Operation: Floral

Hey everyone!
I can't believe we're in the homestretch of 2019! Where has this year gone? How's everyone doing with all the Halloween candy temptations? I'm faring well-ish. For a while there, I wanted all the chocolate but recently I've been so lucky that I've not had any cravings for sweets or salty snacks. (A treat is okay! I just like to turn treats into all day affairs. Ha)
A few days ago I came up with something called Operation: Floral. If you've been following for a while, you'll know my house caught on fire, and from November 13 through July 8th, I lived in a hotel while our house went through a lot of repairs. Totally gutted on the inside and outside. The house was taken down to the studs, some walls were knocked out, we got a whole new roof and siding. We lost all our furniture, a ton of electronics, sentimental stuff, old paperwork... crazy. But anyway! A lot of our clothes were salvaged! Or a good portion of them! (Thank goodness that most of the damage was water damage! Some items did get smoke or burnt up, but most clothing items were able to be dry cleaned.)  Some of my favorite clothing items like my unicorn shirt made it home! And also my absolute favorite floral shorts!
The sad thing is, I've admittedly put on some weight. The shorts fit me (yay!) but they're uncomfortably tight. I don't feel comfortable going out and wearing them in public. They give me an awful muffin top and wearing them is a total bummer.
That's where Operation: Floral comes in! My goal is to get back in these floral shorts. I know, it's almost November and we're entering in the winter months, who's going to be wearing shorts?? I'm taking a short vacation to the Smoky Mountains the week of Veteran's Day and I would love to wear these shorts, even if I have to wear a pair of winterly leggings underneath. What a fashion statement! ha. But I have a goal, and it's been immensely helpful. We leave in 21 days and I've been at this for a few weeks now. I'm trying. If anything, I feel like I'm going in the right direction.
I've made a few significant changes to my workouts. I run on the treadmill in the early afternoon, as I always did. When I was living at the hotel, at first we were in separate hotel rooms, and I would run in the mornings, do Jillian in the afternoon (or something Jillian in the AM, an hour run in the afternoon, but I always had both workouts done before 4pm) and I LOVED having the evening to work on things that needed done. Well, I've gotten back into getting both my workouts done before 7pm again, rather than a run in the afternoon, and a JM workout sometime around midnight. I'm sleeping better now because of the schedule change. I have the evenings to get things done, work on projects, work on orders, (watch This Is Us, haha!) and so on, and I get to bed at a reasonable hour and sleep for an adequate amount of time. That's a big change for me. I feel like getting it all done is helpful overall because I'm able to manage my time a little better, do what I like to do, do what I need to do. On the subject of Jillian Michaels, I'm almost finished with Body Shred for a third time. I just finished Week 5 and 6, which still are my all time favorite weeks for Body Shred. I don't do the cardio days currently, but I plan on adding them back in. Only I will switch Jillian's cardio for something more fun like DDR or Country Heat). I finish Body Shred the week before we go to Tennessee. That last week I'm planning on doing Lift and Shred OR One Week Shred. When we come back from Tennessee, I'm thinking of switching over to the dark side. We have a Smart TV and I am very intrigued by LIIFT 4. Maybe I'll try something like PiYo on LIIFT4 off days??? How about some 80 Day Obsession? Maybe I'll try FitFusion by Jillian?
I'm building back up to where I was with running, also. When I first began again, I was embarrassingly slow. I could get about 3 miles in an hour. I've picked it up to four miles an hour, which is a time I'm still unhappy with (15m/m) but I'm going in the right direction. The dreams of running a half marathon and eventually a full marathon are coming back as I'm starting to get back in a groove. I tried running outside but was ashamed I let myself go so bad, but that desire is coming back to me as well.
I'm trying to go about re-losing the weight again healthier than I did before. Trying not to overtrain, trying not to be a slave to the almighty calorie. I want to be able to live my life, and be healthy. Being healthy means having a piece of cake and not freaking out about it, but also wanting to kill a workout and help keep the results by having a salad. :) I feel like I'm finally on the right track though, after months of barely hanging on. Let me tell you - getting back on it, finally seeing results again, eating healthy again - it's fantastic. I am really feeling like I'm getting somewhere. If anything, I feel better mentally and emotionally than I have in the longest time. The lack of support from my family (and this isn't meant to dog on them!) isn't bothering me anymore because we all have our own spaces again, and being back home has been wonderful for all of us.

In upcoming blogs, I hope to talk about running my first 5k (The Color Run!), updating about Operation: Floral. I'll share my feelings on Lift and Shred or One Week Shred (depending on which I do) and what I do when we return home from Tennessee. :) I also hope to talk about making my brand new DDR pad (since I lost several in the fire, including my Red Octane Afterburner) and trying to unlock songs again. I started playing again to get back on the ball and it was incredible!

(This is likely a jumbled up blog. I may edit.)