Yes!

I was finally able to fully finish the 20 minute express workout by Zumba! I was really not feeling it anymore about five minutes before it ended, but I just kept telling myself, "There's only five minutes left! REALLY?" And then I checked my heart rate monitor. Seeing such a high number of calories burned sure did make things a little easier!

As you may have noticed, I added an exercise log to the side of my blog, listing when I exercise, how long, the activity, and how many calories my HRM says I burned. I'm currently aiming for 500 fitness minutes a month, but I hope to increase that by 100 by the end of April, so that in my May, my goal will be 600 minutes. In July, I want it to be 700. September will be 900, and then in November will be my cap at 1000 minutes per month. This is the schedule I'll follow if I can MEET the new minimum. If not, I'll stay with whatever the current is until I can meet it and then start upping it. I'll touch back on this by the end of April!

It's amazing how great I feel now that I exercise. It's wonderful to feel sore and have it not be because my body doesn't know what's going on, but to have it be because I was working out and doing something good for myself.

I also thought I could start taking pictures of what I eat (that aren't meal bars or shakes) to get a better perspective of what I'm putting in my body. Journaling is great, but I'm a really visual person, so I'm hoping the pictures will help. I'll post them here, with a description of what's on my plate, Starting with ...TODAY!

Breakfast was some kind of sausage egg sandwich from Dunkin' Donuts. My brother got it for me and no one else would eat it, so I figured I would. I can't really say no to a bagel. I also had 20 lightly salted almonds and a cup of green + white tea.

This is a snack I had after getting home from lunch and market shopping. No pictures of lunch. I forgot! But it's a pepperjack cheese stick, 25 honey roasted peanuts, and a cup of strawberries (more or less).