Diet drinks help you to control your weight, right? Wrong! New studies show that consuming diet drinks stimulates the appetite, causing sugar cravings that lead to higher food consumption. Put bluntly, diet drinks make you fat. They are also bad for tooth enamel and may be cancer causing. Their effects on children may be even more damaging.

So drinking fruit juice is healthier, right? Wrong! Although the sugars in fruit juice may be "natural" they are still sugars and they will also lead to weight gain. Drink modest quantities of diluted juice, but don't use juice as a thirst quencher. It's a food - it comes from fruit. You're better off eating the fruit raw.

That leaves tea and coffee, right? Wrong! Although the coffee industry pounces on the small bits of positive research about their product, the overall evidence points to caffeine being damaging to health. It stimulates the "stress alert" receptors in the brain, keeping us constantly on edge and gobbling up the vitamins and minerals the body needs elsewhere.

What about bottled water? That's good, right? Wrong! Bottled water is often dubious in quality, and anything that comes in a plastic bottle contains phyto estrogens that interfere with normal hormonal functioning. Not to mention the fact that only 25% of water bottles get recycled - bad news for the planet.

So what's left? That's right - water. Plain old water, that you filter yourself if you don't trust your home supply, and carry in a glass bottle. It's what we were meant to drink. And guess what? Drinking your eight glasses a day suppresses appetite, stimulates the kidneys and liver, and helps you shed unwanted pounds.

If it all seems Too Hard, don't try to make all those changes at once. Start by cutting out one cup of coffee a day and substituting a glass of water. Order bottled water instead of diet coke while you develop a taste for it. But aim to eliminate all those "fat drinks" over a six month period and you'll be amazed how much better you look and feel.