 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 I'm on WW personal points. Happy Friday. It is Friday. So we're going to talk all about my week coming back from another vacation as well as set some goals for next week. Talk all about this week's WW workshop topic. And of course I'll share my way in. So if you're excited, give this video a big huge thumbs up. Subscribe if you're not because I upload a weigh in every Friday in five videos per week. Make sure your bell notification is turned on so you don't miss a future upload. Check out the description box down below for nutrition coaching where I offer personalized to you macros and calories. I cannot stress enough how much you should be eating every day calorie wise, macro wise to see success. Once I started tracking my calories and protein, that is where I've lost the majority of my weight. And if you didn't know, I've lost over 125 pounds. You'll also find links and discounts to my favorite things and come join my Facebook group. We'd love to have you. So let's jump into my week, my weigh in and the WW workshop topic. You had an absolutely amazing week. Like I mentioned, I just came back from a second vacation. It has been a whirlwind of a month. If you didn't know I was in Hawaii for a week, came home for a week and then left again this last weekend to go to a nutrition conference in California where I was there from Thursday to Sunday. To be completely honest with you, the retreat, the convention was really, really good, but I was ready to come home. I think that's just a little bit too much travel for me in a short period of time. I missed my dogs. I missed my husband. I missed my bed. I missed my routine and by the time I flew out to go to California, my foot was feeling better. Honestly, I could have gone back. I could have went right back to the gym if I didn't head out of town for California. If you didn't know, I injured my foot when I was in Hawaii on the last day on a snorkeling excursion. And finally, my foot is 100% back to normal, which is really exciting because the day I came home, the day after I came home Monday morning, I was well, I was on my way to the gym. I walked, did my upper body workout, walked home and since then have worked out every single day. And I can't tell you how good it feels to be back home and back into my normal workout routine. I missed it. It is such a habit for me. It is just part of my day. I feel better when I exercise or move my body. So I'm so happy to be back to my workout routine. Seven days a week, hitting the gym four days a week, doing my cardio, taking my walks. It really just brings a lot of joy to me and I'm so happy to be back at it. When I went to California for the convention, I did decide to track my food. Actually, actually, I didn't decide. My coach said, we're tracking our food in California, right? So I decided to go ahead and track my food, which was good. It made me be a little bit more mindful of what I was eating. Although I didn't track in Hawaii and came home with a weight loss, I really wanted to jumpstart October. It's the last 90 days. It's the last three months of the year. I really want to try to get to my goal weight by the end of the year and I knew that it would make more sense, like my coach recommended, for me to go ahead and track my food in California. I packed snacks. I made good decisions. I packed protein shakes so that I could have my protein coffee every morning and I feel like overall I did really well. Of course, I had some indulgences. I ate dessert every day when I was in California. A lot of our meals were provided, so I had to navigate through those. But I feel really good with my choices and really good honestly that I tracked even though I wasn't going to. Thank you, staff. Thank you, my coach, for having me track because it really did help me be a lot more mindful. Before I jump into my way in post-second vacation, let's talk about this week's WW workshop topic because it's a really good one and this is actually a question that I get asked a lot. Like I mentioned last week is about meal planning, meal prepping. So today we're going to talk about how to plan your meals in four simple steps. We're really going to break down meal planning and make it easy peasy. So this is something you struggle with. This is the perfect topic for you. It can be skeptical about adding another thing to our to-do list. We can just say we don't have time to meal prep. We don't have time to meal plan. It's just not something I can work into my day. But if we can do it quickly in four easy steps, it's definitely workable and even the busiest of busy schedules. So number one, what meals will you plan this week? Yes, you can start with just planning one meal. Maybe for you that's dinner on Thursday. Make sure you'll have time to put it together that day. Next, you want to think about what recipe or recipes will you make? You can head to the WW app for inspiration. There's over 12,000 options. I also have a recipe website. I'll pop that here on the screen for you. Maybe you decide on sheet pan fried rice with chicken. To plan in the app, go to the menu, then weekly plan to slot your picks. Step number three is what ingredients do you need to buy? Check your kitchen to see what you already have. Add the items you need to your list. Cauliflower rice, broccoli, red bell pepper, and sesame oil. Decide on a day in time to shop that fits your schedule. And step number four, how and when