It’s my birthday! I’m 28 years old. Honestly it sort of feels like I skipped 27 and I’ve been 28 all along . . . just 2 years shy of 30.

In my dirty 30 list I have some goals to be more healthy. We plan to start trying for kids when I’m 30, and I want to already have good habits when that time comes instead of trying to learn while I grow a child or while I’m trying to lose the extra weight.

One of the things I knew would help tremendously would be to drink more water. My problem wasn’t that I was drinking stuff that was bad for me . . . I just wasn’t drinking enough. When I was 18 I had kidney stones and the doctor told me I needed to have a water beside me at all times because my kidneys weren’t getting what they needed to flush everything out. I had kidney stones again at 22 so I aced that  . . . side note – They say kidney stones is the closest thing to the pain of child birth so meds for me  I’ve passed 4 kidney stones I can pass a child, right?

Dr. Oz says today’s woman needs 91 ounces of liquid a day – 64 from liquids that you drink and the other from food. I’m sure I get what I need from my food to make up the difference, but the max I was drinking a day is 48 oz. And to lose weight I needed even more than 64.

So a couple months ago I came up with a schedule of what to drink and when to drink, and I followed it for one week. In that week, my knee pain was better – I slept better – I had more energy – and I lost 2 lbs. Here’s that schedule –

I’ve been working at keeping it up and I’ve learned some tricks along the way. It’s a work in progress for me to eat and drink healthy because I honestly have no motivation to do it. I know it will be better for future me and for me to teach my children these habits, and I’ll feel all the things I listed above. But I live in the moment and I have an amazing husband who loves me the way I am so when I see the piece of chocolate it’s hard to say no. I think it’s like that for most people – But I’m trying to change. And I’m marking this off as a success so far.

Happy birthday to me