 Hi friends, welcome back to my channel and welcome if you're new here. My name is Jen, I'm a certified weight loss and nutrition coach and I'm on the WW or the Weight Watchers Blue Plan. Happy Friday friends, it's Friday, it is a weekend, it is August, summer is coming to an end, which I'm grateful for, I am so ready for fall, hence my fun little fall attire here. But I'm here on this beautiful Friday to share with you how my week went, set some goals for next week, share my weigh in and go over this week's WW workshop topic. So if you're excited for another Friday weigh in video, give this one a big huge thumbs up and if you're new or you're not yet subscribed, I'd love to have you here. Hit the subscribe button and don't forget to click the bell right next to it so you never miss a single video. We do weigh-ins every Friday so you definitely don't wanna miss out. Check out the 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'd like to chat with me directly. Links, discounts to all my favorite things and my Facebook group. We'd love to have you come join us over there or also down in that description box. So we have lots to talk about, we have a weigh in to do, so let's jump right in. Happy Friday again. I hope that you guys had the best week ever. It's been a pretty good week for me. I've been busy with real estate, not excessively busy, which I appreciate, but busy nonetheless, which I also appreciate. I've been doing so good you guys with my tracking. I promised myself that I would get back to tracking August 1st, and I haven't missed a day. I have not missed a beat when it's come to tracking. I've tracked every meal. I've tracked everything I've eaten, good or bad, and I'm nailing my workouts every week as well. I'm consistently doing three days a week like I wanted to do. So I'm feeling really good about tracking. I'm feeling really good about exercise. I will say that this week I've been feeling a little bit more tired than usual and I've mentioned in a couple of my weigh-in videos that I do track my cycle in a cycle tracking app and I am moving relatively close to starting my cycle and leading up to that, I'm generally extra tired and I'm also extra hungry. And I haven't noticed the hungry part as much as the tired part. I have just been exhausted all week long. I will sleep all night and wake up in the morning and feel like I haven't slept at all. So I've struggled a little bit this week with feeling tired, but on the flip side I've also struggled this week with being hungry. I know, who am I? Where'd she go? Where's Jen? I don't know why, but I just have not been very hungry. I eat breakfast and then I don't wanna eat anything again until lunch and then I don't wanna eat anything again until dinner, which again is not like me. I'm very much a snacker and a grazer. I like to have little meals throughout the day, but man, this last week it's been three meals a day and dessert and I am good to go, which I'm not complaining about. It's just very, very abnormal for me. And maybe this is happening because of being really busy but also because of moving into my cycle. Who knows? But I'm not gonna complain about it because it's allowed me to stay on track this entire week and I've mustered up enough energy to make it through my workouts and I've actually had really good workouts considering. So I would say overall this week went pretty well. But before I jump in to my way in for the week, I wanna talk with you guys about this week's WW Workshop topic and that is building confidence in the kitchen. When we're on a weight loss journey or a healthy lifestyle journey, part of that includes cooking a lot of meals at home. We know that when we eat out, we can't control the ingredients. Generally, restaurant food, whether it's takeout, fast food or sit down restaurant is generally higher in calories and points, so higher in things like saturated fat and trans fat because again, we don't know exactly how that food is prepared and what methods are used to cook that food. So it's essential that we're able to prepare most of our meals at home. So that means it's also essential that we're pretty confident in the kitchen. So I wanna share some tips from WW with you on how to gain confidence in the kitchen if you're not quite there yet. When we're preparing food at home, there's three ways that we generally cook our food. Number one, especially this time of year in summer, we can grill our food on an outdoor grill. We want to steam our meals using an instant pot, the microwave or the stove top. And third and probably becoming one of the most popular is using a product like an air fryer. There are certain tools required for each of these methods of cooking. So first let's talk about if we wanna grill our meals on an outdoor grill. Well, obviously we're going to have to have an outdoor grill, whether that be gas or charcoal. Also going to need to have grilling tools, the little spatula, the tongs and maybe a pan to grill on your outdoor grill. And when it comes to steaming our food, we're going to need some tools for that as well, such as a pot, a stove, a steamer basket and a microwave. And lastly, if we wanna cook in an air fryer, we obviously need an air fryer. Now you're probably asking yourself, great, I have all the tools, I have