video editing is one of those things that a lot of people think is just too complex for them. And there are very complex video editing software tools, but some of them are pretty easy and basic. Screencastify has a great online very basic editing tool. WeVideo has a really easy one to use as well. If you have a PC, you already have a free tool built right in. You don't even need to look any further. It does some very basic film editing, video editing, but it also has some cool effects that you can do. So I'm going to show you basically how to do that. The first thing you do want to do is have any of the videos that you want to work with already on your device. So just download them. I have a few here right here on my desktop. I just put them there to work with really quick. All you need to do is go to the bottom left where it says your search box and just type in the word video. You should get this app that comes up, video editor app. If for some reason you don't see that, if you type photos in and you open the Microsoft Photos app, there is a button to create a video project and that gets you to the same program. So you should be able to see it just by typing the word video in. Click on the video editor app. It'll open up and yours will probably be blank. You haven't made any, but there is this button right here. It says new video project. Go ahead, click on that. It's going to load and it'll ask you to name your project. I'm going to name mine demo video project and then click the OK button. And what you're greeted with is the basic interface. It's very simple. It's very easy to use. So on this left-hand side, you'll see all of the media that I have uploaded to my project. Well right now you can see there's nothing there. I'm going to click the add button and I'm going to do it from this PC because that's where I've stored my videos. I put them on my desktop. I'm going to go ahead and click all of those videos that I did. I'm going to hit the open button and there they are. So there's the videos I get to work with. So here's the media that I can use. This is your preview pane. This is where you can kind of see your video and preview it and see what it's going to look like, like what the final copy would look like. Down at the bottom is my storyboard and this is my working area. This is how I can reorder things, how I can add tools or add little special effects to it. But you need to start somewhere. So I'm going to go up to my media up here and these are basically the sequence. So I'm going to take the video I want first. I'm going to use this little newscast thing. I'm going to click and drag it and I'm going to put it right in the very beginning. So that's going to be my first video. So we're going to have this newscast and then we're going to talk about maybe the beach. I'll drag that to my second sequence and we'll go from the beach to maybe the woods. And maybe we'll end by flying out into space. So the cool thing is it does nothing's permanent. I can reorder these however I want. So it's really easy just click and drag, reorder them however you want. Like maybe I wanted to add the fall in there too. So I can put that in. So there's my video. Now if that's all I needed to do, put a couple videos together. I'm done and I can move on. There are a lot of other things you can still do. So a lot of times you want to start your video with something at the beginning like a title card.  That's the clip that I'm working on. I can add a title card. So if I click add a title card it pops it right in front. Now right now it's pretty boring and pretty blue.  So here's my style and I'm going to choose this joy button and each one of these has a different theme. So if I click on the simple button you'll see the background changes. So each one of them is a little different. I also have a change in layout so I can choose the whole screen like that. I can put the title up at the top on the side maybe smaller in the middle at the bottom maybe on the right I have those choices. So I'm going to leave it full screen.  And if I like that everything's good. I can trim it off a little if I want. I can make it three seconds. I can make it shorter. I'm going to leave it at three seconds. I think that's fine. I'm going to hit the done button. So now it's got up there. It looks like a blue tile but if I go up to my preview up here and I just hit the play button there's my little video my little title slide. There's my first video and I can fast forward this. There's my second and you can see this blue line down here at the bottom. As I move across it shows which clip I'm on. So that's great. I think it's just fine. My title slide is great. I'm going to go to this newscast and it's 40 seconds long. It's longer than I want it to be. I really only want this newscast to be let's say 20 seconds long. 40 seconds is just too long. If I click on it and I go to the trim button right here and I click the trim it'll bring up my little interface and this is the beginning of the video and this is the end.  That's right where you're at. So I want to take maybe 10 seconds off the front. So I'm going to take 10 seconds off the front. So I just jump to about the 10 second mark. There we go. And I want to take 10 seconds off the back too. So here's the beginning of my video. Here's the back. I'm going to slide this over to maybe right about here. Let's just say this is what I want my whole video to be. That's as long as I want. So what I just did is took part of the beginning and part of the end off. I trimmed the edges off. I can click the done button and now that video is only 18 seconds. It's no longer 40. So I was able to shorten it. Maybe on this video of the beach I want to kind of cut it. So I want it to become two videos. So I can click the split button. And this just says where exactly do you want to split it at? Well I'm going to split it right here in the middle. When I hit done now I just cut that one video into two videos. And sometimes you'll want to do that if you want to play a video for a little while and then right in the middle of it maybe you wanted a title card to come back out. So I'm going to add a title card. Add my text. And maybe this is going to be adventure and I'm just going to say the beach. Hit done. And now it just put that right in there.  I'm going to fast forward just a little bit. So it's playing this clip right here and then it's going to jump to that title card for three seconds because that's what I chose and then right back to the next one. So splitting would allow you to put things in the middle of a video. So I can keep going a little bit and maybe I'm going to go to... I'm going to slide this over a little bit because I have a lot of cards here. I can add text anywhere in a video too. So let's say you're looking at this wonderful scenery and you wanted to add a word in. So I make sure the line is underneath the video clip that I want to work with. I add the text button up here. And this time I'm just going to say classic. I'm going to say leaves. And once again I can choose how I will wear I want it. What I want it to look like. I liked it right there in the middle. I'm going to hit the done. Maybe I only want this for that duration. Two seconds. Hit the done button. And now right in the middle of that I've got the word leaves coming up. So I can add text to things. Motion is kind of that Ken Burns effect where it slowly zooms in. So if I went over to this and I chose motion and I'm going to zoom over to the left you can see and it's kind of hard to tell but this box is slowly moving over. What it's doing is it's slowly panning over. This is very subtle but it does give a lot of your videos more of a finished look to them. You can also add 3D effects. So I've got this right now this flying through space thing but if I wanted to add a 3D effect to it. These are the ones that are already installed. I could add this atomic motion and throw it right here. I'm going to make it a little bit bigger so we can see it better. And then we'll play it. So it kind of throws that little effect right on there. There's quite a few of them you can choose from. Your filters are basically just like photos and things like that. You can change the tone of your video so maybe you wanted a black and white. It kind of sets the mood for things or maybe pixelated. So maybe I wanted this one black and white. I'll hit done. That just changes the color themes and then you've also got speed and what that allows you to do is speed up the clip or slow it down. So for an example this one plays at the speed. You can see how those stars are kind of coming at us. If I click the speed button and I put it to fast four times the speed. You can see how much faster that is. You can also, same thing, maybe I want to slow it way down and make it slow motion. Look at how slow that is. So you can adjust. Now I made that super slow. Maybe I shouldn't have gone quite that slow. Just gotta let it finish loading. That'll be a little better. So that adjusts the speed that it plays. So I've done all these effects and you can play around with those a little bit. You can even rotate your video 90 degrees every click. So sometimes you have a recorded video with your phone that you recorded the wrong way. It's vertical instead of horizontal. You can rotate it very easily. So that's all the visual things which makes it really, really simple to add some of these things. So you can look like a professional filmographer just by clicking some of these buttons. You can also add in music to clips. So maybe I wanted to go all the way back to this newscast at the beginning and I wanted some background. Click the background music. These are all the things that are already built in. So I'm going to just choose digital horizon. I can hit the done button and now that is added into my video. So now I'm playing it. You can also add your own. So if you click custom audio, you can upload your own audio files in. So you're not just locked into what Microsoft has there. So I was able to add in some effects, some title cards, slow things down, change some filters on some of my videos and really just make it kind of what I wanted to be my own. When you're done, you can preview the whole video by clicking play. And now right now this is a 49 minute video. So it's long. Maybe yours obviously would probably be shorter. Like this is a 40 minute clip. Well, remember if I wanted to trim it or 40 seconds, I can make that significantly shorter and just say done. And now my whole video is only 18 minutes long. So here's another one. I can shorten them as much as I want so I can clip it, trim it. Let's make all these a little bit shorter just so that my finalizing is a lot shorter. That's a minute. That's two. That's one. This is still nine minutes. So let's just go ahead and trim that some more. I'm just going to make that like two minutes long. So now all I did is made my video a lot shorter. Definitely don't need this one that long just for a demo. So let's shorten that puppy up. All right. Eight minutes. I can do that. So all I have to do now is when I'm done, I can hit the play button. I can preview it. Go up to the finish video button. Click finish. Choose your resolution. Now I would always recommend always picking the highest resolution. You'll always regret not going high enough. And all I have to do is click the export button. It's going to take some time. It's going to export that to and I'm going to tell it to save it to my desktop. That's just how I function. I save everything to my desktop. And it's going to take a few minutes to export that as a playable video. Now once it's on my desktop and it's done exporting, that's where you get to choose. Do I upload it to YouTube? Do I put it in my Google Drive? How am I going to share this with others? So all you're going to get is a video file that's playable anywhere. How you choose to share it is entirely up to you. But using some pretty basic tools, you can put images in, you can do cool effects to it. You can do a slideshow with all of your students by putting all of their pictures in some kind of sequence. So it doesn't just have to be videos, you can put pictures in that storyboard at the bottom and you can have all of your students in a slideshow if you want it. There's a million things you can do with this very basic, very easy with a little bit of flash.


