 Hi friends and 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 I'm on WW personal points. Happy Friday. It's Friday. It's the weekend. It is way in day WW workshop topic day. I'll share with you a little bit about my week and I have an announcement. So if you are excited, give this video a big huge thumbs up and of course subscribe and turn your bell on so you never miss a future video. I do upload five days a week and Friday is always way in day. Check out that description box down below for nutrition coaching. I do offer personalized to you macros and calories as well as one-on-one coaching if you would like to chat with me directly. Links, discounts to all of my favorite things and my Facebook group come on over. Join us there. That's how you can keep up with me a little bit more today. Today are all linked down in that description box. So let's jump into the announcement. My way in the WW workshop topic and I'll share with you how my week went. Happy Friday friends. I hope you had a fantastic week. I hope you are as excited as I am about the weekend. Speaking of the weekend, I have a little bit of an announcement for you. I am heading out of town this weekend for an impromptu little getaway. I won't be vlogging it but because I will be gone until kind of late in the day on Sunday, there will not be a meal prep coming this next Monday. I will pick right back up the following Monday. You will not be seeing a meal prep for this coming up Monday because I'm going to be out of town. This is a well needed little getaway for myself, a little vacation so to speak. So unfortunately that means missing a meal prep but all of the rest of my content will remain the same. You're seeing this weigh in on Friday and there will be a video out on Sunday for you. So just a little heads up announcement about meal prep. I will go ahead and link the meal prep that I did this last week just in case you missed it and you want some recipe inspiration to tide you over until next week. I'll make sure it's linked down in the description box. So I mentioned in last week's weigh in that it was my mission this week to get in some intentional exercise. I haven't been a slacker so to speak since we moved to Arizona. We have been so busy just moving and getting settled that going to the gym or exercising or intentional movement just hasn't been high on my list. But I told you that I was setting myself a goal to get in at least three days this week and I am happy to report that I walked four days this week. So I got in about a 30 minute walk four days this week and I have to say it felt really, really, really good. It was nice to get out in the sunshine. I mean, it's sunny here every day. I didn't go to the gym. I just found a few walking paths and loops around the area that I live in and honestly I really enjoyed it. It was nice to just take in all the beautiful Arizona scenery. Be out in the sunshine. I popped in my iPod earbuds and I listened to some YouTube videos. It was really nice and I'm really happy that I went back to it. It made me feel really good. I got in lots of steps on the day that I took a walk and it just helps me get closer and closer to my goal and of course I wanted to re-establish a regular exercise routine. So moving forward, my goal is three to four days per week. I'll try to update you guys in these Friday videos and in fact in my what I eat in a day, maybe I'll take you with me to the gym or on my walk. So stay tuned for lots of intentional activity content because I am back. I am back to moving my body on a regular basis. I also had a really busy week. If you follow me over on Instagram, I'll put it right here for you. If you don't, again, I upload, I post on there every single day, especially in my stories. So it's a great way to keep up with me. I have been deep into real estate school. This last week I spent one day where I was nine hours on Zoom, on my computer in class and then a couple of other days I was on in class for four to five hours. So I'm deep into trying to get my real estate school finished up so that I can get licensed here in Arizona. I have so many new coaching clients, which I love and don't forget I do offer macros, calories and coaching all that's down in the description box for you. But I've taken on a lot of new clients, which has been really good and really rewarding. And my clients are seeing great success with my help, which of course warms my heart and then filming and editing and day to day life. It has been so busy. Taking my walks also was a great stress relief for me and a little bit of me time those four days to just get out and enjoy the scenery, move my body and take a break from school and work. I ate really well this last week. As you saw on Wednesdays, what I eat today, we went out for Chinese food, which was delicious. I ate really well. I stayed on track. I drank my water. This week was great. It was busy, but I didn't let how busy and stressful this week was get to me when it comes to staying on track because I have goals. Girls got goals to get to her goal weight by the end of the year. And before I move into the WW workshop topic, if you didn't see Sunday's video, I uploaded a huge spring and summer. She and try on haul so many cute pieces. I share with you my size, whether or not I should have sized down size up. So I'll leave that video for you to in case you missed it. If you want a little bit of outfit inspiration and you can see how far I've come on my journey when it comes to sizes and clothing. So I'll link that down below for you as well. Before we jump into this week's plan, let's talk about the topic for WW this week. I love this topic. I love, love, love this topic. And that is how to say yes to carbs. Repeat after me. Carbs are not bad. Carbs are not the enemy. Carbs are essential for weight loss. You need carbs to fuel your body. They are an essential macro nutrient or macro. Carbs is what your body leans to first for energy. So throughout the day, as you're moving around, doing your day to day tasks, working, watching your kids, being a dog parent, carbs is what your body is going to lean to first for energy. So they're essential for overall body function. And believe it or not, they're essential to help you lose weight. I want to share with you some great carbohydrate sources for meals and snacks throughout