Rita Black: Eggnog, pumpkin lattes, almond Roca, peppermint bark. Our seasonal holiday favorites are great until we fall prey to their power and eat far too much of them - leaving us feeling imbalanced, heavier, and let's face it, mad at ourselves for not having any discipline. There is a way to be the boss and not the bitch of your holiday faves and I am going to walk you through the Thin Thinking steps to get there. So, stay tuned.

Rita Black: Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn't start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym? 80% of our weight struggle is mental. That's right, the key to unlocking long-term weight release and management begins in your mind. Hi there, I'm Rita Black. I'm a clinical hypnotherapist, weight loss expert, best-selling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery Process. And not only have I helped thousands of people over the past 20 years achieve long-term weight mastery, I am also a former weight struggler, carb addict, and binge eater. And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis. Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years. Enter the Thin Thinking Podcast where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I'll give you the thin thinking tools, skills, and insights to help you develop the mindset you need. Not only to achieve your ideal weight, but to stay there long-term and live your best life. Sound good. Let's get started.

Rita Black: Well, welcome everybody. Come on in. Come on in all you podcast listeners. We have a wonderful milestone we want to share with you. We have now over 10,000 downloads so far of the Thin Thinking Podcast since this last March 2021 that we aired our first episode. And I want to thank each and every one of you for participating and supporting our podcast. I'm so excited and I'm so looking forward to a whole new year of podcasting. I've got some great topics, I want to, Thin Thinking topics, I really want to cover with you. I love this medium. I love the way that it allows me to really have a conversation with you and dive deep into, you know, the mindset of weight mastery and consistency and showing up for yourself and loving yourself down the scale. So, thank you for supporting the podcast, being here, giving me your ideas, giving me your feedback. It's really been such a remarkable thing that, you know, given birth to, I guess I should stay. And next week will be our 40th episode so we're also celebrating that milestone. And you know, what's cool is we have people tuning in from all over the world, from the Philippines, from Serbia, from Iceland, you know, all over Europe, all, there's Asia there's, you know, I just love, Canada, all the way down to Chile, you know, the Saudi Arabia, like so cool that, you know, we're all here together in the same space, really with one common goal - is to show up for ourselves better. You know, it, when we struggle with our weight, to doesn't matter where we live is a very isolating feeling. It's, it's a real struggle. And the fact that, you know, you can be listening from New Zealand or Australia or from Denmark, you know, and we're all bringing our hearts together on this one topic, I just think, it really moves me. So, thank you for being a part of this project and this community. So, no matter where you're from, just come on in now and get snuggly by the imaginary podcast fire.

Rita Black: You know, I wanted to say this, this is like the, when I was talking about the podcast fire, I had this friend who lived in Los Angeles. She's not here anymore, but she was from up north. She was from Canada, actually in really, really far north in Canada. I forget where she was like, like, you would probably consider it the north pole. And she moved to LA and she was in the movie business. She was a development person and she was one of these very eccentric type of people. So, you would go to her house in December and the house would be freezing because she had the air conditioning on and she was wearing her winter sweater, you know, from her, you know, like from up north, she had this thick woolen sweater that she wore all winter long. She just kept air conditioning on like, I don't know, 55, 50 degrees, 45. I mean, like just, well, I don't know if he can even do that, but like, like low and, you know, really, really cold. And she would have a fire in the fireplace. So, she would invite you over and you would sit by the fire and, you know, it could be 85 degrees outside in Los Angeles, but in her house, it was the snugly, sit by the fire, under the comforter with a cup of hot cocoa talking around the holiday season. And it was just, you know, so wild. So I thought I'd share that with you.