but he opts to use small, back to how the day it goes for the City Skipper. How the day, holding onto the ball, a dwarf dropping the shoulder, coming away from his man, trying to open up space to cross, which he does, brought down by Tomkinson, Tomkinson then-square ball. Here's Platt, with the shot! Oh, it's brilliant! Under a strike from Matty Platt on the half volley, that's a striker's finish from the defender. Gets his third goal of the season, and Bradford City have the advantage after just 13 minutes. They lead MkDon's by one goal to nil. What a strike from Matty Platt, edge of the ball, top bins, what a strike. You were right, Jeremy, it was a striker's finish, an excellent finish from Matty Platt. I had to look and rub my eyes to see if it was a defender that hit that ball so cleanly, because the keeper had no chance to take about Matty Platt.


Hello. Welcome to this session. We will have a sit-along. Okay, talking about pre-software in the third world. Okay, maybe I should first say my name properly. It's Sikrelo Mtsongo. So you get a click there. I know it's a bit difficult for many, but it's fine. You can call it anyhow I told you. So we're going to just talk briefly about the challenges of using Debian and maybe Linux as a whole. In the third world, I'm going to say developing nations. Yeah, it doesn't mean anything to me. So yeah, maybe in the context of Africa at least, I'll only talk about one developing country. That being Switzerland, where I'm from myself, maybe just a background of Switzerland. Switzerland is a small country, probably the smallest in Africa. I don't remember that one too well. And we are right between South Africa and Mozambique. I think 80% of the board I shared with South Africa and 20% with Mozambique. I know some even here in South Africa sometimes consider us to be part of a province. That's not the case. Things are completely different on the other side. When it comes to the economy, things are not going so well because apparently there is 40% unemployment rate. Part of the problem is that the country depends a lot on agriculture, which is of course unreliable. I think maybe if you consider things like global warming and so on. Then we also have a problem with HIV in the country. When we come to telecommunications, again, we have a problem there. First of all, there's only one mobile network operator for the last 18 years. And as a result, data prices are quite high. Much higher than many other countries in Africa because the one mobile network operator is enjoying a monopoly. When it comes to maybe broadband and so on, again, we have a bit of a problem there. There is some sort of monopoly there, although I think now there are about five ISPs in the country. But again, a large amount of the population doesn't have access to a landline telephone. So basically no broadband as a result. Now to the main point of the talk, why would such a place, for example, benefit from using Debian or Linux, any other version maybe? We've already mentioned that a large part of the population is, I'll say, maybe is pregnant financially. So first of all, just a cost issue. It would be very desirable for more people in Switzerland, in this case, to use Linux. Most people are using proprietary systems and you may start to wonder how are they able to afford that now. The truth of the matter is that most of them actually don't. That means piracy basically. Another reason why it would be very nice to adopt Linux in such a place is also because Linux has, over the years, proved itself to be very robust. So once you have the system in place, doesn't need too much maintenance afterwards. I found that to be the case on my own use of Debian. And of course there's a big business built up around providing technical support. So if you've got a system that's very stable, you can actually save a lot in the long run because now you don't have too many things that are likely to go wrong and need you to pay support for. Again, since many people might not be able to afford the latest computer that's available or a laptop and so on, Linux comes in again because that would mean they can use Linux on, I'll say, their ancient computers because in general the hardware requirements are much lower than with other proprietary operating systems that people are using. In my case, for example, I've been able to encourage a few friends who were basically at a loss when Windows XP lost support. So they were not so sure what to do now because no other operating system could work on the machines they had. I'm happy that I was able to at least get them to use Linux at that point. Just an interesting fact, although in general most people are not using Linux, but when I look on Facebook, which is what most people use to communicate in Switzerland, I notice that there is some interest in Kali Linux. I'm not sure why, but it looks like it's definitely people who are interested in hacking. I don't know exactly what they want to hack. So maybe there is a bit of interest coming up. So now we can say that Linux would be very good for Switzerland, but then why is that not the case? I've thought about it and I came up with five reasons, but of course there may be more than these. The first one is just simply what you are used to. So for the average person, when you just mentioned the word computer, in his mind he's already seeing Windows, so much that if you give him a Linux computer, the first question you're going to get is going to be, where is the start button? Because that's what a computer means for many people. They don't realize that it's just an operating system and you can put on any other operating system. The other problem or challenge is that many people are reluctant to learn something new. They may feel that Linux, for example, is for big or people who know a lot and therefore I'm an average person, it's not for me. This one is one problem that's maybe a bit difficult because even if you actually show them what you are able to do, but they still feel like, yes, you are able to do it because you know something and I don't. And there's no, the level of interest to invest time in learning new things is maybe close to non-existent. That's unfortunate. But then of course there are a few people who do know about it. They know about it maybe through work or through other friends who use it and so on. Now the biggest challenge that even if you are interested, you definitely run into this one in Switzerland, is problem with internet access because unfortunately Linux does kind of need you to have access to the internet. From the point of downloading it, getting it onto your machine and also installing any other program that you may want to use. In my case, for example, when I started to use Debian, I had to order a CD, which I had to order from South Africa because there's no distributize. Well, there wasn't at the time. And then, well at least I ordered a DVD so there were a lot of packages in there. So I can just imagine what would have been the case if I had ordered a CD and then it would be next to impossible to install something else. Even if you do try and download packages manually, your dev packages, we all know that you can't just download a dev package and say, I've got this game now because you're still going to need other dependencies that may not be on your system. So package dependencies, I think, are the next big problem that we have because on the other side, they may find that it's easier for them. He just goes onto some website, he downloads an exe and he's ready to start doing what he needs to do. That's not the case here in Linux. Lastly, oh yes, you may add. My name is Ritesh. I come from India. So we're not like the way described. The internet status in our country has improved. But around 10 years ago, I had a similar problem like you, like we didn't have internet connection. And I wanted to use Debian on my home machine where I did not have internet and still be able to enjoy using app get update and upgrade and things like that. So back then I wrote a software for Debian. It's called app offline. The idea is that your Debian machines may not have internet, but you could still be able to install packages, the dependencies, update them and upgrade them. So maybe what we can do is after the talk, when you have time, I could run you through the entire process and then you can take it back to your country and help more people. Yes, thanks very much. Actually, because I've also had a chance to talk to a few others here, they did mention it and yes, it sounds like a good solution to the problem. The last challenge that's there, but I don't know, is those who do happen to know about Linux, how to use it and so on, they are also very reluctant to tell others or to help them because it's two ways. First of all, he doesn't want to get the other person into Linux because now I've got to support the other person. He has problems, now it's my problem. But the other thing is maybe the other person actually does have interest, but again, since maybe I know more than he does, it