 Hi friends, welcome back to my channel and a very special welcome. If you're new here, my name is Jen. I'm a certified weight loss and nutrition coach and it is Friday, so it's weigh-in day. We're gonna talk about my week. I just got back from vacation. We're gonna talk about this week's Weight Watchers Workshop topic and my very interesting, kinda weird weigh-in. So if you're excited, give this video a big thumbs up. Subscribe if you're not, turn your bell on because I do a weigh-in every Friday and I actually upload five videos every single week. Check out the description box down below where you will find nutrition coaching. I do offer personalized macros and calories. Highly recommend, this is what I followed to lose 140 pounds, as well as one-on-one coaching for questions, accountability, or if you would like to chat with me and help, and let me help you on your weight loss journey, I offer one-on-one coaching as well. Links and discounts to my favorite things and come join our Facebook group. It's free, it's supportive and we'd love to have you. Are all down in that description box. So let's talk about my vacation, my week, my weigh-in and the Weight Watchers Workshop topic. Friday friends, I hope you had an amazing, amazing week. I had an amazing week. I actually returned on Tuesday night from my little girls' trip to Atlanta. It was my friend Michelle's 50th birthday. My friend Henry, Amy, Amanda, and Melanie all flew in. We're all over the United States into Atlanta. We rented a beautiful, and when I say beautiful, beautiful six-bedroom three-bath cabin about two hours outside of Atlanta in a place called Blue Ridge, it was very beautiful. Very serene, out in the country, very quiet, very peaceful. The cabin was beautiful. Blue Ridge is this really fun town. We did so much fun shopping in that town. We did shopping in Blue Ridge. We took a hike to this beautiful waterfall called Long Creek Falls. It was a pretty easy two-mile hike there and back two miles total. Pretty flat, little bit of elevation gain, but the waterfall was absolutely beautiful. We walked around the cabin area on some of the dirt roads and paths around the area to get in some movement while we were there. We did go to this little German village called, this little German town called Helen, Georgia. We actually went there on Monday, which was Michelle's 50th birthday, and we had lunch at this beautiful, delicious German restaurant. For the first time ever, I had Schnitzel. I've never had Schnitzel. It was so good. Me and my friend Amy shared it. It was absolutely amazing. We had dessert. We shopped the German town and we took this bobsled coaster thing. That was so much fun. You get to sit in your own little bobsled and you get to control how fast you go. And if you know me, if you know you know, I went as fast as I could the entire time. The minute I was able to push forward and pick up speed, I did it and I flew through that track. It was absolutely so much fun. I loved every minute of it. We laughed. We cried. We played a very aggressive game of spoons. We just had an amazing, amazing time. It really just fills my heart with joy to spend time with some of my favorite people in the whole world. We are going to make it an annual thing where all of us get together because we really just had such an amazing time. And since we all live in different states, we can go from state to state. We can go to desirable destinations together. We're talking about taking a cruise next year. It really was just everything my heart and soul needed. It was everything my heart and soul needed was to spend time with them and it was absolutely, absolutely so much fun. I mentioned before leaving for the trip that I was in my weight loss cut. I am just now starting week seven of eight weeks of my cut. I wasn't sure how I was going to navigate a vacation in the middle of a cut. And what I decided was I wasn't going to track my food. I just really wanted to be in the moment and focus on my friends. I did share quite a few photos and things on Instagram. I have a post on my personal Facebook group of all of some of the pictures and things that we did but I really just wanted to be in the moment and didn't want to worry about tracking my food. I did bring my protein shakes with me so that I could have a protein coffee every morning. I brought bars, healthy snacks, but to be honest with you, a full transparency, full honesty, I eat a lot when I was on this vacation. We ate out for every lunch and every dinner. We had dessert once, sometimes twice every day. I had candy, I had cake. We had cupcakes from this cupcake place, that one cupcake wars. We had all of these Australian desserts that Michelle brought from Australia. I ate a lot. I mean, I definitely ate a lot. I made it intentional and moved my body every day. I feel like that was a saving grace. I got a lot of steps every day from sightseeing but girl ate a lot. Like I ate way more than I normally would. I definitely did not stay in a cut. If anything, I ate it maintenance. I definitely ate more than I have been eating on my cut. And I made the intentional decision to do that. And although I like to be mindful on vacation, I still want to enjoy vacation. I wanted to have dessert. I wanted to have German food. I wanted to try this chocolate shop that we went to. We went to this orchard that had these amazing apple cider donuts and this really good cinnamon bread and these little deep fried handheld pies. I mean, I ate everything. I ate everything on my trip and that was an intentional choice. I will tell you that Tuesday, I