Rita Black: So now let's just prepare. So why I bring that up with Debbie is that we all do our thing when it comes to evoking the holiday seasons and, you know, the holiday season in our subconscious mind is really our past memories. So, a lot of us reach back to our childhood in our mind when we think of warm and cuddly memories of the holiday season, and that might evoke ideas for a lot of us, our food and our holiday, our holiday favorites. Right? So, I am sharing a coaching session with you where I break down the exact steps that you want to take to be the boss and not the bitch of your holiday foods, because it's really easy to get into that. It's the holidays. And, you know, pumpkin spice latte is only available this time of year. So, I have to drink it as much as I can before it goes or almond Roca or peppermint bark. It's only here this time of year. And so let me indulge. And then we overindulge and then we end up feeling bad about ourselves. So, I want to take you step-by-step in a way where you can indulge, but not overindulge and really be mindful and create a new way forward. And also, I want to remind you if you haven't already grabbed one of my free, free, free, free Shift Out of Sugar Cravings Hypnosis Session, that's an tongue full I shift over and sugar cravings. Say that 10 times really fast. No, don't but, yeah, go grab that. It's in the show notes. So link is sign up. It gets sent to you. It's super easy. And, I think something that might really serve you over the holidays. Many people have shared with me that they went in and downloaded it. Oh my gosh, this is so great. You know, so people really, really do enjoy the session. So go grab it. There's no obligation, just go enjoy. All right, let's hop in now to this coaching session of being the boss and not the bitch of your holiday favorites.

Rita Black: And really, truly most of what managing your way through the holidays is about is mindfulness. I mean, it's really about tuning in and being mindful in this time of year where we kind of get overwhelmed and are, you know, trying running around, trying to manage this and that, buy presents, bake, make everybody happy. And then we end up not taking care of ourselves. So, if we put a little planning in and a little mindfulness in, I assure you that you can manage your weight and stay weight conscious through the holidays and, and have your cake and eat it too, or have your fruit cake and eat it too. It's not about not eating these things, but it's about really being conscious and showing up for yourself in a different way, because most of weight management is really how you communicate with yourself and best communications always start with a plan and a plan to be successful. So, let's plan to be successful this year. Shall we? Okay.

Rita Black: So the first thing that you want to do, and this has been very helpful for me because I've been managing my weight for about 25 years now. I used to be about 40 pounds heavier, and I have taken that weight off and kept it off. And one of the way, and I was, you know, to be honest with you, when I went away to college, my first term, I lost a bunch of weight because I was not in my mom's kitchen. My mom was a big baker and, you know, just a ton of food at the house. And I, and I lost weight that first term. And then, I went home for the holidays and I am going to tell you, I gained, I opened my mom. I opened the door to my mom's house, and I literally started with one thing and I continued to eat and eat and eat until I went back to college. My roommates didn't even recognize me. I was like 20 pounds heavier, crazy. Right? So, I know I am somebody who has fallen prey to holiday foods.

Rita Black: So, something that's really helped me as over the years is that when I go into the holiday season, I know the seasonal foods that really, if I I'll ask myself this question, I'll say, what foods do I need to eat to know that I've gone through the holidays this year? Now for you, that might be something like your aunt Jan's macaroni and cheese, right? But you don't need to eat everything that aunt Jan makes. Maybe just her macaroni and cheese is what's special for you. So I say, choose two to three of those holiday foods and just, then you don't need the rest. You know, you know what they all taste like. And, so, choose those ones that are going to be special for you, and then give yourself that serving of them and sit down and be mindful about it. Enjoy it. It's not about not having it, but it's about choosing and being choosy. You know, most of those foods, those special seasonal holiday foods, you know, if you, like I said, if it was June and some, you know, they were in front of you, you probably would just pass right by them. But there's something about the holiday. So choose the ones that are the, the, that means something to you. For me, that's gingerbread. My mom is to make this very special, a cream cheese cookie with this special German cookie press. And like, those things mean something to me and I will have them in and be mindful about them and enjoy them. And then I'm getting on with my healthy eating through the holiday season. So, choose two to three foods that mean something for you.

Rita Black: Then, you can employ the three-bite rule. If you don't know what that is, it just means that, actually our mouth experience of most foods and most decadent foods goes from 90% down to about 20% after three bites. So if you are going to have aunt Jan's macaroni and cheese, probably after the third bite, your, your mouth has kind of already become desensitized to it. So you don't need to eat more. And, and you can just pick and choose those three bites. So like, let's say you go to a big holiday buffet, you know, look for two to three things and take those little three bites and then fill your plate with the other healthy stuff so that then you can pick it that, enjoy the, get the most out of it without having to have a big old heaping serving, getting all the calories and fat and, you know, spiking your blood sugar, and then feeling like you're over getting into that sort of holiday eating fog, where then we just become this sort of eating machine, like eating whatever is coming our way, just because it's there. Stay mindful and, and really experience the food, enjoy giving yourself that experience, but you don't need to have a lot in order to enjoy, but you don't have to feel deprived either.