means I can get money now out of him. If he has a problem, he must call me and I help him. So that's one of the challenges that affect the use of Linux and outside Debian. So then, possible solutions. The first one I think has already been mentioned and I must say I didn't know about it before, but someone mentioned it, I think when we were taking the high care study. So that sounds like a very good solution. Of course, in my case, I got to Debian through a DVD I ordered the DVD through, I think on Debian.org there is a page for DVD vendors. I was a little bit shocked, sad maybe, that when I checked it recently, the distributor that was there for South Africa is gone. It's no longer there. And actually, there's no longer any official distributor in Africa as a whole. That's a little bit sad. But I think DVDs and CDs are one of those ways. And then one of the other developments that's going on, I think in the Linux world, there's stuff like Flatpak and other things. Maybe they will help us in the future. I don't know if Debian will use them. I don't even know yet how useful they are. But when you just browse through, it sounds like they will be useful. And then, of course, one of the other solutions is obviously going to be more, maybe after education, where those who are in the know, they enlighten others. Maybe in the schools and universities, maybe some more focus has to be given to that. Of course, some of it might be dependent on governments and so on. Myself, what am I willing to do? I am willing to invite more friends into Linux, Debian particularly because that's what I've been using myself for, I think since 2012. And I'm currently living in South Africa. If I do go back to Switzerland, I think it's highly possible. I would like to at least become a DVD vendor and at least be able to share with those who are interested. I think that's basically it, maybe if there are more questions. Do you have ADSL in Switzerland and what proportion of the population have access to that? There is ADSL in Switzerland. I think the fastest package you can get is 5 Mbps. Wait, no, that's for companies. The fastest you can get at home is 2 Mbps. The percentage of the population that's got it less than 10%. Because it does depend on you having a telephone line. The vast majority of people don't have it. It doesn't look like it's a situation that's going to change very soon. Thanks. Frustratingly, South Africa sits with much of the same problems. But what we have realized is a lot of public libraries have good internet. But I don't know if people are actually using those resources. Do you have any ideas about what else we could do to improve this on a continent level other than just having local user groups that connect directly with each other? I think that's difficult. Unfortunately, it also does go as far as our governments. For example, I don't know how much it is here in South Africa. But I can tell you now that in Switzerland there's also too much political involvement in these things which now causes a bit of a problem. For example, one of the companies, the company that provides your broadband and so on, a few years ago, maybe in 2013-14, they tried to provide internet via wireless. But now the mobile network operator had problems with that for the drone outlaw and in the end the project had to be stopped. The data rates were much better there and I think lots of people were trying to move into that. But again, that's also because there is a lot of political involvement with the mobile network operator and also with the wired one. It just becomes a mess in the end. I would like to start going back to Bernal's idea. Well, I got an experience from maybe 10 years ago that I did some trip to Bolivia which is among the poorest countries in Latin America. And I was surprised at first at the amount of internet cafes they had because they had a very similar situation to what you described. Wired phones at home were very hard to get and wireless and cellular coverage was way less than what it is today and there's a very large percentage of their population that have migrated to other countries. So, well, there was a very big business like attraction, right? To have many people operating internet cafes because lots of the population used them. I don't know how it has changed now that cellular networks have changed that landscape, but it adds to the ideas of public libraries. Yeah, definitely those are ideas that I'll also take home. I don't really know a library that's got internet in Switzerland though. I come from Switzerland, which is probably at the total other end of the spectrum which brings me to some questions. You mentioned that the internet connectivity itself is complicated but do you have problems having good hardware because Europe has this tradition, debatable tradition to send old cars to Africa, for example. Would it be something interesting to have some sort of network to get old computers to Africa? Or do you think old computers are not interesting and you'd rather have funding or new computers? And maybe an idea worth discussing would be some sort of solidarity network within Debian or within Linux at large saying if you have a computer that you can no longer make use of and is no longer powerful, then maybe someone in Africa who wants to be user or developer ideally could make use of that. Is that something interesting? Yes, I think it is. Actually, one of the points here was that I think Linux is better for the average person partly because at least you can still afford to run basically a new Linux on your very old machine. So there is, for example, I think in one of the computer groups for Switzerland, there is someone in the UK who somehow managed to get a few and he was wondering if you could send them to Switzerland and maybe get people going. Of course, it's something that just came up like this week. I don't know how far he's going to be able to go with it but yes, I think old hardware might not be for old. We have more questions and time and it has just reminded me, I have to stick to a schedule so I will do that. So thank you very much. I will try to pronounce your name correctly but I know, please understand, the clicking sounds are not in my phoneme vocabulary. I think that was very good. I just wanted to also say I would like to thank Debian and maybe also the Cape Town organizing team for arranging that Debian come here because it's the first time for me and I don't think I would have been able to attend it otherwise.


I work for the Urban Water Division of the National Civil Engineering Laboratory to the NEC in Portugal, which is a problem-driven applied research organization. So we work a lot with utilities, we have a lot of collaborative projects with the utilities that are a combination of research, consultancy, capacity building. And from these projects there are a lot of results that are relevant for IWA strategic asset management group and the other way around. I used to say that Portugal is a kind of piloting itself. We are a small country, we are a kind of a prototype or a laboratory because we have private, we have mixed, we have BPP, we have water only, we have water and waste water. We have a little bit of everything. And the water sector in Portugal has a major challenge, a change, evolution during the past 20 years. So there is really a lot to learn with our success stories and our failures as well. It's really a pleasure for me to be part of the Strategic Council of IWA because I want to be engaged in defining the strategies for the association. I'm engaged in the association since the IWSA time, so since 1988. I am part of the representatives of the specialist groups, so which is the more scientific side of the association, so to say. But the Strategic Council of Management as such is one of the broadest in terms of the area because we are talking about infrastructure, the urban water infrastructure. So it has to do with the network, it has to do with the treatment plans, it has to do with understanding the levels of service, it has to do with financing. So it's a quite broader in terms of scale. When we talk about urban water services, so water supply, waste water and storm water services, we're talking about services that really depend on very expensive and long-lasting infrastructures assets. And the current practice worldwide is that we are not investing sufficiently in these infrastructures, so they are losing value, they are really degrading. And it's fundamental to change that in order to be sustainable in terms of the services. Everybody takes for granted that opens the tap and the water, safe water gets out. And by no means this is granted, I mean there is a lot of investment. We are talking about really ensuring the sustainability of the services in the long term. So we need to define where to act, when to act, how to act in order to ensure that we are going to have urban water services today, tomorrow, for our children, for our grandchildren. So that's the challenge. We need to maximize the value of our available resources.


