 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 who has lost and maintained a 140 pound weight loss and it is Friday. So you know what that means. It is way in day. We're gonna talk about my week. I actually am heading out of town tomorrow. So we're going to talk about that trip and how I'm navigating that as well as this week's Weight Watchers Workshop topic. So if you're excited, give this video a big thumbs up, subscribe, turn your bell on because we 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. Highly recommend your personalized macros and calories. That is what I did for myself and followed to lose my 140 pounds and keep it off for over a year. I also have one-on-one coaching for questions, accountability or to talk with me directly. Links and discounts to my favorite things and my free amazing supportive Facebook group is also down below. Come and join us. We would love to have you. So let's jump into my week, my weigh-in and the Weight Watchers Workshop topic. I hope you had an amazing, amazing week. I had a fantastic week. We got a lot of good news this last week. If you miss Wednesday's what I eat in a day, I gave you a Lola update and a Troy update. So definitely check that out if you wanna know kind of what I'm talking about with good news and those updates. But I had a really good week in my life. I had a really good week with food. I am out of my cut as you know. So I'm eating more at maintenance calories. Now there are some days during the week that I'm in a slight deficit. I really try to listen to my body and tune into my hunger signals. I make sure that I eat enough every single day but some days I don't reach my maintenance calories. Some days I do, some days I go over. Truly in the end it's a wash and most likely and typically at the end of the week I'm right around those maintenance calories. I have lost and maintained a 140 pound weight loss. I'm not really looking to lose any more weight. What I'm looking to do is lean down and build lean muscle. And so I pretty much eat like I said right around those maintenance calories. And for me that ranges anywhere from about 2,300 to 2,800 depending on how active I am and how hungry I am. Now my maintenance calories are going to be different than your maintenance calories or your weight loss calories. That's why I recommend those personalized macros and calories. But I'm loving maintenance life because I'm able to eat a little bit more. I'm much more full and satisfied throughout the day and I'm able to fuel my body for my workouts which is super important to me. I did go to boot camp this morning. The weather here like I said has been lovely. So my morning workouts have been equally as lovely. If you saw Wednesdays what I eat in a day I let you know that I've transitioned from sweatshirts to t-shirts and it is t-shirt weather even in the morning which makes me really happy. On my rest day on Tuesdays, on my active rest day on Sunday and sometimes even after boot camp a little bit later in the day I've been getting on my Maroc exercise bike and doing just a quick ride. I did share my exercise bike with you in a previous video about a month ago and I wanted to give you guys an update and let you know that I'm still loving it. I use it a few times a week. Troy's been using it a few times a week. It's actually an exercise that he can do. It takes a lot of the pressure off of his legs so he's able to move his body and get everything circulating in his legs. If you didn't know he has some circulation issues in his lower body. So getting his legs moving that's more low impact has been really helpful for him and I have been loving the app and loving the classes. There are actual fitness classes that you can take in the app and that's one and I did do one of those this morning just a short 20 minute ride but I've been really liking it for that added boost of cardio and I'm not somebody who has space in my house for an exercise room nor do I wanna spend thousands of dollars on an exercise bike and the Maroc bike is under $200 and the app is absolutely free. So you're able to access the app in the rides for free which is very different than other exercise bikes that you can purchase where you have to pay for the app and pay for the workouts. It's completely free. I love how small and compact it is. I'm able to store it in my spare bedroom and whenever I wanna use it I can ride in the spare bedroom or I can pull it out and ride it elsewhere. It's easy to move and definitely saves on space and it has so many flexible adjustments so it fits everybody. I love that the seat goes up and down so that I can lower the seat for me and Troy can raise the seat for him. He is substantially taller than I am so he always raises the seat up a little bit and speaking of the seat, it's extremely comfortable. I did not replace the seat that came with my bike with a more padded seat because it has the perfect padding. I don't notice any discomfort from riding the bike. The seat super comfortable, super flexible, super adjustable. There's actually a hundred levels of infinite resistance so it can meet all of your workout needs and it is on a full belt drive system so there's less noise and it gives you a smoother riding experience. It has an LED monitor, a soft pocketed seat and cage pedals. Now I will tell you that I love that the pedals have the cover that I can slip my foot into because there are so many times that I've been riding other exercise bikes and my feet have slipped off the pedals and you can actually injure yourself doing that especially if you're doing a more resistance ride like I do through the app so I love that there's a spot to put my feet in the pedals. It's extremely easy to assemble like I mentioned in my previous video. Amazing quality and it's extremely comfortable. We love our bike. It is the one and only, it is the only piece of at home exercise