtime in order to process the sugar.  A series of chemical reactions happens in your body that make it nearly impossible for your liver to regulate your metabolism.  This can lead to all sorts of illness, as you've probably heard.

When you consume chemicals, like the ones in diet soda, your liver understands those chemicals to be poison.  Even if the other food choices you've made are good ones, your liver's ability to work effectively as a metabolism regulator is compensated due to the fact that it is now making its primary function to get poison out of your body.  As such, even though diet soda doesn't have calories in it, drinking it can completely undermine your attempts to balance your blood sugar (and your attempts to lose weight, if that is your goal).

If you really must have caffeine, drink coffee or tea instead.  Sweeten it yourself instead of letting a barista do it, and be conservative.  For you caffeine addicts out there, here's a recipe for making your own low-sugar cafe mocha.