 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. We're gonna talk about the holidays. And of course I'm going to share with you my weigh-in for the week. 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 upload five videos every single week. Check out the description box down below where you will find nutrition coaching, highly recommend personalized macros and calories, set yourself up for success moving into the new year so you can reach your weight loss goals. And I also offer one-on-one coaching for accountability to ask questions or talk with me directly. Links to discounts to my favorite things and come join our Facebook group. It's free and we would love to have you are all down in the description box. So let's talk about my week, the holidays, the Weight Watchers workshop topic and my weigh-in. Happy Friday friends. I hope you had an amazing week. We are literally about 10 days out from Christmas. I can't even believe it. I feel like this month has flown by. In fact, I feel like this entire year has flown by. This year for me has had lots of ups. There's been quite a few downs this year as well. It's been a little bit of a roller coaster but overall it's been a good year and it's went really, really fast. This is the busiest time of the year for pretty much everybody. I definitely see that here on YouTube. My videos certainly have slowed down as far as views go because I know people are busy with the holidays. I still wanna put out content for you especially for those of you that continue to watch my videos and support my channel. I very, very much appreciate it. I'm hoping that things pick up a little bit more into the new year but I know how busy this time of year is especially if you have kids and events. I personally have had several holiday events. In fact, I am going to my boot camp Christmas party tomorrow which is my second Christmas party of the season. I've been busy getting ready for the holidays myself. My in-laws and Troy and I drew names on Thanksgiving so we're doing a little gift exchange. I've been baking for the holidays. We actually have Christmas Eve at our house and then go to my in-laws on Christmas Day and like I said, I've had holiday parties, gift exchanges. We sponsored a family for my boot camp group so I bought gifts for those kids. It's been busy and with busyness sometimes it throws us off of our schedule and like I said, it's hard for us to maintain our normal routine when the holidays are here and the busyness of the season is just out of control. I have really been focused on maintaining my normal routine as much as possible especially when that comes to exercise. I made myself a promise that I would continue to get all of my workouts in through the holidays and I've done just that. I have been to boot camp three days a week. I've been in the gym two to three days a week and my friend Melissa just discovered another workout group that's new to my area. She's attended a couple classes and really enjoyed them. I'm thinking I may attend some of those as well which will just give me extra activity especially moving in to the new year. I did share in a previous video that I have some pretty lofty goals starting in January. I'll be sharing those goals and all of my 2024 goals with you towards the end of December. Speaking of December, I'll give you a heads up now and I will definitely remind you as we get closer but I will not be uploading videos on Sunday, Christmas Eve or Monday, Christmas Day. I'm going to take those two days off and just enjoy my time with the dogs and with Troy and my family so I won't have videos on those two days and again, I'll remind you as we get a little bit closer but throughout the rest of the month all of my normal content will be here including my vision board and goals video which I know a lot of you are looking forward to. Overall my week was great, busy, busy but great. Also in Wednesday's what I eat in a day I shared with you that Troy had to go to urgent care. He's been having some issues with his knee. If you haven't seen Wednesday's what I eat in a day I'll link it down below for you. He's currently on steroids for that issue. If it doesn't get better he'll have to go to the ER to seek further treatment. So it's been a little bit of a whirlwind of a week but it's been a good week overall. I'm deep into working with my fitness coach Brenda that's been going really well and having her for extra accountability has been huge especially throughout the holidays. Lastly before we jump into the Weight Watchers workshop topic for the week a reminder that my goal for December is to maintain not gain. I'm looking to hopefully just maintain my weight and float into the new year the same way as I ended 2023 with. So let's talk about this week's Weight Watchers workshop topic because it is perfect for the holiday season and that is 10 ways to speed up both meal planning and meal prep. Like I said a lot of our health goals a lot of our personal things get put to the wayside during the holidays. So this topic is actually going to share with you how to continue doing the things that you do to lead to success on your weight loss journey but speeding them up a little bit for this busy time of year. Have you ever wished that you had a personal chef? I think this is standard for a lot of people. Meal prepping and meal planning can be overwhelming very time consuming and just daunting overall. And it's one of the things that just gets put to the wayside during the busy time of year like the holidays. So I want to share with you those 10 tips on how to continue doing what you need to do meal prepping and planning to reach your goals. Try this don't have time to prep and cook a full meal lean on quick or no cook foods and recipes pick up cooked proteins rotisserie chicken frozen shrimp burger patties by pre-chopped veggies you can even add them to take out meals. Are you missing ingredients when you do have time to cook? Write a grocery list while planning meals for the week and get everything in one run. Consider ingredients you already have when planning choose recipes that use five ingredients or less like pastas, stir fries and salads. Just don't want to cook every single day designate one day a week to batch cook. Chili, soups and stews freeze and reheat well stored individual portions roast or slow cook a large chicken, beef roast or other protein to use all week and no cook meals. These tips are fantastic, especially the pre-cooked meats. You guys know I'm a big proponent of the pre-cooked shredded white meat chicken at Sprouts because it's a huge time saver. Sure it's gonna cost you a little bit more it's gonna be a little bit more to your grocery budget every week to buy pre-cooked pre-chopped up pre-made things but if it makes you eat healthy and stay on track and makes your life easier to me in my opinion it's well worth the added expense. If you have fruit and vegetables that go