Traditional cooking is a major problem especially for the women. The biggest challenge is about the health because they breathe with the smoke, which is unhealthy and lead them to have sore throat, sore eye, coughing, lung and heart disease. My name is Som Sopier and my passion is to support the communities to improve the people's health and economies. Actually, I was born in a poor family. Most of the time the cooking is handled by the women. First of all they have to chop up the tree and then making the fire and that takes a long time to start it up and also to cook the food. My mother is just like any other woman. She's also bearing with the smoke. Around four and a half billion people around the world lack access to clean modern cooking. Cooking with wood has a huge impact on carbon emissions. It creates more emissions than the global airline industry. At the same time it's also the leading cause of deforestation in many of the countries we work in. Back in 2015, the two founding NGOs, Engineers Without Borders and Live and Learn, won the Google Impact Challenge to take what was a prototype biogester at that time and then turn it into a social enterprise where we could actually sell it as a life-changing product. So at that time I was lucky enough to be involved in that, was able to pack up the family and head over to Cambodia to kick it off. I remember one day about a year later we had about ten staff and I walked into the office and there was all these people in green shirts doing things and I was like, oh wow, this is actually real.  People definitely saw cooking with wood as a problem at multiple levels, both for themselves, personally also their local environment and they could see it wasn't sustainable. And they were willing to do something about it, was just having the right solution for their contexts.  It breaks down all the materials, be it cow manure, animal manure, green waste, etc. and then the bacteria in there break it down into biogas which can be used for cooking just like LPG and then an organic fertilizer that can increase crop yield between 5-30% depending on what you're putting it on. Actually biogester is not a new technology but attic design is a plug and play system which you can install in three to four hours, which is very quick and it also can bear in the challenging environment but the area which is very common in the rural Cambodia. So COVID has had one really big negative effect and one very big positive effect on the work that we do. For example previously we do the sale by like old school selling, door-to-door selling because the COVID we cannot go out and meet people. However, we switch to the e-commerce sales. So if you take Cambodia there are now more smartphones than people in the country and e-commerce has gone from something that was a very sort of niche urban option towards being available to everyone and everyone across the country starting to use it. There's been a lot of changes in where people are living so I think there's a lot of people living in urban areas bringing back some of the habits into the rural areas, which is great. People now in Cambodia they're concerned more about the health. They used to live in the urban area where they're cooking with like good or clean or modern cooking solution. So when they moved back with the biologist they still have that. Lately I was so happy and was very proud with ATIC that they introduced the second product called a cook induction stove which I can't give it out to my mother. So now she has a cleaner cooking solution which is more healthy for her and I'm very happy with that. Once you understand the impact that solving clean cooking will have on the people and planet it's hard to focus on doing anything else.


So excited to be here with you all. Neglectful of the reference providence. Some of you think about the, if we planned this for yesterday, what kind of day we would have had in Columbia South, come on you get five, five seasons every week. You never know what you might get. This is a beautiful day that's befitting of the, of this amazing piece of art that's being officially unveiled. We're going to be joined by several members of our city council. Mr. McDowell is on the agenda, have a councilwoman Tamika Isaac Devine, a councilman Sam Davis. We have our city manager, Teresa Wilson, several of our city officials. I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize Henry Simons, who has been wonderful in shepherding this project in partnership with one Columbia and Lee Snelgroves team, Dr. Donaldson, who's been nothing less than a guide and seer for this project as we've determined that we would use public art as an opportunity to not only elevate these amazingly gifted and talented individuals who live in our city, but use it as an opportunity to edify the city, to tell the story of the African seed in the American sun and how since before the very birth of this city that Black folk have been helping build this city. And it's not just about looking back, it's about looking forward. How indeed does this inform our future and help us build the most talented educated entrepreneurial and equitable city in America? The Columbia Parks and Foundation Mural Project is a collaborative effort integrating the tapestry of Columbia's African American history in each of our four different council districts exhibited as large-scale pieces of public art. These murals each use individual artistic styles to convey different significant moments or touchstones of culture from our city's African American legacy, rendered in to vivid expressions of courage, resilience, hope, progress, and daily life. The different murals if you've had an opportunity to drive around the city and see them in their own respective districts and high park in district one, we have the pursuit of citizenship. We have in district three the pursuit of education highlighted that Valencia Park showing the integration of Richland County schools in district four, the story of the pursuit of justice, edified with a portrait of Sarah Mae Fleming and her experience just here on the other side of this building serving as a forerunner for Rosa Parks back in the 1950s. Here today we have a chance to lift up our gifted child as a Charles. I've had a chance to talk to her parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles and everybody else here today. Good clap Grandma, good clap. And I keep referencing how just Marvel, I remember the first time I saw her work and I was amazed and it was a fairly sizable piece of work done in record time that just amazed me at the gift this young woman had. And as we watched her art go up and be highlighted and celebrated not just here regionally but nationally, being seen internationally, there was no doubt as to who we would call on to cover this piece of art that recognizes the, I believe in many respects, the American dream. The American dream for so many of us as we try as many try to divide us so often. I tell people that the reality is that everyone in this country just wants a fair shot. Just want an opportunity. Want an opportunity to work hard, to be paid a fair wage and if you're downright hardworking and entrepreneurial to be successful. The African American business community just to the west of here particularly but all throughout the city that existed pre integration was an amazing place that I do know that Dr. Donaldson is going to touch on at a much deeper level. But when we were talking about Asia potentially doing this, of course I've had enough conversations with her to know that she's going to say, yeah, she's going to be ready to do it. But being able to see the speed in which she was able to conceptualize and then deliver working well into the night. I couldn't do this on a 12 by 8 piece of paper let alone this massive canvas that many of us thought would be covered by several artists not by one. She's an amazing gift and I want to thank her parents and grandparents and family for sharing her with us. This is an exciting day, something we've been looking forward to because now say this as I take my seat and yield the microphone to the representative of district two Reverend Ed McDowell. So often public art statues are used as ways to divide people and we have been very vocal about about these symbols and each and every one of these symbols should be opportunities to tell a story to tell our common story and pull people together to unify people by telling a story that's edifying and this council unanimously determined that we would tell that story the important contribution of African Americans all across the city but would tell it in a way that was edifying and brought all people together. We have people in the city in the city who hail from every one of the 194 sovereign nations of the world living right here in the city. The story of the of the African scene the American Sun is central to who we are and being able to tell it in this beautiful fashion is something we are uniquely proud of today. So thank you all of you for not thinking at robbery to be here with us today. I should thank you so much for being for being you. We're going to continue to lift you up in prayer and we know that this you haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what God's going to take you. Thank you so much. Red McDowell. Good afternoon. I think it is appropriate for us to say and I don't have much to say. The senator wants me to be short and of course I will abide by his wishes. There's only one word that I can say that sort of sums up this mural amazing. It is the amazing task of this this artist. Ms. Charles you've done us and made us proud of not only our past but our present.  