I have had a difficult time drinking enough water FOREVER.  It's a goal I have never been able to maintain for more than a day or two.  I decided to share these tips I just I found on http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com, a blog I found through Pintrest. 23 Tips For Drinking More Water Each Day Don't allow yourself a diet soda until you've had two to four glasses of water. Eventually you will find that you won't crave the soda as much. Have a big glass of water at every transitional point of the day: when you first get up, just before leaving the house, when you sit down to work, etc. Make it convenient – keep a big, insulated water bottle full on your desk and reach for it all day. Down a full glass several times a day. Go over to your kitchen right now and fill up a glass. No sipping over time. Just drink it down right after you fill it up. Track it. Make a chart and tick it off each time you drink a glass. Do a chart for 30 days and you will have made drinking water a part of your routine. Have one glass every hour on the hour while at work or school. When the work/school day is done, your water quota is met. Freeze peeled pieces of lemons, limes, and oranges and use them instead of ice cubes – it's refreshing and helps get in a serving or two of fruit. After each trip to the restroom, guzzle an eight-ounce glass to replenish your system. Set a goal to drink X amount of water a day, then write it down along with your reasons WHY! Remembering your motivation will help you keep going when enthusiasm fades. Every time you walk past a water fountain, take a sip or two. (This is actually advice my own doctor gave me recently after a nasty kidney stone incident!) Fizz it up!  Get a home seltzer maker like a Soda Stream and make your own fizzy H2O!  Add a dash of lemon or a splash of O.J. and you'll have a super refreshing drink! Fill up a large cup with crushed ice or ice cubes and snack on them (like candy!) throughout the day. Make a bet with a co-worker to see who can drink more water in the course of a day. When drinking juice (apple, grape, or orange) fill half the glass with water or ice and make sure to consume all of it. Bring a two-liter bottle of water to work and try to drink it all before you leave work. If you don't finish, drink it in traffic on the way home – it's like a race. Keep a large cup full of ice at your desk and keep re-filling it with water. The key is drinking with a straw – you take bigger gulps and drink more at a time. Here's a tip if you're trying to shed some pounds: Let ounces of water double grams of fat: when eating something containing 10 grams of fat, drink 20 ounces of water. Drink two full glasses at each meal, one before and one after. Also, drink one glass before each snack so you don't eat as much. Put reminders into your phone or calendar to drink at regular intervals. Surprisingly, this helps me a LOT!  I know it sounds lame, but I just plain FORGET to drink water! Carry a small refillable water bottle at all times and drink during downtime; while waiting in a bank line, sitting on the train, etc. Not ALL your water has to be COLD…drink some of it HOT. Have a nice warm cup of tea instead. But be sure it's decaf since caffeine actually robs you of water (it's a diuretic). Always keep a bottle of water handy while watching TV, doing laundry, making dinner, etc. Add drinking two glasses of water to your daily skincare regimen. Drink, cleanse, moisturize, then drink again.

I'm a return participant for Lighten Up 2012.  I came in 3rd place but put some weight back on and still have quite a few pounds to go so I'm back.  I hope to learn from my mistakes since the contest ended and not put any weight back on after this Lighten Up is over!  I can't win anything but being allowed to participate again is reward enough! My main nutritional goal for the month is to go back to keeping track of portions and calories.  I think the first mistake I made after the contest was stopping using my food diary. I used MyFitnessPal but the health dept has hooked us up with Vitabot so I'll give it a try.  I stopped using the food dairy as soon as I stepped off the scale for the last weigh in.  I thought I'd learned enough. BAD choice.  Since I've started using it again I've found that one of my very favorite "It has so much good stuff in it I can eat it 5 days a week" omelet is 930 calories. Yep. That's only for the omelet. My bag of salty snacks? Read carefully, that "reasonable" amount of calories on that little bag was for a portion of only 1/3 of the bag!!! I'm not saying that I'll never have that 930 calorie omelet again but if I do it will be saving half the omelet for another meal or modifying my diet for the rest of the day to make up for the calories.  My fitness goal for the month of February is to get back to more exercise so I'm back to using a pedometer.  The walking really helped get me going and lots of times the pedometer helped me do a "just a little bit more" to make it an even mile or set of steps.  I love the water fitness classes at the Y too.  I'm back to 2-3 times a week.  I have a bad neck and back and I feel so much stronger when I do it and it certainly helps with the pain especially using the whirlpool after class.  I had so much energy last spring & summer the grandkids certainly benefited.  I have literally hundreds and hundreds of pictures of all the activities we did and places we went! We had a blast. I even went on a vacation with my sisters and went hiking and zip-lining.  I never would have had the energy before I started the program last year.  It really changed my life.  I've slowed down a little bit now but hope to get up to speed soon!