the day. I will go ahead and pop a picture here on the screen for you from the WW workshop topic that goes over some recommendations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner when it comes to healthy carbohydrates. So first, let's take a look at breakfast. Oatmeal, rolled or steel cut oats are an excellent choice. A whole grain English muffin with eggs, avocado or nut butter. This is a go to breakfast for me and nonfat Greek yogurt with blueberries. Greek yogurt is great because it's a source of dairy, protein. And then you pop in some blueberries. You have some fruit, some fiber, and some healthy carbohydrates. Moving on to lunch. A quinoa bowl is an excellent source of carbohydrates. Quinoa is a superfood. It's a very slow digesting carbohydrate. So it takes your body a while to digest it and process it. So it burns more calories doing so. You can have a salad with some roasted chickpeas, which is delicious. You can also have a sandwich on a whole wheat tortilla, which is going to give you a nice balanced, healthy carbohydrate. You know I love snacks. I love a snack. So some great snack options are going to be a banana with peanut butter. This is a great choice because the banana is pretty is strictly a carbohydrate source, but the peanut butter is going to give you healthy fats and protein. So you're basically pairing all three macronutrients together, which is the best way to have a snack or meal. You can also have hummus with vegetables. You can also do hummus with crackers if you prefer that. And whole grain crackers and cheese. This is my favorite snack. I love a good cheese and cracker snack. Is an excellent choice as well. And moving on to dinner. You can pick a whole wheat pasta and pair that with your favorite protein source. They recommend chicken sausage, which is really good paired with pasta. You could do a stir fry and incorporate some brown rice and lots and lots of vegetables and protein and salmon and roasted potatoes or any protein source and roasted potatoes is another one of my go-to meals. I'm also going to pop up one other piece of information from WW that I think is really important to include in today's video. And that is that it is a fact that carbohydrates are an essential part of a healthy pattern of eating. And it's a huge, huge myth that carbs are bad and you shouldn't eat them. We know that carbs get a bad rap, especially from diets like Atkins and keto where they pretty much eliminate or highly restrict carbohydrates. But as we've talked about, carbs are essential and they are definitely, definitely not a forbidden or should be a restricted food. Now there are all different types of carbohydrates out there. Some carbohydrate sources are healthier than others. My recommendation for carbs is to pick a healthy, slow digesting carbohydrate similar to the ones mentioned in today's video. Stay away from a lot of your refined or heavily processed carbohydrates like white, white flour, white bread, crackers, cookies, cakes, those kinds of things are going to spike your blood sugar and be very fast digesting carbohydrates. We're looking for slow digesting because that helps us burn more calories while our body digests them. I love this whole topic about carbohydrates and there is the next three week series about busting diet myths, which speaks right to my heart. If you didn't know, I have a nutrition channel where I do a lot of myth busting when it comes to diet and diet culture. I will make sure my nutrition channel is linked down below for you. If you're on a weight loss journey, if you care about nutrition and eating healthy and living a balanced lifestyle, definitely come over and subscribe. I'd love to have you on the Gem Clayton nutrition channel as well. So I love this topic. I love this myth busting series and I can't wait to see what comes out for the next three weeks. Now let's jump into this week's weigh-in. Like I mentioned, my food on point, my exercise on point. So when I stepped on the scale, I lost 1.4 pounds this week. I have lost well over a pound every week for the last several weeks. No, I know. I know a huge part of this is being on point with my food because we know that all the exercise in the world doesn't matter. You can't, you can't out-exercise a bad diet. It is so important to have your nutrition on point for weight loss. But I also know that by adding in a little bit of intentional exercise, mild intentional exercise, mind you, I didn't go to the gym for hours. I wasn't dripping sweat. I took a walk around my neighborhood. All of that plays a part in weight loss and all of that played a part in me losing 1.4 pounds this week. I will go ahead and put right here on the screen how much I have lost overall and I'm inching closer and closer and closer to my goal weight, which as you know, is my mission by the end of 2022. So I couldn't be happier about how this week went. Busy or not, don't let busyness and stress overwhelm you and prohibit you from being successful in whatever goals you've set for yourself. Learning to navigate stressful situations and busy times and life changes can really be beneficial for overall weight loss success and when you get to maintenance keeping that weight off. So learning how to balance that and navigate that and not using food to cope is going to be extremely helpful in a healthy lifestyle overall. Now I want to hear from you guys. Let me know how your week was. Did you gain? Did you lose? Let me know what you think of this whole myth-busting topic series and about carbohydrates. I want to hear from you guys down in the comment section. And of course, if you enjoyed another Friday weigh-in, give this video a thumbs up. Subscribe if you're not and ring your bell because I do a Friday weigh-in every single week and I upload five days a week. So you never want to miss a single video. Don't forget to check out the description box down below where I'll link the videos I talked about today, all of my favorite healthy things, nutrition coaching and my Facebook group, another community that would love to have you join us. We're 22,000 members strong and growing, so come on over and join us. Happy Friday friends. I'll see you all in tomorrow's grocery haul and then don't forget there will not be a meal prep this next Monday. Happy weekend and I'll see you in the grocery haul. Bye.