Drinking soda is a toxic habit. Whether full of sugar or sugar-free, soda affects everything from your brain to your bones.

If you drink soda every day your habit won't be easy to break. You’re used to sweet and carbonated drinks. Replacing with plain water won’t cut it.

You’ll need to do several things. Cut back gradually on soda. Replace the fizz with seltzer water and the sweet with naturally sweetened drinks. Also make your favorite soda replacements portable.

1. Make drinking soda a special occasion not a routine way to hydrate. If you drink soda every day cut back to weekends for a while. Then just one weekend day, then only holidays or dinners out.

2. Get your fizz fix with seltzer. The easiest way to stop drinking soda is to switch to seltzer water (in cans not plastic). You'll get your carbonation fix without all the sugar, sweetener, caramel coloring, benzene and other additives found in soda.

You can also carbonate at home. I like soda siphons because they're metal, not plastic. I use this one because it makes a quart of seltzer water. It's described as a whipped cream siphon but when you use CO2 cartridges (1 per qt) it makes seltzer water.

There's also one Soda Stream Model - the Crystal Home Soda Maker that I like because it uses glass carafes. And there's plenty of natural flavorings available to spice up homemade seltzer. 

3. Drink naturally sweetened drinks like fruit infused waters and teas. Experiment with lots of different fruit and water and fruit and tea combos to keep soda cravings at bay.

All you need is a 2 quart canning jar with a stainless steel tea/coffee infuser, filtered water and of course, organic fruit. For fruit teas, antioxidant-rich green tea is a good choice, as are herbal and decaf teas.

Also, any one gallon cold brew coffee maker would work. If you already have mason jars you can buy the filters separately for regular and widemouth jars.

For quick, on the go flavored drinks add a packet or two of True Lemon, True Orange (my favorite) or True Lime to add some subtle flavor to your water. 

4. To avoid soda temptations when you're out and about, get yourself a nice glass or stainless water bottle to make your favorite soda replacements portable.