equipment that I use and I love just having it here in case I wanna get into some extra activity and again, you can't beat it for under $200. Pick it up right off of Amazon. I will link it down below with the discount but an update on the bike, we are still loving it. Love, love, love it, love the app, love the rides, love the community. It's a fantastic affordable at home exercise option. This last Thursday, my friend Melissa and I actually took a two and a half hour, six mile hike in Madeira Canyon here in Green Valley which is only about 15 minutes from where I live. I had never been to Madeira Canyon. It is beautiful. For me, it feels like I'm back in the Pacific Northwest. It doesn't feel deserty at all. There's trees, there's streams, there's water. It's beautiful. It's got a crisp mountain air to it. Speaking of the mountains, they're absolutely beautiful so we took a lovely hike together. It was wonderful just to spend time with her, to move our bodies, to torch 800 calories. It was just absolutely beautiful and I'm definitely, definitely going to be hiking there more. Mention that I'm heading out for a trip. I actually fly out tomorrow morning to Sandy Ago to not only visit my friend Rachel but we're also running a 10K on Sunday, the hot chocolate run. This will be the third or fourth year that I've done this run. Typically, we do the 5K. We're challenging ourselves with the 10K instead of the 5K. I'm actually really excited about it. I've never done a 10K before so I'm curious to see how I do with that. I have a lot of endurance from working out regularly but I'm curious to see how do I feel on a 5K versus a 10K. I'll definitely update you guys in next week's video but I'm basically flying into San Diego for the weekend. I fly out tomorrow Saturday. I fly home Monday morning. We're going to do our 10K. I plan on hiking Tori Pines on Saturday. Rachel's actually going to be working out with her trainer so I'm going to have her just drop me off at the hiking area on Saturday. It's right on the ocean. It's a beautiful hike. It's a hard hike but it's a beautiful hike. So I'm just going to spend two, three hours there just wandering around, enjoying the hike, enjoying the ocean because like I said, it's right on the ocean while she's doing her workout and then we're going to go have lunch together. One of my subscribers, Wendy, hi Wendy, love you Wendy, is going to be doing the hot chocolate run with us. So she's coming in on Saturday as well so we're going to spend Saturday afternoon with her. We have to go pick up our race packets and then we're going to go enjoy a healthy dinner and just hang out together. I'm really excited to see Rachel, her roommate Kelly who's also my friend, Kelly and Rachel are who I go to Hawaii with every year and then of course spend some time with Wendy. So it's going to be just a soul fulfilling active girls weekend and I'm super excited for it. As you know or you may not know if you're new I do not track my food when I'm on vacation. So I won't be tracking any of the food that I'm eating over the weekend. I'm always mindful of what I'm eating. I still focus on my protein every day but I don't track my food. I just, I live my life. I enjoy my vacation because that's sustainable for me and whatever you do to lose weight you have to do it to maintain your weight loss and for me that's not tracking when I'm on vacation. So there will be no tracking, there will be mindfulness, there will be focus on protein but I plan on living my best life this weekend. Before I share with you my weigh in I do want to talk about this week's Weight Watchers Workshop topic and that is how to build healthy habits that stick. This is really important because the daily habits that we do because the habits that we do daily play a big part, a major, major part in our overall weight loss success and trying to force ourselves to do something that we dislike it's not sustainable we're not gonna stick with it. This is everything from eating foods that we don't like just for the sake of weight loss or working out or exercising, doing something we don't enjoy just for the sake of weight loss. We're not going to stick with that. It's not going to become a habit so why even bother? Why not do things that you enjoy and develop healthy habits that you'll actually stick with? So here's some things to try. Number one, choose a focus. Maybe it's eating better, sleeping more soundly, moving more or shifting your thinking. Then number two, list three specific behaviors that will help you with that focus. If your focus is eating better maybe that means eating breakfast every single day or maybe it means having veggies with every single meal or pre-tracking your dinner and number three, pick one of these to try. Then decide how you'll do it at least three times this next week. For example, I'll prep breakfast after cleaning up dinner on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And number four, at the end of the week reflect did you feel a positive impact? If the answer is yes, bingo, this behavior is right for habit formation. Now choose a cue that reminds you to repeat the action consistently. And if it wasn't for you or if you thought this isn't really, or if your first thought was not really test drive another behavior from your list. Think of this behavior kind of like a loop, a healthy habit, a loop that you're happy to be stuck in. And find a cue for that habit. So if your cue is dinner cleanup, once you start cleaning up for dinner you prep your breakfast for the next week. So your cue is dinner cleanup which leads to the healthy behavior of prepping your breakfast the next week. Or maybe your goal is to move your body more. So before you go to bed your cue is to put your workout clothes out for the next morning. So when you wake up in the morning that cues you to do your workout. Find a way that a cue is