So every day I pass I did I admire the picture. I never did look at the bottom to see the name. She reminded me this morning that we have one of her paintings in our home spectacular. Now I must admit that as I pass this place and stop as she completed this mural I say my goodness this represents and symbolizes the past but it also gives us a real pathway to our future. Ms. Charles thank you very much for allowing us to sense and to feel the presence of the past and yet the ongoing pathway to the future. Wow the next project of course well I think what I'd like to do is dedicate some place on my house. Azure thank you very much for your talent your creativity and I must say this as I take my seat as I strove through the parking lot several times I've seen splashes of paint on the bottom and of course I simply said oh my goodness someone has thrown paint on this mural. I immediately called the city manager and I said Mr. Mayor someone has defamed, defaced our mural. Henry rushed out there to look and he simply says Ed wait you can tell how much artistic abilities I have. Henry said to me Ed that's Azure's trademark so Azure thank you for your trademark thank you for allowing us to remember our past and forge forth to the future thank you very much. Thank you thank you Councilman McDowell for your remarks there's always a challenge speaking after a preacher because no one really hears what you have to say when it's your turn so thank you so much Councilman McDowell of course my name is Henry Simons I'm the Assistant City Manager of Operations of course for the City of Columbia and I want to say a special thanks to our Mayor Mayor Steve Benjamin for his vision to see this project come to life. We are grateful to our entire Council for endorsing and supporting this public art initiative. Thank you so much to our city manager Mr. Teresa Wilson for her continued guidance and direction as well as we facilitated through this project. This project was facilitated and funded through the Parks and Recreation Foundation. We also partnered with Dr. Bobby Donaldson who is the Director of the Center for Civil Rights History and Research for the University of South Carolina and has worked as a professor for over 20 years and you will hear him in just a moment. He also serves as the lead scholar for Columbia SC 63. Our story matters which is a history initiative that chronicles the struggle for civil rights and social justice here in Columbia. So we have aligned this project with some amazing work that's already been done through Columbia SC 63. We also partnered with Lee Snell Grove who is the Executive Director of One Columbia for Arts and Culture and Lee is also a member of the Parks and Recreation Foundation which is helping us facilitate this project in that capacity. One Columbia is actually the gatekeeper to help facilitate arts and culture throughout the city of Columbia so we take pride in the work that has been accomplished with this initiative. I definitely want to recognize Parks and Rec Foundation Mr. Fred Monk who is not here with us today. We also have some other members of the Parks and Recreation Foundation board Mr. Jennifer Clyburn Reed that's with us today. Thank you so much for your support also Mr. Damon Jeter who is also a Parks and Recreation Foundation board member. We also want to thank the Parks and Recreation Department for all their leadership and guidance throughout this process. So thank you all so much for this opportunity. Now at this time please help me welcome Dr. Bobby Donaldson to the podium. Good afternoon everyone. Columbia SC 63 is very honored and very pleased to join this important initiative this afternoon. In the mid-1950s a white photographer named Eugene Sloane stood near the corner of Maine and Washington. He snapped the photograph of the 1119 Washington Street building. The negative of that photograph was placed in a box in an archive and it remained there for decades largely unknown and largely unseen. What Mr. Sloane did not realize was that in 1955 he was setting the stage for 2021. As this initiative emerged we started looking in our archives for images that would chronicle the lives and experiences of African Americans in the city of Columbia. And in that one photograph it served as a reminder of the extraordinary men and women who helped to build and to support the 1100, the 1000 and the 900 blocks of Washington Street often known as the Black Downtown. So in the height of segregation a family from Waverly or a family from Wheeler Hill or Ward 1 or Arsenal Hill or Greenview or Harbison would come to town. They might start at the 900 block, a building still standing. They could go inside, they could see and patronize an African American bank, the Victory Savings Bank. They walk a few blocks further. They could stop at the Blue Palace Tea Shop or the Dew Drop Inn or the Phoenix Cafe or Count's Drug Store. They could come a few blocks over to the Greenleaf Cafe or they could stop at the 1119 building. They could go upstairs, they could visit the office of someone who looked like them, a chief defender and champion of civil rights, the lawyer on the top, lawyer Harold Boulware. Or they could come downstairs and go through the front doors of the Lilywood Barbershop or they could visit the Masonic Temple or they could stop by 1107 Washington Street. They could go upstairs to a hair salon called Elisa's Beauty Park. In so many ways this mural helps to chronicle a missing, a deleted, a demolished chapter in our history. So it was an extraordinary moment for me to have a 24-year-old artist have a conversation with a woman who owned and operated Elisa's Beauty Parlor that she opened in 1938. Today Elise Jones Martin is 106 years old and she walked Ms. Charles through the history of these men and women that she knew personally. So now when we walk down Main Street in the Columbia SC 63 walking tour very often we would point to what was on Washington Street. Now we stand in this plaza flanked by the words hope and we show them what is, what has been recorded, what has been documented, what has been preserved in continuing these stories. Very often when we dedicate historical markers and wayside signs I'm drawn to the history lesson in the Old Testament that history lesson that says write the vision and make it plain on tablets. Well today we modify that slightly paint the vision on the wall. Why do you do it so that those who walk by may be educated, may be edified, they may be inspired to run on to see where their ends will be. That scripture says sometimes you'll have to wait for that change to happen but keep on waiting for the change will surely come. Ms. Charles thank you for making that change come today. Well the bar has been set and I am not going to meet that bar. It's always impossible to follow Dr. Donaldson when you have to speak. I am Lisa Elgar and the director of One Columbia for Arts and Culture. My organization has been supported by the city since 2012 and one of the projects we have taken on as an organization is commissioning works of public art on behalf of the city of Columbia and I think this is one of many representations of the support that the city has given us in fulfilling that mission and bringing public art to be more prominent in our city. I have looked at this wall a long time standing in line getting coffee next door. I've walked this because our office is just down the street and it is so satisfying to see that it is finally painted with something so great that will continue to captivate many people and many visitors as they come to the city. I hope the city can you know I expect that the city will continue to support more public art projects. Public art really enhances our city aesthetically. It demonstrates the creative people that live and work here and demonstrates that to the people that are already here our residents but also the people that will come and visit us and it really showcases what is important to us as a city and our culture as a city and I think this one in particular really represents who we are as a city tells our story of Colombians of people who are entrepreneurs people who are building things and making things and doing things and being part of a community this mural represents that so I want to I want to thank everyone that public art is a process it involves a tremendous number of people to accomplish it it does not come the artist does all the work but before that so much work is done to set the stage for that artist to be able to represent themselves and what they're trying to tell the story of so I want to thank the mayor and council obviously for their support and their encouragement and their development of this initiative Dr. Donaldson for all his advice and finding the right images and telling the stories that we wanted to tell Mr. Simons for ushering everything through and Ebony Calady and Todd Martin who have been the staff members that have really worked to coordinate artists and resources making sure there was a lift on site when necessary and things like that and certainly especially Aija herself the artist who when I called her and talked to her about being selected for this project I said you know will you have assistance and she said no I'm doing it myself and I said are you are you sure and and she did it she did every bit of this mural herself and is a spectacular artist that we hope to see represent Colombia for many years so I'll welcome Aija up so she can say a few words herself it's very I just want to say thank you all for coming out it has truly been an honor and a blessing to even been given the opportunity to do something like this I've always been taught in my life that sky's the limit to what you can do there should be no limits to what you can achieve in this world and to be able to put together such an amazing project with one columbia in the city and bring something that was historically