will you prep your meal? Consider how much time you'll need. Do you need to cut the vegetables Wednesday night and then cook when you get off of work on Thursday? Prep any ingredients that you possibly can in advance. This is really going to save you a lot of time the day of. Then how did things go? Great. Challenge yourself to plan one extra meal next week. If it was myth, try pinpointing what went wrong and how you can do it better and handle it better the next time. We can start small. We can start with baby steps, just one meal a week, one healthy meal planned ahead, eaten at home because we know we're better off eating at home because we can control what's in our meals. That is a great way to get started with more consistent meal planning. When we're tired, hungry, or just don't have energy to cook, that's when we can make some not-so-healthy choices. But if you spend just a little bit of time and it can be just a little bit of time one day a week just planning and prepping your meals ahead of time, it can make those tired, busy, stressful evenings a lot easier for you and you'll be able to prepare those meals at home and stay within your points, calories, and macros. After all, meal planning isn't just what you'll eat. It's about how you'll eat and how you'll stay on track. Having a healthy meal on hand, healthy snacks, pre-prep meals, again keeps you out of the drive-thru, keeps you out of the fast food restaurant, and keeps you on track just a little bit easier. Fail to plan, plan to fail. We make time for what's important to us, and if being on track, having healthy options, losing weight is important to you, then take that little bit of time every week to plan at least one meal. And when you get one meal down, add another meal, a third meal, a fourth meal, and by the time you know it, you'll be planning your entire week and you will have the healthiest of the healthy options on hand and you will see your weight go consistently in the right direction. Just a little bit of prepping and a little bit of planning can be a huge game changer. Let me know down in the comments, do you plan, do you prep meals, and do you think that that's played a part in your success? Let us know down in the comments. Now let's go ahead and jump into this week's weigh-in post-vacation number two, tracking my food, yay me, but also eating what I wanted to eat and indulging in sweet treats and eating the food that was provided. When I came home from California, surprisingly, shockingly the next day, I was at the lowest weight substantially that I have been on my journey. And it was a little bit surprising to me post-vacation, but then I remembered a couple of things. Number one, I'm not working out. And we know that when we strength train, which I do a lot of strength training, breaking down my muscles, lifting weights, our muscles can become inflamed and hold water, which can show up as a gain on the scale. Even though it's really good for our body, strength training is honestly the best thing for your body for weight loss, maintenance and calorie burning. It can sometimes play tricks on us when it comes to the scale. So I instantly thought, oh no, I'm losing the lean muscle that I've spent so much time building, which in reality, I can't lose lots of lean muscle in a week or two. But that's the first thing that I thought about. And secondly, I was like, I'm proud of you girl that you tracked your food in California. That's why you lost weight. So who knows what the reason was, but when I stepped on the scale, you guys, I'm down 1.4 pounds, 1.4 pounds after coming back from Hawaii with a loss, going to California and coming back with an even bigger loss. And I am not mad about starting October off with 1.4 pounds gone. So I will go ahead and put here on the screen my total weight loss so far. And like I say every week, I'm getting closer and closer to my goal, which makes me really happy. Now we'll see what happens this week. Since I'm back to the gym, since I'm back to working out, what's my weight going to do? Am I going to see some fluctuations over the course of the next week? To be honest with you, the next day after I started back to working out, so Tuesday, when I weighed the scale was up about a pound. So that's a fluctuation that's normal from lifting weights the day before. I luckily don't let it get to me anymore. I know. I know. That's a big leap. That's a big transition from where I was just a couple of months ago, because I know that lifting weights working out is good for my body. And while I'm sitting here right now filming this video, all the lean muscle I built is burning calories. So nobody's going to complain about that. So we'll see what happens over the next week or so. And of course, I'll share it with you guys in next week's weigh-in. I want to hear from you. Let me know again. Do you plan? Do you prep your meals? How was your week? Did you gain? Did you lose? Let me know everything down in the comments. And of course, if you enjoyed another weigh-in video, give it a big thumbs up. Make sure again you're subscribed and your bell's turned on so you never miss a future video. Check out that description box for nutrition coaching. I can't recommend personalized macros and calories enough, as well as one-on-one coaching, links and discounts to my favorite things, and come join my Facebook group. We'd love to have you. Happy Friday, friends. Happy weekend, and I'll see you in tomorrow's grocery haul.