going to help you continue to build and maintain those healthy habits. And remember, building a new habit, creating a new habit takes time. You're not going to say I'm gonna start working out regularly, do it one day and have a habit formed. You're going to have to do that consistently to form a healthy habit. Now there's a lot of information out there that says by doing something 15 times it forms a habit. By doing something for 21 days it forms a habit. This is going to vary from person to person. Some people can work out five times and have a healthy habit. Other people need to work out five months before they develop that as a habit. So it's going again to change from person to person but find a cue that's going to lead you to building that healthy habit that you can maintain long term. I think it's important to define what a habit is. The definition of a habit is predictable actions we do automatically under similar circumstances. A great example of this is brush your teeth. Do you even have to think about brushing your teeth? No, you just automatically do it every morning and every night. This is what's considered to be a habit. It's predictable. You don't have to think about it and you do it on a regular basis. Habits can be simple and easy and just like the rest of a weight loss journey they don't have to be complicated. So use these tips and tricks from Weight Watchers to start to develop a new healthy habit for you that's going to help you lead to success. I really like this topic. I am very much a habit stacker. I like to stack habits. I like to build healthy habits. I like to remain consistent with those habits and I will tell you that that's been a big driving force in my losing weight and maintaining that weight loss. So this is a fantastic topic and one that I'm glad we're discussing. So now let's jump into my weight. Last week I gained 0.2 pounds and I let you know that I consider 0.2 loss, 0.2 gain, 0.4 loss, 0.4 gain. I consider that pretty much a maintenance. That's simply a weight fluctuation that just happened to the day that I stepped on the scale. And like I also mentioned, I'm focusing on maintenance, sometimes being in a slight calorie deficit. I'm really focused on my fitness and moving my body and keeping my endurance up and just enjoying exercise, doing things that I enjoy and then feeling my body the way that I need to feel my body to benefit my exercise, to benefit building lean muscle and to help maintain my weight. I will also tell you that I ate some Easter candy this week. I bought some Easter candy at Target. You actually saw that in Wednesday's What I Eat in a Day and I've been picking at it this week, which is not a big deal. It's okay to have some Easter candy. You can even have Easter candy every day. I mean, I've had Easter candy every day and believe it or not, when I stepped on the scale today, I actually lost 0.4 pounds. So I lost the 0.2 that I gained last week and an additional 0.2, which is pretty darn good for someone who's eating at maintenance. So I'm thrilled with that. I consider that serious, I consider that similar to my 0.2 gain last week as a maintenance. Yes, I lost 0.4 pounds, it's 0.4. It's still essentially maintaining my weight and again, that could be a fluctuation in my favorite this week. I never really know what's going to happen day to day, week to week. I am a daily wearer. I don't let the scale define who I am. I don't let the scale bother me at all as you know. For me, it's just data. I like to see those weight fluctuations. I will tell you the day after I did that two and a half hour hike, my weight was up a couple of pounds. Now there's no way I gained two pounds when I did a two and a half hour hike. It was a fluctuation from soreness, my muscles retaining fluid or being inflamed. So I just find that that data to be interesting. Now if you don't have a healthy relationship with the scale, don't weigh yourself every day. Wait once a week, every two weeks. Try not to go more than a month without weighing yourself. But know that weight fluctuation is normal and you can't control the scale. You can control what you do every week to reach your goals, but you can't control what the scale says. So don't let it define you. You are so much more than a number on a scale. So I'm happy with my 0.4 loss, especially leading into a little mini vacation. We will definitely see what the scale says post vacation. And as a reminder, I will be posting on Instagram and in my Facebook group, pictures and updates throughout my trip. So if you're interested in seeing how I did on the 10K, pictures and photos, definitely follow me on Instagram and join my Facebook group. And I'll give you guys an update in next Friday's weigh-in about the 10K, how being on vacation impacted my weight loss journey. And now I wanna hear from you guys. How was your week? Did you gain? Did you lose? Was it what you expected? Let me know down below. And let me know what is one habit that you're really good at and what is one habit that you would like to be better at? One habit that you would like to build over the next month. And if you enjoyed another weigh-in video, give it a big thumbs up. Subscribe, turn your bell on so you never miss a future video. I will of course link the Merak exercise bike down below for you. Highly recommend both Tori and I have absolutely been loving it. It's helping us reach our weight loss goals at home. And for me, it's just that little bit of extra movement that I can get in every day. And the app is so fun. And the app with the classes is so much fun. Absolutely loving my bike. I will make sure it is linked down below with a discount as well as nutrition coaching. Links and discounts to my favorite things. And of course, come join my Facebook group. We'd love to have you. Happy Friday, friend. Happy weekend. And I will see you in tomorrow's grocery haul. Bye.