Rita Black: Here's something to understand if you don't understand this already, you may, that smell is the most important part of the holiday season or anything, you know, our, a smell is a portal into memories. You know, I think so much of us associate the holidays with love and togetherness and emotions. And because when we're children, all of this, you know, we, we were, you know, granny and mom and, and dad and the presents and Santa and all of that had imprinted on our brains with smell and, you know, smell is one of the most important things in our subconscious mind. And it brings up emotions, feelings, connections. So, our smell is the most important part. So, often just smelling the food is enough. You don't need to actually even eat it, smelling the cinnamon or the spices or the smell of the Christmas tree or the Hanukkah candles, or the, you know, whatever was your smell for the holidays or a lot of different smells. So, so with regards to food, like I have mentioned on other videos that, you know, I have a client who would just take something and smell it and be like, that's good enough. That's all I need. I just wanted that memory and that smell. I didn't need to eat it in order to experience that. So, think about that. You know, I think we often eat food to eat the emotion, or because underneath the food is often an emotion, a memory, a connection, and we're eating the food to get connected to that. And often then we'll eat the food and then feel bad and we'll lose that powerful connection. So often when we can think about like, oh, what is gingerbread mean to me? And, oh, it means love and nurturing. Maybe I just need some love and nurturing. I don't need to eat gingerbread. Maybe I can make a cup of ginger tea instead, and enjoy that and enjoy that smell. Often, we can forego those, those holiday treats because really what's underneath it is something much more profound and deep for us. And we end up eating and then feeling bad and disconnected from ourselves rather than connecting to the true spirit of the holiday, something to think about.

Rita Black: And having said that, that brings me to the next thing, inner love. So again, we are really wanting to connect to that inner self, that inner child, that inner child that was so excited about the holiday season, and yes, there were treats and stuff about, but the true meaning of the holidays is something much deeper than that. And when you start connecting with that, instead of eating the food to try to connect to that, you find that it can be a lot more special. I am very much enjoy the holiday season for all the other non-food traditions that I've cultivated over the years, because when I lost weight and have kept it off, you know, I started focusing on the other aspects of the holidays, much more. I mean, when I struggled with my weight, it was all about the food. But now for me, it is it's lighting the fire and sitting by it with my children and talking, watching movies, making soap, even though we're really bad at making soap, we do that every year. You know, and, traditions that bring us together as a family or even my own traditions of, you know, taking walks in, you know, out on the cold, in the cold Los Angeles air. No, but, you know what I mean, it's like, I have my own time for myself, my time with my family during the holidays. And it's a very special time journaling, all that kind of stuff. So, think about things that you can do in the holidays ahead of time that are going to engage in the holidays, engaging in the spirit of the holidays, without it having to be food-oriented, because then the holidays take on a different significance and meaning. Sure you can have your treats, but, but just being more mindful about it and allowing yourself to maybe dive a little deeper into holidays this year, and it's not just about food is the best way to be the boss and not the bitch of the holiday foods. And you can really get behind the spirit of the holidays from a different level, manage your weight, maybe even release weight, if that's what you're up for this holiday season and have a magical, magical, lovely holiday season. You, the ones you love, your community, please stay safe, please stay healthy, take care of yourself and have a wonderful holiday season.

Rita Black: All right, everybody. Well, we're getting close. So, the holidays are just around the corner. Don't forget to pick up your sugar hypnosis session. It's in the show notes. So easy and have an amazing week. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door of the weight struggle is inside you. So, keep listening and find it.

Rita Black: Thanks for listening to the thin thinking podcast. Did that episode go by way too fast for you? If so, and do you want to dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release? Head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com where you'll find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release, tips, strategies, and more, and be sure to check the show notes to learn more about my book From Fat to Thin Thinking: Unlock Your Mind For Permanent Weight Loss, and to learn how to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode.