 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 is weigh in day. We're gonna talk about my week and we're gonna talk about this week's Weight Watchers Workshop topic. So if you're excited, give this video a big huge thumbs up. Make sure you're subscribed. Your bell notification is turned on because I upload a weigh in every Friday and actually five videos every single week. Don't forget to check out the description box down below where you will find nutrition coaching. This is, I do offer personalized macros and calories. This is how I have lost and maintained a 140 pound weight loss as well as one-on-one coaching for questions to talk with me directly or if you really just need some accountability on your weight loss journey, that is what one-on-one coaching is for. Links to discounts to my favorite things as well as my Facebook group, come join us there. We'd love to have you are all down in that description box. So let's chat about my week, my weigh in and this week's Weight Watchers Workshop topic. I hope you had an amazing week. I hope you had an amazing, amazing Halloween. You are seeing this video on Friday but I am filming this video on Wednesday. I actually head out in just a couple hours to go to San Antonio, Texas for a nutrition conference. So I am actually out of town on Friday when I typically film this video. So it's only been a few days since my last weigh in but I wanted to share with you what has happened on the scale. I want to talk to you about my week and what my plan was for my trip to San Antonio and the Weight Watchers Workshop topic is really good this week. So let's first talk a little bit about my week. It's only been about four days since my last weigh in. Since my last weigh in, I've been doing nothing. My metabolism has been metabolizing. I've been exercising. I enjoyed candy on Halloween. I went to a Halloween party on Saturday. I went out to dinner with my in-laws on Sunday. It's been a little bit of a week of festivities with the Halloween holiday. I will pop up some pictures here of the Halloween party that we went to. Troy and I dressed up as hippies, which was really, really fun. Originally, I was going to be a devil. So I had purchased a devil costume for a conference I went to in September and then Troy decided to be a hippie and I thought, well, I have to be a hippie too, right? We're gonna do a couple situation and our costumes are adorable. They were both from Amazon. They were super comfortable, super fun. Just the perfect couples costume and then of course I handed out candy to the kids on Halloween. Luckily, where we live is a community. Unlucky for us, we live in a gated part of the community so we get a little less kids, less trick-or-treaters than other areas. But because we are pretty close to the Mexico border, a lot of those families bring their kids to Rancho where I live to trick-or-treat. So one of my favorite things about Halloween is handing out candy. So I had an amazing time handing out candy to the kids and then of course got to bed pretty early so that I can head out for my trip to San Antonio this week. Now I've never been to San Antonio before so I'm very, very excited to go. I am doing a 5K while I'm there. I did all of my workouts this week per usual and I'm planning on hitting up the gym in San Antonio at least a couple of times. We do have a couple of fitness classes as well. One of them is Zumba and you know, Zumba's not my thing. Zumba's not my jam unfortunately but there is kind of a strength training hit workout I'll probably go to as well. So I definitely am going to get in some movement even though I'm on a little mini vacation. All of my food is provided to me at the conference luckily because it's nutrition based, it's healthy food. So I'm looking forward to that. Again, I'm not going to have control over my food. I am however packing my pre-made protein shakes for my protein coffee every morning and I also am packing quite a few protein bars. That way worst case scenario I can get in my protein every day. I am not planning on tracking. I never track when I'm on vacation. I'm on vacation. I'm going to enjoy myself. I'm going to eat everything in moderation. I'm not going to track my food. I'm going to move my body. I'm going to drink my water. I'm going to live my best life. When I'm in San Antonio, I've never been so I'm very, very excited to attend this conference and I'm very excited to experience Texas. We're doing a ghost tour one night. We're doing a hop on and off bus city tour for like seven or eight hours one day so we can see all of San Antonio. We're going to go to the river walk. I cannot wait. So I am heading out like I said here in a couple hours for my trip but I wanted to talk with you guys about this week's Weight Watchers Workshop topic and I wanted to share my weigh-in with you but before I do, let's dive into the topic and that is how to manage your cravings in two minutes. As a weight loss and nutrition coach that is one of the things I get asked all the time about. How do you manage cravings? How do you not crave salty things and sugary things? Do you give into those cravings? How do you manage it? And this topic is so good and the tips are also so good. Whether you get cravings for certain foods or you feel the urge to snack in sort of motion here when you're happy, sad, mad, bored, these tips and tricks are really going to help you manage that in two minutes or less. Number one, get comfy and close your eyes. Focus on your breathing. Number two, picture an ocean with gentle waves. Notice how they rise, fall and disappear again and again. Number three, imagine each wave as your urge to eat. Watch as each thought, feeling and urge itself passes you by. And number four, acknowledge and accept what you're feeling and thinking. After two minutes, take three deep breaths and come back to the present moment. When a craving or an emotion passes over us, we need to be mindful in managing that craving or emotion. And following these four easy steps that takes less than two minutes, you're really going to be able to recenter and think about am I actually hungry? Am I just craving this because I have head hunger, not actual hunger? Am I craving it because I'm happy, sad, mad, bored, am I craving it because I saw a picture of it, a video of it, a commercial about it? This really just gives you a chance to recenter before giving into that craving. That type of not physically hungry hunger called external hunger is a lot like a wave. It builds and builds then peaks. But pausing to feel that drive to eat, accept it and let it go, can help you over the crest and allow the wave to pass without eating. We call it surfing the urge. And the more you practice this meditation, the weaker the future waves will be. External hunger is a real thing. We smell food. We see food. Someone mentions food. I will give you a personal example of this. It's been a couple of months now, but I was actually visiting my next door neighbor after she had her baby. And she was talking about how she got this white cake with white frosting, which is my favorite cake at our local Kroger store. And she said it was the best cake she's ever eaten. Four days upon days, I could not get white cake with white frosting out of my mind. I tried. I tried to forget about it. I tried to think about other things. I tried to think about substitutes for the white cake and white frosting, but the urge and the craving would not go away. So guess what? I went to Kroger and I bought a white cake with white frosting, a full-size cake, and I ate it every single day for a week. And since then, guess what I haven't craved? White cake and white frosting. What I did though is I didn't immediately run to Kroger and buy the cake. I let it go for days. I'm talking probably close to a week before I gave in to that and really thought about, do I really want this? And I just couldn't get it out of my mind. That is a time when it's okay to give in to external hunger cues. It's okay to give in to cravings, but be mindful and really think about it before you just rush out and eat that craving. External cues are everywhere. Like I said, talking to your neighbor about white cakes, seeing a commercial, smelling a food, being on TikTok and someone creating a yummy recipe. That is external cues, which leads to head hunger. So check in with yourself. Follow these tips and tricks from Weight Watchers to see if you really want to give in or not give in. Is it going to derail your weight loss journey enough that it's not worth it? Or is it just a small indulgence that you can have and be over it for who knows how long, maybe even forever? I also wanna share with you three fast facts from Weight Watchers. Number one, cravings are usually brief, relatively predictable and most importantly, defeatable. Number two, stepping back to observe a craving allows us to recognize it as a moment that will pass. And number three, each time we don't eat in response to a craving, future urges tend to be less intense and subside more easily. You get in a pattern of mindfully navigating those cravings and as time goes on, those cravings lessen more and more. And I will tell you, the more protein you eat, the less cravings that you're going to have naturally. Protein is the macro that satisfies your body the most. And I know, I know there are a lot of you out there watching me sense following macros and calories that I did for you. You have a lot less cravings. You guys tell me on our coaching calls, you're like, I don't crave the foods I used to crave. What is going on? It's getting in enough protein every day. So if you're one of those people, comment down below, let us know how eating enough protein has really helped you navigate your cravings. But just think twice before about giving in, really decide if it's worth it for you. I love this topic and like I said, I'm really excited that I got to discuss it with you before I head out for my trip because I'm going to use this two minute technique while I'm on my vacation. Maybe I don't need to eat dessert every day or several times a day. I'm really going to follow these tips and tricks myself moving forward. So lastly, I want to share with you my weigh-in. Like I said, it's been a whole whopping four days. Last week I gained 0.4. We call that a maintenance. I just started my cycle, my lovely, wonderful cycle on Sunday. Luckily by the time I get on my trip and enter the pool for the first time, my cycle will pretty much be gone. Thank goodness. But this always happens to me. It happened when I went to Hawaii. It happened on my trip to Texas. She just has the worst timing of pretty much anybody when it comes to coming into play before a little vacation. So I bet a little bit hungry this week. Saturday, I was a bottomless pit. Saturday that we went to the Halloween party. I ate about 3,000 calories on Saturday. I was so hungry all day. I would eat and within 30 minutes I was actually hungry. Checking in with myself, it wasn't head hunger. It was physical hunger. So if I'm hungry, I'm going to eat. So I had a really high calorie day on Saturday. Like I mentioned, Sunday my cycle started. That's when my hunger kind of just goes back to normal and then my hunger has been pretty normal the rest of the week. I always am pretty lean right before my cycle and then when my cycle starts, it spikes up and then it kind of levels out again. So right now I'm kind of in that still spiked up but leveling out phase. So since my last weigh in, last Friday, when I stepped on the scale today, I weigh exactly the same. I'm still up 0.4 from about a week and a half ago. It's a maintenance for me. I'm currently on my cycle. I'm taking it as a huge win. And that's coming off of, like I mentioned, a busy week filled with the Halloween party, dinner with my in-laws and Halloween. So listen, I'm not mad about it. I'm not mad about a maintenance. And actually, side note, maintenance is my goal for my trip to Texas. I am looking to maintain my weight. If I lose weight, like I did in Hawaii, I lost a pound on my trip to Hawaii, bonus. Otherwise, I'm always looking to maintain not gain when I'm on vacation. So I'm happy with my week. I'm happy that I enjoyed all the Halloween festivities. I ate when I was hungry, whether I went over my calories or not. And honestly, I feel really good about a maintenance and I feel fine being 0.4 up from the week before. One more little side note. I got my body scan results back. I went over my results with a couple of different sources that explained them a little bit more thoroughly. I have a lot of changes coming in my fitness journey, in the way that I'm eating. That video will be coming out mid-November. Once I get all of the pieces into play, there's a lot of changes coming. So make sure you're subscribed in your bells on so you don't miss that video. Now I wanna hear from you. Let me know how was your week? How was your weigh-in? Do you find that you give into your cravings and are you going to utilize these tips from Weight Watchers just like I am to navigate that a little bit easier? And of course, check out that description box for nutrition coaching. Links and discounts to my favorite things. Come join my Facebook group. I'll be sharing pictures and things there as well as over on my Instagram. Thumbs up the video if you enjoyed it. And again, don't forget to subscribe. Thank you so much for watching. Happy Friday, friends. I hope you have an amazing weekend. I will have a grocery haul for you Saturday and I will have a video for you on Sunday. There will not be a meal prep on Monday because I don't actually return home until Monday. So again, thank you for watching, friends, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.