bad in your freezer and if you just paid a little extra for chopped up ones and actually ate them that makes a lot more sense to me. Saving money on vegetables and fruit that goes bad is way less of a money saver truly than spending a little extra on pre-chopped up things that you're going to eat. So let's dive a little bit deeper into some time savers. Lean on tacos, salads, egg dishes and burgers which all come together quickly. Stock up on ready to go ingredients cooked brown rice, canned beans, frozen vegetables. Use tools like the microwave. It cooks frozen fish and veggies in a flash. A pressure cooker or slow cooker and a food processor it makes chopping and grating a breeze. And browse the WW apps what to eat at home tab for ideas and recipe categories like super fast meals and easy weeknight meals. I am a big proponent of the slow cooker. You just throw everything in there and wallock. A few hours later you have a meal. In fact, I just make protein chili in Wednesday's what I eat in a day in my slow cooker. It's amazing and it was so simple. Took me about 20 minutes to cook the meat, throw it all in the slow cooker and at the end of the day I had a meal and it freezes really well. Portion out your meals, throw them in the freezer for quick easy meals. There is no reason, really truly no reason to make the choice and yes it's a choice to let the holidays derail you. The business of the season derail you. Do what you can do to speed up and make your life a little bit easier during the holidays while still reaching your goal. Whether that's to maintain your weight like me or lose weight during the holiday season. This doesn't mean that you have to cook at home every night. You can still go out to dinner, you can still get fast food, you can still buy pre-made meals. You just need to follow like I always say the 80-20 approach. 80% whole real food, 20% fun foods and that includes the foods at those holiday parties or going out to dinner or the times when you just don't plan ahead and you have to pick something up on the go. That is absolutely fine for weight loss because it's your life. This is a lifestyle, not a diet and sometimes time gets away from us and fast food just has to enter our lives and that is what makes it sustainable when you follow a healthy lifestyle, not a diet. But take these tips and use them to stay on track during the holidays. As always, I wanna share three fast facts from Weight Watchers with you. Number one, when you're busy you often have less capacity for complex tasks. Number two, research shows that people tend to choose the easiest and most convenient options, especially when busy. And number three, having quick, tasty and budget-friendly meal ideas at the ready can reduce the need to make decisions in the moment and keep you on track. Just because it's December and Christmas is around the corner doesn't mean you should go off the rail. It's a holiday, not a holiday week, not a holiday month. You should be doing all the normal things that you do just making them a little bit more convenient through the holidays. And I think these tips are fantastic. In fact, I utilize a lot of these tips throughout the entire year, like the pre-cooked, pre-shredded chicken, frozen fruits and vegetables. You know I buy veggie trays pretty regularly. There's a dip, there's veggies, cut up and ready to go. I love pre-cut up apples, berries, because they're convenient. They're ready to go. You wash them and you eat them. Make your life easy, especially during busy times in your life so that you're not derailing your progress and you're having to start overcome the new year. Again, whether your goal is to maintain or lose weight during the holidays, make it convenient. We are creatures of convenience. Make your weight loss convenient during December. So I really like this topic. I think it's something you can utilize year-round, especially when life gets busy. And life is busy a lot, not just during the holidays, but throughout the entire year. And these tips are really beneficial. Speaking of the holidays and weight loss, let's talk about my weigh-in. So when I shared last week's weigh-in with you guys, I was exactly the same, which like I said, is my goal. Maintain not gain during December. I'm not looking to lose any weight during December. I really, truly want to enjoy the holidays. I want to go to parties. I want to eat Christmas cookies. I want to do all the things during the holidays. So for me, it's unrealistic and basically setting myself up for failure to say that I'm going to lose weight in December. But I also don't want to gain weight. And I don't want to have to take off the weight I gained during December come January. So that's why I chose the maintain not gain approach. I am just a couple of days out from my monthly cycle. And this is the time when my weight is all over the place. My weight was actually pretty up at the beginning of the week and now it's kind of stabilized itself again. So actually when I stepped on the scale today, I'm up 0.2 from last week. In my opinion, that's a maintain. I maintained my weight. That is a weight fluctuation. It's 0.2. 0.2 to me is absolutely considered a maintain. So I'm thrilled with that. Absolutely thrilled that I have once again maintained my weight loss. And that's going out to dinner. That's holiday parties. And again, going to another holiday party tomorrow. I really believe that my maintenance is because I have lost weight in a healthy, sustainable way. I have maintained my metabolism, actually increased my metabolism while losing weight. I'm active, so I'm able to counter at some of those extra calories. And I've been drinking my water, just doing my normal routine and enjoying the holidays. That's what it is all about. This is a lifestyle, not a diet. And lifestyles include the holidays. So I'm happy with this 0.2 gain, AKA a maintain for the week. And now I want to hear from you guys. How are your holidays going? Are you stressed? Are you managing? How is it impacting your weight loss? And do you think that these 10 tips for meal prepping and planning will help you? Let me know everything down below. And of course, if you enjoyed another weigh-in, give this video a big thumbs up. Subscribe, turn your bell on so you never miss a future video. And of course, check out the description box for nutrition coaching. Take advantage of macros and calories. Please set yourself up to reach your goals in 2024. I also have coaching to help you along the way to answer your questions or for accountability. I know my coach gives me tons of accountability. So I'm here to be your accountability as well. Links to discounts to my favorite things and come join our Facebook group. Again, accountability, support. We are here for you. It is a free Facebook group and it is amazing. So come on over, enjoy mass. Happy Friday friends, happy holidays and I'll see you in tomorrow's grocery haul. Bye.