flew home first thing in the morning on Tuesday. I got right back on track. Tuesday, I was back to my cut, tracking my calories, being mindful of what I was eating. And this week I've been really good about staying in my caloric deficit back to my cut. I did also make the intentional choice not to weigh myself until today. I wanted to allow my body time to adapt back to normal eating. I wanted that travel bloat to go away. I wanted the weight fluctuation from those foods that I ate to go away. And I wanted a very true picture of what actually happened with my body on vacation. Did I actually gain weight or did I just have some weight fluctuations that came off the remainder of the week? So as a reminder, I came home Tuesday night. I was back on track Tuesday. So Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, back to my normal food, back to my deficit, back to my cut. So I am going to share the interesting yet weird weigh-in with you, but before I do, let's chat about this week's Weight Watchers Workshop Top. But before we do, I wanna say one more thing about my week. Girl was back at boot camp, 5 a.m. Wednesday morning, back to my normal exercise, back to my normal routine, and that is what I always do post-vacation. Now you can prevent that vacation spiraling into weeks after you return is just get back to normal. So now let's talk about the Weight Watchers Workshop topic before my weigh-in. That's how to get excited again about your go-to foods. Picture the foods that you always reach for. Every single person has their go-to foods. You know, I love my yogurt bowls every single day. I love my protein coffee every single morning. But like things that we do over and over and over again, our favorite foods can become less and less exciting as time goes on. There's a reason that they are MVP foods for you. There's a reason there are foods that you reach for regularly. So we need to get the excitement back of finding those new go-to foods once they become a little bit more mundane and boring. So here's some things that you can track. Number one, think about the new foods you started eating on Weight Watchers. Old faves re-imagined with a healthier spin and once minor players promoted to starring roles all count. Number two, list your top three to five, then explore why they made the cut. Go beyond taste. Consider how they make you feel. The convenience factor points value, price, everything. And number three, reflect on how you work them into your routine or meals. Are you intentional about it or on autopilot? And how does that happen? And number four, decide on new or exciting ways to keep enjoying these foods. Name a day each week to eat one. Example, Turkey Burger Tuesday. Try a new recipe each week featuring one of your favorites and create a special meal using a favorite food. And remember, it's okay if you don't give those new favorite healthy foods that you fell in love with just kind of a meh. If they've become a meh food for you, that's absolutely okay and normal. But those foods have worked for you. Whether it's in the capacity of weight loss, keeping you on track, fixing your relationship with food. Maybe they're low calorie, high volume, high density foods. We want to make these a starring favorite again. We need to connect food choices that we've made to our progress. If there are certain foods that are our go-to foods that help us reach our protein goal. For example, my protein coffee every morning helps me reach my protein goal every day. Or their foods that we find that keep us full and satisfied or foods that when we eat them lead to a good number, lead to a successful weigh-in. Those are the foods that we need to bring back into the spotlight. We need to make them exciting again. One of the best things about Weight Watchers, one of the best things about counting macros and calories is you can still eat your favorite foods and lose weight. That is something that makes it sustainable. You know how important sustainability is for me. I literally eat all of my favorite foods every single day. And we have to remember that if one of our favorites kind of fell to the back burner, why is that? Did we forget about it? Or is it just kind of meant to us? How can we spice it up and make it a favorite again? Because we know that that food works for us. And we need to do what work. We want to keep eating the foods that have led to our success so far. I do want to share, as always, three fast facts from Weight Watchers with you. Number one, enjoying what you eat makes you more likely to maintain healthy eating patterns long time. Number two, identifying why you enjoy certain foods helps you understand why they work. So you can continue to lean on them and find the favorites. And number three, creating a plan for how you'll incorporate foods you love makes it more likely that you will follow through. So bring those old favorites into the spotlight again, figure out a way to make them exciting. Or maybe you found some new favorite foods, keep them in the limelight, keep them in the spotlight. You know the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Same thing goes with your food. Eating those same foods that led to results over and over will continue to lead to results. So think back to some of your favorite foods that maybe you forgot about and bring them back into your life. They're bright and they're exciting and they're new again and continue to make them a favorite food that leads to success. I could go on and on about all my favorite foods. I have foods that I eat daily. My go-to foods that have helped me be