Every mother wants the very best for their children. The older my children get, the more I realize they are really just mini carbon copies of my husband and me. They speak like us, walk like us, and as parents, you realize that they have all of your mannerism and they really strive to emulate you. You are the biggest influence over your children's lives, especially, when they are very young. Now for me for the last decade, I have truly struggled with my weight. As a young child and into young adulthood, I was extremely athletic. A teenage athlete with multiple regional awards for track and field, I found it quite easy to maintain and control my weight.

But honestly, since my college days, I can say that I put on at least 10lbs every year or two. And when I got married, I definitely put on some "happy weight". Giving birth to my daughter changed things for me. I wanted to stop my love affair with weight gain and start my path to my ideal weight. As my daughter grew, I had a bigger and bigger reason to ensure that I overcame my battle with my weight gain. I wanted my daughter to have a happy and healthy Mum, more importantly, a happy and healthy relationship with herself and food. So I made a switch to water only for my entire family and here are some of the benefits we gained!

Here are 3 benefits of switching my family to water only:

1. My weight gain stopped.

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Since we switched to water only, my weight has stayed constant. While I am still a little way away from my ideal weight, I have not put on a pound since. One of the awesome benefits of drinking water only is that it helps you to stabilize your weight and has untold health benefits.

2. My daughter loves and craves water.

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Prior to the switch, like me, my daughter picked up a love of juice. Every time she would ask for juice, I would think of the Uncle Ben's ad and I would sing, "I want you, to show me the way" and at that moment, I needed to show my daughter a better way. So, we switched. Initially, it was hard. My body and hers suffered withdrawals from sugar. But eventually, that passed and we all now love and crave water

3. Better health.

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With my weight stabilization, I have better health. There are so many comorbidities that come with weight gain to include type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular disease, stroke, sleep apnea, gallbladder disease, hyperuricemia and gout, and osteoarthritis to name a few. While I cannot say with certainty I am no longer at risk, I can say that I have halted my progression.

Overall, switching to water has been one of the best decisions that my family and I have made and I would not have any other way and I am so glad that we made the decision together. Now I cannot say that we don't drink other beverages at all, but what I can say is, we drink mostly water.

Now, we have to focus on diet. I hope you read this and are encouraged to make whatever health or lifestyle changes you've been wanting to make.

• – Nina Lewis – Kinkless