 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 a Friday. It is the Friday before Christmas. We're gonna talk about my week, my weigh-in and the Weight Watchers workshop topic. So if you're excited, give this video a big huge thumbs up. Subscribe if you're not, turn your bell on because I upload a new weigh-in every Friday and five videos every single week. Down in the description box, I will have nutrition coaching, get your personalized macros and calories done so you can reach your goals in the new year. I also have one-on-one coaching for accountability to ask questions, talk with me directly and I'm starting up group coaching in January as well. All of the details on group coaching is in my Facebook group and on the community tab here on YouTube. We'd love to have you join us. We have a good size group going and it's going to be a great way to stay motivated and get going in the new year. I'll also link my favorite things down below for you and of course, my Facebook group, it's free. It's a supportive community. Come join us. We'd love to have you. So let's talk about my week, my weigh-in and the Weight Watchers workshop topic. Happy Friday, friends. I can't believe we're literally a couple days away from Christmas. I'm actually really excited for the holidays. I've had such a good holiday season in general. I've been rocking my Christmas gear all month long. I'm actually kind of sad for that to be over. I was looking through my closet today and I was like, girl, you got a lot of Christmas clothes, like a lot, a lot. I'm figuring out where I'm going to put those till next year but I've been loving just being in the holiday spirit. It has just brought so much joy for me for the month of December. I've had a couple of really great Christmas parties. I've been out to dinner with my good friend and her husband. It's just been really good. It's been really soul-fulfilling and heartwarming the month of December and just leading up to the holidays. And then of course, I love Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, very, very much looking forward to it. So I did treat myself, of course, in the month of December. It's good to treat ourselves as well as others, buying gifts for others, buying gifts for ourselves. So I did pick up my two typical dossier fragrances for December. I'm so glad these came in so that I can wear these over the holidays. I know you guys love seeing the fragrances that I pick up. You guys love dossier as much as I do. So I wanted to share with you quickly the two fragrances that I picked up for December. So dossier is an affordable perfume company. What they do is replicate high-end perfumes for a much more affordable price, anywhere from about $29 to $49 per fragrance versus hundreds of dollars per fragrance. Now you know I love Ulta, I love Sephora, I love makeup, I love fragrance. I have smelt all those high-end perfumes and I have purchased the dossier versions and they are equally as incredible. So I decided to pick up two new scents for December and the first one is Fruity Magnolia. This is one of my favorite scents. This is actually a repurchase for me. I have finished an entire bottle of this. I love it that much. And this is a dossier's version of Versace Bright Crystal. Now I own the Versace Bright Crystal perfume. It is almost gone and instead of spending $150 on a replacement, I decided to go ahead and grab the dossier version. So Bright Crystal from Versace, again, is hundreds of dollars, about $150 for the large bottle. The notes in this, the top notes are Pomegranate, Yuzhu, Aquatic Accord. Your middle notes are Magnolia, Peony and Rose and your base notes are Amber, Musk and Arkeju Wood. Now this is Fruity Floral Woodsy. It's a really interesting combination of fragrance. I really love how bright it is. Yeah, it's Versace Bright Crystal. It blows my mind how the replication is the exact as the high-end perfume. That's why I had to buy another one of these and then the other scent I picked up is Powdery Orange Flower. This is inspired by Valentina's Vos Viva Odie perfume. I love the smell of this. It's so good and it is so expensive. We know Valentino is really pricey. The notes in this one, your top notes are Mandarin, Bergamot and Ginger. I love that sweet, spicy Fruity. Your middle notes are Orange Flower, White Flowers and Gardena and your base notes are Vanilla, Tonka Bean and Musk. So it's Fruity, it's a Vanilla-y. This is a really beautiful fragrance. Ooh, oh, it's so yummy. It is, the first thing I smell honestly is the vanilla. You get the Fruity and then you get the Musk, it's beautiful. I think I'm gonna wear this today. I'm so excited to have Fruity Magnolia back in my life. The Powdery Orange Flower, these are absolutely incredible. So I will link dossier down below for you with a 5% discount. You can actually piggyback that on any other discount on the dossier website and they're actually running some really good sales right now so you can double dip your discount. So thought I'd share my two December fragrances with you. I can't wait to wear these moving into the new year. So now that we've talked about perfume, let's talk about my week. So this last Saturday, I had my boot camp Christmas party. Oh my gosh, you guys, it was so much fun. We did a gift exchange. We all dressed up in Christmas gear. We hung out by the fire outside of Carmen's house. She had the most beautiful Christmas tree. The food was incredible. The camaraderie was incredible. We actually sat around the fire at the end of the night and talked about all the things that we were thankful for with our boot camp group. And for me, it was