here back to our city it just has been an honor and a privilege and I just want to thank you all again for the opportunity for doing this when I first got this I don't think Lee knew but my proposal was actually doing my birthday so I knew it was predestined for me to do this project and I know they were freaking out when I said that I wanted to do this on my own but I knew I could I'm known as a fast artist and for this to be something that used to be buried in history bringing history back to life I just wanted us as a residence and the spirit of all those that existed during that time to be all brought back into one and as you see it's come out perfect and I just thank you all again I thank the city for giving me the opportunity I thank one columbia for putting it together for me and I thank Steve to Benjamin for reaching out to me so far in advance months in advance let me know that this is coming and I'm looking forward to continue to paint the town bringing positive vibes on the canvas of our lives I thought you all had forgotten about me picked up my September 2 Sunday state newspaper all the news that fit to print it's like New York Times and I read this article that's not who is this who did all this and I kept on reading and I found out who did it so I went down the mouse house and did a little something something far and today we are honoring her and it reminds me of a piece of scripture says that we do not care for ourselves as we should and that a person is not without honor except in his own country among his own kin and in his own house today we are honoring Ms. Charles because she did a good job in capturing the history of us here in South Carolina so I would like to present and now somebody took it from me ask Ms. Charles to come over here. Senator Patterson no one can ever forget you my friend and we're thankful for what you meant to so many of us for so so long I did neglect to mention one thing earlier some of you may know that the city recently purchased this building so this is a city owned building and so often I think we neglect to to fully appreciate the importance of the public realm the place where people come together and join together and share together this is that space and again we hope and pray that I just work here but but all the work being done throughout the city continues to bring us together as one Columbia as one great city thank y'all God bless you and keep you in Asia we're we're waiting to see more of my sister all right thank you


Hi friends, welcome back to my channel and a 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 Sunday. I am so excited to share with you today's video. It has been one that has been in the works for a while. I've really been thinking about and reflecting on my WW journey prior to tracking calories and macros what I did back in 2019 through the current and all of the mistakes that I've made when following WW. I have learned from a lot of these mistakes, a lot of these things I no longer do. And I thought that I would share with you the mistakes I made, how I learned from them and how it's benefited me in my weight loss. If you're new to my channel, I have lost almost 95 pounds on WW. I am five pounds from 100 pounds lost and I've been following the program since 2019. So if you're excited to hear all about the mistakes I've made, how I've corrected them, how not doing these things can benefit your weight loss, give this video a big, huge thumbs up, make sure you're subscribed and your bell notification is turned on so you never miss a single video. I do upload five days a week. Check out that description box down below for nutrition coaching. I do offer personalized 2U macros and calories. Highly recommend, especially after today's video, as well as one-on-one coaching. If you need individual support, I'm always here to help. I'll link all of my favorite healthy things as well as my Facebook group. Comment over, join us there down in the description box as well. So let's jump into all the big mistakes I've made on WW. So let me give you a little bit of back history, whether you're new to my channel or you've been following me since the beginning. Thank you, of course, for that. I wanted to just give you a quick rundown of my history with WW and how my weight loss has gone. So in 2019, I was strictly following WW. Back then, it was WW freestyle. When I was following just WW freestyle, I wasn't having a lot of success in weight loss and I am not blaming the program. I'm actually blaming myself. I had a hard time sticking with the program consistently. My weight each week when I did my weekly weigh-ins was like this. It was up and down a lot. I wasn't really getting anywhere with my weight loss. And you have to remember that I had a lot of weight to lose. If I've lost almost 100 pounds and I'm not my goal weight yet, it's evident that I should have been losing weight a little bit quickly and a little more consistently when first starting out my weight loss journey. I was suffering with a lot of stomach issues. I would mention in my weigh-in videos every week on how my stomach just didn't feel good. It was gurgly. It was achy and I couldn't understand what was going on with that. In 2020, I started switching a lot of the foods that I was eating from more artificial sweeteners and processed foods to a little bit more whole real foods, especially when I realized that I just wasn't eating enough calories on WW alone. I was always hungry. I was always thinking about food. I never ever felt satisfied and I knew something was wrong. I should not feel this way. Even though I'm on a diet, even though I'm in a caloric deficit, I shouldn't be hungry, starving, ravenous, uncomfortable all of the time. So it really got me into thinking about how many calories I was eating and this prompted my points versus calories series that I put out here on my channel. I'll link that playlist down in the description box for you. Once I got into points versus calories, realized I was not eating enough on WW alone, that's when I started double tracking. Tracking points and tracking calories. This is when WW shifted to the blue, green and purple plans as well. Also in 2020, I decided to switch the way that I was eating from more processed foods, WW hacked foods into more real whole foods and just this simple change not only helped with weight loss, but helped me feel better overall. I actually have an entire second playlist here on my channel about clean eating on WW. I'll also link that one down in the description box. I also obtained my weight loss and nutrition certification because I got heavily involved in nutrition and what are the best foods to eat for weight loss? Not only for weight loss, but to make you feel better, keep you full and not hungry all the time and what can I do to help others reach their goals on WW? So getting my weight loss and nutrition certification has been amazing. I have such a great clientele. I'm always taking on new clients. I also offer personalized macros and calories if you're interested in that. I have a wide variety of services. I'll put my nutrition coaching website here on the screen and it is also linked down in the description box. So once 2021 hit, I really started losing weight more consistently. I was tracking points and calories.  I was focused on more real whole foods and at the end of 2021, I was diagnosed with a thyroid issue as well as inflammation. So I had to make again some major, major changes in order to see the scale move in the right direction. I was prescribed thyroid medication. I've eliminated most processed foods from my diet and I'm really heavily focused on protein, fruits, vegetables, and food that actually fuels my body with nutrients, vitamins, minerals. My inflammation has gotten a lot better because I have reduced my sugar intake to almost nothing and I've really reduced the amount of processed foods that I'm eating. And I set a goal for myself in 2022 to hit my goal weight. And I have lost weight every single week in 2022 and we're talking well over a pound, sometimes two pounds per week. So all of these changes that I've made since 2019 to now and the mistakes I've made following WW have been corrected and now I'm seeing the most results that I've ever seen. My body has changed so much. I have leaned down so much. I'm healthier, stronger, happier than ever. So I wanted to share with you what I've done, what mistakes I've made, how I've corrected them to get me to where I am right now. So that's a little bit of back history on my weight loss journey with WW. And now let's go ahead and jump into the mistakes that I've made. Big number one and a huge, huge mistake is not eating all of my points. We are given a set target of points every single day. Now I'm not counting weeklies. These are our daily points that were given based on age, sex, weight, activity, medical concerns. There's a lot of factors that play into the number of points that we receive every day. Now following WW personal points, our points are dictated by the zero point foods that we have as well as all of the other factors that I mentioned.  