the methods of cooking, but what foods are prepared the best in which of these methods of cooking? So I wanna share with you some ideas of some foods that can be cooked in each of these styles of cooking methods. On the outdoor grill, really any meat tastes better grilled outside. I don't know about you, but that's how I feel down in the comments if you agree. If you think that chicken, steak, pork chops, fish just taste better on an outdoor grill. You can also grill things like vegetables and fruit. Some of my favorite fruits to throw on the grill are pineapple and peaches, absolutely delicious. Now when it comes to steaming, one of the main foods that benefits from steaming are things like vegetables, broccoli, green beans and cauliflower to name a few. Also things like shellfish, so clams, mussels, those types of things taste best when steamed or boiled. Lastly, what about cooking in your air fryer? Now in my humble opinion, an air fryer is the most well-rounded kitchen tool to have. In fact, I have several air fryer. I actually have three of them. I will go ahead and link my two favorites. I have an oven-style air fryer and then I have a large and small basket-style air fryer. So I'll link them all down below for you if you're in the market. But you can really cook just about anything in an air fryer. Chicken, potatoes, vegetables, seafood, meat, desserts, you name it, you can pretty much pop it in your air fryer. So now that you know the cooking methods, you know what tools you need, now I wanna share some tips on how to make your food taste the best with these different methods. So let's first start with grilling your food on an outside grill. One tip is using a piece of tinfoil so that your food doesn't fall through the grates. Nothing is worse than putting vegetables or meat on your grill and having it all fall into the bottom of the gas grill or into the charcoal. When it comes to steaming, save yourself a lot of time and buy steam in the bag vegetables. It's much easier than putting the vegetables in a microwave-safe bowl, adding water and microwaving them. You literally just toss the bag in the microwave and poof, you have steamed vegetables. And my number one tip when you're using an air fryer is keep an eye on your food. Stop it midway through cooking and shake up the basket and really get that food tousled and tossed around in the basket so that it has the opportunity to cook and crisp up on all sides. Each of these cooking methods is going to take a little bit of practice, but like I said, it's essential to be able to prepare your meals at home for any type of health or weight loss journey. So find one of these methods, make sure you have the tools on hand, take the tips that I shared and see if you can become a master of that particular cooking method and then you can venture into some of the others out there to create just a smorgasbord of delicious meals at home. So now let's jump into this week's weigh-in. If you watched last week's weigh-in video, you know that I lost weight the first week in August and I'm happy to report that I am also down the second week of August. When I stepped on the scale today, I am down 0.6. As you guys know, I love points, point this, point that, all adds up to a pound. Slow and steady weight loss is the most successful weight loss so I'm thrilled, I couldn't be happier. So my goal for the rest of August and especially moving into this next week is to continue to track every day that's been very, very helpful for me and also to make sure that I'm moving my body every day as well. I find myself sitting a lot because I'm editing videos, filming videos. I have to mindfully get up and move around throughout the day with diesel recovering from surgery. That's been good because I've had to take him outside to go to the bathroom and diesel's MO is to go to the bathroom at the back gate of our yard and our backyard is almost two-acre. So it's quite the little jaunt out to the back gate but it gets in those extra steps and gets me up and moving. So my goals for this next week are more of the same, moving my body, tracking my food and of course I'd like to see the scale go down even a little point this or that this next week. So now I wanna hear from you guys down in the comments. First let me know, are you confident in the kitchen or are you somebody that needs to build your confidence when it comes to preparing your meals at home? Also don't forget to check out the air fryers that I love that I've linked down below for you. Also let me know how your week was, did you gain, did you lose, was it a good week? Did you struggle this week? I just love hearing from you guys down in the comment section. And of course if you're new or you haven't yet subscribed to my channel we do this weigh-in thing every Friday so we'd love to have you. Click the subscribe button and click the bell right next to it so you never miss a single video. Again, don't forget to check out the description box for the air fryers, nutrition coaching, links and discounts to my favorite things. And of course my Facebook group, come on over, join us there as well. Give this video a big thumbs up if you enjoyed it and I will see all of you guys in tomorrow's grocery haul. Have a wonderful Friday and I'll see you next time. Bye.