definitely the friendships that I've built. Moving to Arizona, I knew nobody. And I was really nervous on how I was going to meet and create friendships. And joining boot camp has not only changed my fitness, it's changed my body, but it's changed my life with the friendships that I have found. It actually makes me a little bit emotional because I'm so grateful for boot camp and I'm so grateful for the friendships that I've found. It really has brought so much joy to me here living in Arizona. And these are some of the best friends a girl could ask for. And our Christmas party was absolutely so special and so much fun. I actually chose not to track my food at all on Saturday. I ate normal throughout the day, but I enjoyed myself at the party. We had rum cake, we had homemade flan, we had amazing, amazing food. We had these fried egg rolls that one of the girls made that were literally the best egg rolls I've ever had. It was just something I chose was to just enjoy the day. Not to go off the rails. I certainly didn't go off the rails. I literally ate normal throughout the day and then enjoyed the Christmas party. That's all about a sustainable, healthy lifestyle which is exactly what I've created, counting macros and calories and really focusing on getting in my protein and staying in a calorie deficit. The rest of the week was great with the exception of my poor husband. I did share an update in Wednesday's what I eat in a day. Troy ended up having to go to the ER after the urgent care. There may be another ER visit in our future because unfortunately he's just not really improving. So if you missed Wednesday's what I eat in a day, I'll link it down below for you. I talk a lot about where we are and a couple of days later today, Friday, there isn't much change since Wednesday. So I'll make sure that video's down below if you missed it. So it's been a bit of a stressful week. I've been having to do pretty much everything, maintaining the house, helping Troy. I have to do pretty much everything for him. He can't really get up and walk around. So I've been preparing his meals. I've been really doing everything. So during this stressful time, there's the holidays. There's my husband not being well and then there's just life that's happening right now in December and I made the commitment to myself to not let that derail me. I wanna finish out 2023 strong. I have been doing all of my workouts. I have been tracking my food. I have been drinking my water. I've been doing all of my normal things despite all of the added stress during the holidays. And one thing that I incorporated this week is I attended a new workout class with one of my boot camp friends, Melissa. There was actually a new strength training gym opening up in my area and I wanted to check it out. The trainer offered me a free class. So I actually went on Tuesday and it was so fun. It is strictly strength training. No cardio, it's a lot of lifting weights in more of a circuit style. It was hard, but it was really good and I'm actually considering joining this additional gym in the new year as well. We'll talk more about that in my goals video. By then I would have made a decision if I was going to join and I'll explain how that's going to play a part in my 2024 goals. You're not gonna wanna miss that video. It is coming out the last Sunday of the month, December 31st. Also, quick note before we move into the Weight Watchers workshop topic, there will not be a video on Sunday or Monday. I'm going to take Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off to enjoy it with my family, with my dogs and just take a couple days off. It's very much needed with the stress that's been happening over the month of December. So there will not be a video on Sunday or Monday, but I'll be right back to my normal content on Wednesday with Wednesday's What I Eat in a Day. One more quick housekeeping reminder is Group Coaching starts January 7th. So if you haven't joined Group Coaching, we'd love to have you. There's a post here on the community tab on YouTube with all of the details and there's all of the details in my Facebook group as well. If you have any questions regarding Group Coaching, leave it in the comments, I'll get back to you. But we'd love to have you join. It's really gonna be game-changing for the Group Coaching members to reach their goals in the new year. So now, let's talk about the Weight Watchers Workshop topic and then I'll share my weigh-in. And this week's topic is how to hit the brakes on speedy eating. I need this. I am such a fast eater. Now, granted I have gotten better as time has went on, but I'm still a pretty fast eater. I mean, I'm always done before my husband. I'm always, always done. And when we eat quickly, our body doesn't have time and our brain doesn't have time to connect and understand that we've consumed a meal. So sometimes that can lead to overeating or less satiety with our meal. So this is gonna be a really good topic, especially through the holidays. Here's some things to try. If you find yourself rushing through meals, barely remembering what you ate, these tips and tricks are going to help. Try this, use your senses to tune in. Pause to notice the colors on your plate. Set yourself up for success. Match your pacing to the slowest eater at your table, AKA my lovely husband. Listen to the sounds each bite makes. Eat with your non-dominant hand for the first two minutes. Go back and forth between tasting and talking, which means set your fork down between your bites, set the table, plate your food and sit as if you were a guest. Eating slowly is one of those universal tips that most of us know about, but we don't implement. Myself included, I'm 100% guilty of this. How often do we get caught up in conversation? Do we try to multitask? We're on our phone, we're looking at the computer, we're watching TV, we're talking, we're doing all the things other than mindfully eating and focusing on our food and the next thing we know, our meal's gone and we don't remember a single bite of it. It's really helpful to have at least one strategy in your toolbox to help you slow down your eating. Again, it takes between 15 and 20 minutes for your stomach and your brain to connect that you've eaten a meal, which leads to satiety. So those individuals, like my lovely husband, who eat slower, they typically consume less per meal because they're eating slow enough that their body recognizes they've consumed a meal, their brain recognizes they've consumed a meal, it's connected and they typically, again, eat less per meal and feel just as satisfied. And one thing that's very enlightening is research study after study shows that people who are more likely to maintain their weight loss eat slower. So slowing down your eating is really beneficial for weight loss and weight maintenance. So with that, I do wanna share three fast facts from Weight Watchers with you. Number one, being more mindful during meals can help us notice what and how much we're eating and eat less. Number two, eating slowly gives the body more time to signal to the brain that it's full, which can reduce overeating. And number three, mindful eating can help you enjoy your meal, really savoring your meal, looking at the color, smelling the food, chewing the food, letting your stomach and brain understand you've consumed a meal are really helpful tips to slow down your eating. I know for me, this is going to be one of my goals moving into the new year is to really be a little bit more mindful during my meals. I often find myself on my phone and I need to just set my phone down. One of the things I've been doing is actually leaving my phone in my office and going into the kitchen to eat my meals. One of my things that I do is not eat at my desk. I drink at my desk, but I don't eat at my desk. I get up and go in the kitchen and sit down and eat my meal. So I've been leaving my phone behind, which has been really, really helpful. So I'm actually really excited to implement some of these tips and tricks myself into slowing down my eating. Let us know down below if you have any tips and tricks to slow down eating as well, but I think these are a great place to start. So now let's talk about my weigh-in. So I am wrapping up my monthly cycle. I actually also started my cycle this week. That's another thing. That's another thing that happened this week that's just added to the chaos and stress of my life right now was starting my cycle. And it was pretty miserable the first couple of days. Now I still got my workouts in, dreaded them, but I did them. And now I'm actually feeling a little bit better because I'm at the tail end of my cycle. And with my cycle and with most people's cycle, our weight is going to fluctuate. We didn't gain weight, it's a fluctuation, but it's going to fluctuate based on our hormones and where we are in our cycle. So typically for me, the couple of days leading up to my cycle and the first couple of days of my cycle, my weight's pretty low. And then it kind of spikes back up mid-cycle. And then I drop back down to my normal or consistent weight towards the end of my cycle. So right now I'm kind of in that normal consistent weight mode. If you remember last week I gained point two and when I stepped on the scale this week, I weigh exactly the same. So I am still technically up the point two that I gained last week, but I am still on my cycle and wrapping that up. So hopefully by next week my weight will stabilize and I'll kind of be right back to that normal maintenance. But truthfully, I consider point two a maintenance. Like I said last week and the fact that I'm still the same weight as I was last week, Christmas party and all, I'm feeling really good about that. And my goal for December, as you know, was to maintain not gain. Now I got a lot of goals moving into the new year. So definitely don't miss my video on the 31st. Please turn your bell on so that you get a little notification from YouTube that I've posted that way you don't miss any videos. So that's how I am. Maintaining my weight, still up point two. I consider that a maintenance and I consider that a big win during the holiday season. So let me know down below, how was your week? What do you think of these tips and tricks to eat a little bit more slowly and a little bit more mindfully? And of course, share your tips and tricks with us. You guys always have amazing, amazing tips that you can share. So leave those down in the comments. Let me know if you finished your Christmas shopping and what you're excited for for the holiday, for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And if you enjoyed today's video, give it a big thumbs up. Again, subscribe. Don't forget to turn your bell on so you don't miss any future videos. And again, check out that description box for nutrition coaching. Come join us for group coaching. Links and discounts to my favorite things. And come join my Facebook group. We'd love to have you. Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas, friends. I love you guys so much. I hope you are having an amazing holiday. I will see you in tomorrow's grocery haul and then I'll see you again on Wednesday. Post the holidays for what I eat in a day. Thank you for watching. See you next time. Bye.