If you're not eating all of your points, I can assure you, I promise you, you're not getting in enough calories, nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. And sure, you'll lose weight in the beginning, but I also promise that that will come to a complete standstill. You will hit a plateau, you will stop losing weight. It's going to be very hard to start losing weight again. And we don't even want to talk about when you get to maintenance on how hard it's going to be to maintain your weight loss. WW gives us daily points so that we use them every single day. In 2019, there were days I wouldn't eat all my points, but once I realized that that's partially why I'm hungry all the time, I started eating all of my points. And like I said, my weight loss just elevated from there. Number two is not eating your weeklies. WW would not give us weekly points if it prevented us from losing weight, because let's be honest, WW is a diet and it's a business. And if we are joining their program and we're not losing weight, we're not going to stay, which means we're not going to be paying them monthly, weekly, quarterly, yearly for their services. So they wouldn't give us weekly points if it inhibited our weight loss. The other issue with weeklies is it opens up the door to living a more balanced lifestyle. I know when I was only following WW, I would turn down so many invitations to things, whether it be birthday parties, dinners, barbecues, events at a friend's house. If it didn't fall on the perfect day, I would turn down the invitation. And that's not sustainable. Not enjoying life and going to events isn't sustainable. And that's where weeklies comes in. They are given to you to live your life, and to enjoy foods that are a little bit higher in points maybe aren't the healthiest options, but are part of living a healthy balanced lifestyle. Now, whether you use your weeklies in one day, like I used to do, I had one day a week that I used all my dailies and all my weeklies, you can do that route, or you can divide your weeklies up over the week, or maybe if there's a day that a surprise happens, or maybe you overeat that day, that's what your weeklies are for.  Again, this is going to ensure that you're eating enough calories and that you're going to have sustainable, consistent weight loss. Number three is eating on a schedule. I cannot tell you how frustrating and annoying this habit is once you get into it. When I was not tracking calories and really just tracking points, I literally told myself I had to eat at a certain time. Breakfast at eight, snack at 10, lunch at 12, snack at two, dinner at five. Whether I was hungry or not, I would eat at those set times. That is not a healthy relationship with food. That is a huge diet mentality. It is not sustainable because life happens, and maybe I can't eat lunch one day at noon. And if I'm so regimented on the times that I'm eating, I'm not really listening to my body. I'm not satisfying my hunger cues, and I'm learning to eat when I'm not hungry, which again is an unhealthy relationship with food. So if you're someone that eats on a schedule, we have to stop doing this. We have to start listening to our body, eating when we're hungry, stopping when we're full, and maybe we don't have a morning snack every day. Or maybe we don't have dessert after dinner because we're just not hungry. Our ultimate goal, once we've lost our weight, besides maintaining that weight loss, is to not have to necessarily track points, calories, macros for the rest of our life, but really focus more on intuitively eating, eating when we're hungry, stopping when we're full, and not fixating on food and just living our best life. Mistake number four is restriction. It is never, ever, ever healthy to restrict or eliminate foods or food groups. We restrict ourselves, or when we eliminate certain foods or certain food groups, it can lead to binge eating or overeating.  It is human nature to want things more and more that we tell ourselves that we can't have. And this is an unhealthy life pattern to get into, and this is definitely an unhealthy eating pattern to get into. A healthy, sustainable lifestyle is never restricting foods or eliminating foods or food groups. It's eating everything in moderation. Now, WW tells us that no food is off limits, and that is true, but there are foods that take up more points than others. There are foods that are healthier than others. No food is bad or good, and by telling ourselves or putting a label on food, it can really, really hinder our weight loss, and it can also hinder our relationship with food, which can lead to severe food issues down the road. So whether you're on WW, counting calories, you're not even on a diet, make sure that you never restrict or eliminate any food or any food group. Don't put a label on it and just eat it in moderation. Enjoy the foods that you love, and remember, whatever you're doing to lose weight, you have to do that to maintain your weight. That's a mistake, and this is a huge mistake, and this is falling into the trap of WW food workarounds, and really only looking at the point value of food and not really looking at the nutritional value and the sustainability of that food. I know I'm not the only one who tried to eat as low a point as possible. Even if that meant eating foods that I absolutely hated, like fat-free cheese or plastic cheese, fat-free, sugar-free, everything, by consuming these foods, not only is it unhealthy for our bodies, we also have to remember that our body doesn't understand artificial sugar, it doesn't understand what fat-free cheese is, it has a hard time processing and digesting those foods. Also, these foods do not keep us as full and satisfied as real whole foods. So by only focusing on low point foods or how low can we get this cheese or this dairy products or this cereal or this chip or this cookie, whatever the case may be, by only focusing on the points, we're not eating foods that nourish and fulfill our body. We're also not eating foods that keep us full and satisfied. And that's a huge reason why I was hungry all the time when I just followed WW. And all I thought about was my next meal, my next snack, and what food I was going to shove in my mouth next. It's because I wasn't eating foods that kept me full and satisfied. I was eating foods and doing workarounds to get the lowest points possible. Sometimes the lowest point foods aren't the healthiest foods and they're not the best foods for us. So instead of trying to find all these WW workarounds and dupes, I now eat foods that fuel my body.   I limit the amount of sugar-free items that I choose to eat every single day and I focus on the foods that make me feel good and that fuel my body. Next is living and dying by the weight scale. Now I know a big piece of WW is the weekly weigh-ins and I don't think there's anything wrong with this for most people. If getting on the scale can ruin your day, your week, your month, your year, then getting on the scale every week, whether or not it's recommended by WW may not be the healthiest decision for your mental health or your physical health. The number on the scale is just data. It doesn't define who we are. It doesn't define our progress. It doesn't tell us how good we're doing on our healthy journey. It's simply a box that generates a number based on your weight. Now weight makes up so many different things. Our weight can be affected by the foods that we eat, the sodium we consume, the lack of water or the overconsumption of water exercise. There are so many factors that play into weight that it shouldn't be the most important thing to you when you're on a healthy lifestyle journey. The weekly weigh-ins at WW can be really beneficial for a lot of people. It can be the accountability that you need to stay focused on week because let's be honest, we don't want to step on the scale, especially in front of someone else and have our weight go up every week, stay the same, and really not lose weight, which is what WW is intended to produce. But we also need to focus on things that aren't related to our weight. How about how we feel overall? How does our body feel? Do our knees hurt less? Does our back hurt less? Are our clothes getting looser or fitting better? And are we just feeling better overall? What are those NSVs or non-scale victories? Those play a bigger part in overall success than the number on the scale. I was wrapped up with the number on the scale.   I've really just started to use the scale as data. And that's a healthy relationship with the scale. And it's a goal we should all have is not just focusing on the number, but focusing on all of the other benefits from getting healthier and losing weight. Not eating enough zero-point foods has been a huge mistake for a lot of us on WW. We are given zero-point foods, zero point, not free. There is no such thing as a free food. The only thing you can consume that's free or zero calories is water.  I think that connotation can be kind of confusing for people. We are given zero-point foods by WW because they're healthy, they're nutritious, they're whole real food. There isn't a single process food on the zero-point food list. The whole premise behind zero-point foods is to use these as the foundation of all of your meals or snacks. So when you're building a meal or a snack, the first thing you should be focused on is what zero-point food are you going to be eating and then building your vegetable, your carbohydrate, your fruit, the other parts of your meal or snack around that zero-point food. When we're not eating enough zero-point foods, number one, we're not getting enough whole real food, nutrients, vitamins and minerals. But even bigger than that, number two, we're definitely not eating enough calories. I promise you 100% guaranteed that you are not eating enough calories every day, you are far below even a thousand calories and you're not even close to where you should be eating every day to have sustainable, healthy weight loss. So it's really important to focus on zero-point foods. Because these foods aren't free and they still contain calories, it's important to stick to a serving.  