successful and those are the foods that I continue to lean on. Just find a new way to spice them up. So now let's jump into my way. And like I said, this is a very interesting, weird way in for me. Just to recap, I came back Tuesday night. I've been back on track since Tuesday. Back in a caloric deficit, back to my cut so that I can continue the last couple of weeks of my cut and finish strong. Up to date, I have lost 1.4 pounds on my cut. I wanted to give a little bit more context to this weigh-in as well. I was supposed to start my cycle during my trip. I arrived on Friday. I was supposed to start my cycle on Saturday. I did not actually start my cycle until Tuesday. So I actually started the day that I returned home. So the entire time I was on my trip, I felt a little bit bloated. I always have that little bit of bloat feeling leading up to my cycle. Then once I start my cycle, that goes away. That's 100% normal. It's normal to have quite a bit of bloating leading up to your cycle. And then once your cycle starts, that bloating goes away. And that's kind of what happened with me. Starting on Tuesday, truly that bloat started to dissipate. And by Thursday, I was feeling pretty much back to normal. A lot of that bloat was gone. But it was interesting to see how bloated I felt on my trip and even my clothing. I just felt a little bit more heavy and bloated on my trip, which obviously is not ideal, but is to be expected. And I was honestly shocked that I didn't start my cycle the day after I arrived on Saturday, that I was actually about three days late in starting my cycle. I mean, grateful that I wasn't on my cycle on my trip, but not grateful because of the bloat. And that is partially why I decided not to step on the scale when I returned home. If you didn't know, I'm a daily wear. I weigh myself every morning and every night. The scale does not affect me. I just look at the scale as a number and move on with my life. Whether it's up or down, it's irrelevant to me. It's just a one piece of data. And for me, probably the least important piece of data. So I decided just to stay off this scale until I started feeling a little bit back to normal. Now weighing in today, Friday, I am full swing into my cycle. I'm about day four, I believe, of my cycle. So we're in it, we're in it to win it. And like I said, that bloat kind of went away. I got back to eating normal. I got back to exercising. So when I stepped on the scale today, I'm actually up in weight. And I'm up in weight, honestly, more than I thought that I would be, especially because I had a big chunk of time prior post-vacation to get back on track. And I'm actually up one full pound on the scale. Before everybody is like, oh my gosh, I would freak out that I'm up a pound. I'm not freaking out, okay? I'm not freaking out at all. Because number one, I ate a lot on my trip. Intentionally, I was out of a cut. I was at maintenance. Maybe even a bit of a surplus sometimes. And number two, this could still be a number on the scale resulting from my cycle and even post-travel and even some residual bloating and just my body getting used to eating in a deficit again versus eating again in maintenance or even a slight surplus. And truly, truth of the matter is, the truth of the matter is. If I gained a pound, it's well deserved. It's well deserved because I had a great time on my vacation and I don't regret anything. No regrets. I do not regret anything. I don't regret any of the delicious food that I ate. I don't regret any single minute of enjoying my favorite foods with my favorite people. And if that pound sticks around by next weigh-in, then that pound sticks around by next weigh-in. So as of today, I am up one pound, which means that on my cut, entering into week seven of eight weeks, I've lost 0.4 pounds. I also wasn't expecting to really lose anything on my cut. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens by being back on track for the entire week, back to my exercise. Let's see what the scale says next week. And if that pound goes away or that pound sticks around, whatever happens happens. And like I said, no regrets. A side note, I did find it weird that that pound stuck around though, because typically for me, if I do see a fluctuation on the scale post a vacation, it usually goes away in a few days. So like I said, a lot of that could be resulting from currently being on my cycle. We shall see, but I'm not mad about it. I'm back to normal. I always get back on track right after a vacation and that typically removes any vacation weight gain rather quickly. So we'll see what happens next Friday. But now I want to hear from you guys. How was your week? Did you gain? Did you lose? What are some of your go-to foods? Let us know in the comments. What do you lean on for success? You may inspire someone to try a new food that becomes a favorite for them. And let me know too, are there any foods that you used to enjoy that are kind of myth for you that you want to bring back into the spotlight? And if you enjoyed another weigh-in, give it a big thumbs up. Subscribe, turn your bell on. You're not going to want to miss any of the videos I have coming your way. We have a grocery haul tomorrow and we have a really fun video coming out on Sundays. So subscribe and turn that bell on. Check out the description box for nutrition coaching, links and discounts to my favorite things and come join our Facebook group. We love to have you. Happy Friday friends. I'm happy to be back. I'm happy to be bringing back normal content for you and I will see you in tomorrow's grocery haul.