These are the whole real foods that your body needs and these are also the foods that will keep you full and satisfied until your next meal. So make sure that you are focused on your zero-point foods. The next mistake is not tracking calories. On the WW program, they don't track calories. They do not give you the calories that you're eating per food, per meal, per day. But it's really important to have that knowledge in the bank and know how many calories you're eating on WW. Now once you track a food in the app, you can click on that food. It will give you all of the nutrition information of that food. But you have to manually open each food, add it up to get your total calories for the day. Same with your protein, your fats, your fiber, all of the different macronutrients that you're tracking. My recommendation for you would be to utilize a calorie tracking app. There's a lot of free ones out there. I use, lose it. I love that app. There's my fitness pal. I'll link a couple of these options down below for you. But I would recommend that even if you don't want to track calories and points every day, one or two times a week, check in with yourself. Track your day of food and make sure you're eating enough calories. Make sure you're getting in enough protein, healthy fats, fiber, carbohydrates. Make sure you're eating a well-balanced diet because it's more about what we eat rather than how much we eat that can make a big difference in losing weight and even a bigger difference on our metabolism and maintaining our weight loss.  Do damage to your metabolism and have to start all over and even gain weight to lose weight again. And again, it's really hard to maintain your weight when your metabolism has adapted to such a low caloric intake. Get your macros and calories from a nutrition coach. I do offer that service. See a doctor, dietitian, nutritionist. Just know how many calories you should be eating every day and make sure that you're hitting those calories on a very consistent basis. And that may mean a little bit of double tracking until you get into a groove of eating the right amount of foods, the right foods, the right macronutrients to eat sustainably, keep your metabolism wrapped and continue your weight loss success. Next is not focusing on real food. Not making sure that the majority of what you're eating every day is real whole foods. Lean protein, fruits, vegetables, dairy, really limiting the amount of processed foods that you're eating every day can make a huge impact on your weight loss. Like I mentioned, it's more about what we're eating rather than how much we're eating. Just because we're eating skinny pop for three points doesn't necessarily mean that skinny pop is the best option for us. What are the macronutrients of skinny pop? Is it fueling your body? Is it giving you the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that your body needs? It's best to pair macronutrients together. And if you don't know what macronutrients are, it's carbohydrates, fats, and protein. So when you're having a snack, don't just have skinny pop. If you want skinny pop, have skinny pop. But pair that with another macronutrient. That's primarily a carbohydrate source. So have something that has some healthy fat or some protein with that. Maybe have some skinny pop and a cheese stick. This is going to help you reach your macronutrients that your body needs to live, to lose weight, to maintain that weight, and to make you just feel better overall. Like I said, we never want to restrict or eliminate any food or food groups.  This is definitely, definitely like I mentioned for myself, a mistake I made. And when I remedied and corrected that mistake, I've lost more weight than I ever lost before and I'm consistently losing more weight. Another big mistake that I made in the beginning and a mistake that I've absolutely corrected, and this is focusing on too much at once, making us overwhelmed with trying to live a healthy lifestyle and lose weight. Weight loss starts in the kitchen and fitness starts in the gym. So when we're on a weight loss journey, it's important to focus on what really delivers results and that's the foods that we're eating. We can overwhelm ourselves if we're focused on foods, water, exercise. All of those things can be really overwhelming and when we get overwhelmed, that's when we quit. That's when we stop losing weight. That's when we stop focusing on a healthy lifestyle. That's when we can quit our weight loss journey altogether. So it's important to focus on one thing at a time and since the foods that we're eating is the biggest contributing factor to weight loss, that's what we should be focused on first. Once we have our food under control, once we've developed a healthy relationship with food, then we can start introducing other things like having a water goal and exercising. But focusing on one thing at a time can make weight loss a lot less overwhelming and more importantly, make it something you'll stick with long-term. Now let's talk about drinking water. Once we have food under control, we can start setting ourselves up with a water goal. We should be drinking water throughout the day every day even if we're focused on the foods that we're eating. We should still be making sure that we're getting in enough water every day. Water does your body good. It flushes out everything in your body.  Nothing is worse than being dehydrated. Nothing's worse than chapped lips, crepey skin because we're just not getting in enough water. It is recommended to consume eight eight ounce glasses of water every day. This is what's recommended by doctors, nutritionists, worldwide standards are eight eight ounce glasses a day, which is 64 ounces or half of a gallon. This is where I started and over the last year or so, I've been able to work myself up to a gallon of water consistently every single day. I do track my water and the way that I found to know that I'm getting in my water every day is to use a water jug. I have a 64 ounce water jug and I have a gallon water jug. Both of these I purchased on Amazon. Both of these were super affordable. I will link them down below for you. But what I do is I fill my water jug up the night before because I love nice cold water and then I refill a glass, a tumbler, a water bottle throughout the day with that nice cold water. Once the jug is gone, I know that I've reached my water goal for the day. So if you struggle getting in your water, having a water goal or having a jug to depend on to track your water is absolutely essential. And if you have a hard time with just plain water, you can add some fruit to that. I love lemons, limes, cucumbers, berries in my water. You can even add water enhancers like crystallite or purple or mule to your water. What's important is getting in your water. However you get that in, however it can make you want to drink your water, those are the things that you need to do because drinking water is not only important for our bodies, but it's really, truly essential for seeing success on the way in weight loss. And last but not least is not being consistent, not consistently tracking your food, making sure you're eating the right foods, making sure you're eating enough calories, drinking your water, moving your body, staying away from franken foods and WW low point foods that aren't healthy for us. Consistently doing all of these things is what's going to lead us to not only being healthy overall, fueling our body, correcting, changing, fixing our relationship with food. And all of these things is what makes us keep our weight off. It's what makes this sustainable and lifelong. This is a lifelong change, not just a diet or a quick fix. And remember, whatever you do to lose weight, you need to do that same thing. Eat those same foods to maintain your weight.  So eat the foods that you love throughout the weight loss process and continue to eat all of those delicious foods that you love while you're at maintenance. And this is really the key to long term success, to fixing your relationship with food and to really seeing overall health results. I've made every one of these mistakes. And in fact, a lot of these mistakes, I made over and over and over again until I realized I was making these mistakes and since correcting these, I have consistently lost weight. I am healthier, stronger, leaner than I've ever been before. And honestly, I feel better overall. My sleep is better. The way my body feels is better. No more aching joints, no more hurting back. I can get in my exercise with less recovery time. I can climb the flight of stairs without being out of breath and my knees hurting. All of these things make such a huge impact on quality of life. And none of these things have anything to do with the number on the scale. These have everything to do with how we feel and the changes that we're noticing in our body and our lifestyle that make our weight loss sustainable and something we can stick with long term. It's okay to make these mistakes. We're all going to make mistakes. We're all going to do things that don't benefit our weight loss journey, but realizing and correcting these mistakes can make such a huge impact on your overall quality of life. So let me know down in the comments which of these mistakes that I've made resonated with you and which ones are you correcting or have you corrected on your weight loss journey. Let us know down in the comments because the community can really benefit from all of your personal experiences even more so than my personal experience. And if you enjoyed this video and you found it helpful, don't forget to give it a big huge thumbs up. Subscribe if you're not because I do upload five days a week and check out that description box for everything I talked about today. The videos, the water bottles, the Lose It app nutrition coaching as well as my Facebook group. It's another free great source for support and an amazing, amazing loving community. So head on over and join us there as well. Thank you guys for watching and I hope that you found this video helpful and I'll see you next time. Bye.