Rita Black: As the summer fun caused you to feel a bit off track. Often we have great intentions to be good, but there's that resistant and rebellious part of us that could care less about how we feel and our health and our weight goals. So today I'm gonna help you tame that inner rebel with three very specific mind hacks so that you can end the summer or any season of the year feeling light and confident and in charge of your weight journey. 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.

Rita Black: Hello everyone. And welcome. Come on in. I am getting my brain all aligned and reorganized. My son is going back to school the very beginning of next week. And I'm a little sad, you know, he's a senior for those of you who, you know, are new to my podcast. He is a rising senior. So this is his last year before he, you know, flies away. You know, hopefully he'll flies somewhere. not back upstairs to his bedroom next year, but maybe, I don't know. Well, you never know, but, you know, I am kind of really glad that he is also crossing the finish line in my mind. I have these fantasies, you know, the emptiness fantasies, of course I have my emptiness fears, but I do have some serious emptiness fantasies. So I am, you know, so this is going to be a year of bitter-sweetness, but I am proud of him.

Rita Black: So he, this summer, he kind of like, I don't know those of you who have raised children and are at that age or beyond where my kids are at. You probably know there there's like this age where their grown upness kind of kicks in and, they're, they kind of go from, you're kind of having to push them and prod them and get them up in the morning and get them focused to my son saying I got this mom, and being really self-motivated. He went and got a job. He's been working almost full time this entire summer, after we got back from our trip, he got, he was very persistent. He went and asked the woman three times and she, I think she finally hired him cuz she was it's like, leave me alone. Okay, I'll hire you. But he is working, he plays tennis. So he is working at a tennis store, selling tennis things.

Rita Black: So, that's, you know, really exciting for him, but he's been working on his college essays too ahead of time. Oh my gosh. I was like, you know, it was January 1st and I was still pumping out my essays. But nowadays, for those of again, for those of you who have had to, you know, go through this college process, you know, that you can't leave everything to the last minute every anymore, because people are, you know, it's just so competitive and so crazy.

Rita Black: So he's been working on his essays and working on thinking about himself and, but he's gotten pulled into this other habit he has, which is gaming. So gaming is kind of his overeating. He, you know, he really has intentions not to game. And then I can hear him in his room, screaming at the gaming, for those of you who know what young men or even young women, you know, gaming sound like, it sounds like somebody is killing them, or, you know, will hear these primal screams. My husband and I will be sitting and watching something on television. And I will hear these primal screams. And I worry about the rest of the neighborhood, cuz I think, oh my God, they think we're killing our children. But you know, we're just, we kinda look at each other and sigh and you know, go back to watching our TV cuz that we know the blood curling scream is just, you know, him being frustrated with his game somehow. But anyway, so he gets pulled out of this super disciplined mode and into, I am gaming and he can probably spend the whole day gaming, but fortunately has a job. So he can't do that anymore.

Rita Black: But anyway, he has been focusing his mind differently. And so one of the tactics he has used is actually one of the tactics we're gonna talk about today, which is really refocusing on how good it's going to feel to have those essays done. Because as you know, sitting down to write an essay about yourself, isn't the most pleasant thing to have to do, especially if you're a teenager and you don't have a heck of self worth. My son is very, it says I don't have anything good to say about myself and it all sounds fake and it all sounds funny. And I was like, we'll talk about, you know, and he was like, I don't wanna talk about playing the piano or being on tennis team. You know, he kind of is just like anything isn't like good enough or, or smart enough or whatever. So, he's been really focusing on not trying to stay out of that mindset, that native mindset and really, and staying away from his inner rebel and really focusing on how good it's gonna feel. So he's really developing that inner coach. So that's what we're really gonna get into today is I wanna give you three really tactical, specific, mind hacks that will help you manage that part of you that maybe feels like it wants to pull you off track.

Rita Black: This is a coaching session that I recorded a while ago, but it is a great coaching session. And I, I was listening to the three tactical skills and I really think that if you take these away with you, especially here at the end of the summer, when it's kind of easy to get off track and we feel a little fuzzy and unfocused, I really think that these are gonna help you feel refocused, whether you're listening to this at the summer, but you know, anytime of the year, of course. All right. So let's dive in.

Rita Black: Hello and welcome. Thanks for coming into the session in the session. I am going to be teaching you how to tame your inner food rebel using three really specific mind techniques. You know, like I said earlier, chances are, you know, exactly what you need to do in order to really sway. But that the struggle that we have is that there is a part of our mind that is really resistant to long term permanent weight loss. It just doesn't wanna change. Haven't you noticed that that's why we keep reverting back to our old habits. So I wanna take a moment before I begin teaching you these three techniques really quickly to kind of like give you an understanding of what this inner rebel is all about, because it really isn't your fault. It is just the way that our mind is set up. And once we can learn to work with our mind more effectively, it is amazing how quickly that you can get the result, that the results that have been alluding you for a really long time.

Rita Black: I know myself it, when I struggled with my weight is super frustrating and I thought there was something wrong with me. I actually literally thought that I was crazy because I knew exactly what to do, but I just couldn't keep it going long enough to see the results. And, and especially I couldn't keep it off long term. So once you really learn how to use your mind more effectively and to understand it's really not your fault, then you can really start to learn to be masterful at weight management rather than just trying to be good on a diet, which as you've probably experienced doesn't work so well.

Rita Black: So first of all, why do we have an inner rebel? Like why is there a more resistant part of us that is seemingly, working against us at every turn with our weight loss? So one of the reasons, well, the main reason is that, you know, like here's my really bad drawing of the brain, but 12% of your mind is a really the conscious part of your mind. And, and that's the, the intelligent part of the mind. That's the part of the mind that separates us all from all the other animals in the animal kingdom. And that part of the mind, knows your mind right now has all the information you need in order to take the weight off, you know, how to eat correctly. I'm sure you know how to, you could probably write your own weight loss book and other people would lose weight, right? So it's not that you lack knowledge. This part is the willpower part of our mind. And as you probably notice that 12, percent's probably about right, because you get a part of the way through your day and even, everything falls apart and that's because our willpower gets zapped over the course of the day.

Rita Black: So we also have this subconscious mind, that's about 88% of our mind. So that's what the it's the mind model theory is that, that we have this limited, smaller, conscious part of the mind. And most of our mind, you know, what runs us is, our habits, our beliefs, our reptilian impulses, our emotions and our negative self talk. And all of this started to really get imprinted and cultivate. In our first about 20 years of our life, we started to, develop belief systems about ourselves and our world and habits and, that, you know, help us get through our lives. Cuz for the most part, habits are very helpful because they just let us, you know, run things on automatic pilot, like driving a car and and getting up in the morning and going to work and things that make our life function. But what happens is that over time we also develop limiting beliefs and habits and negative self talk that that really challenge us in our weight loss efforts.

Rita Black: Now, when we're in our twenties, we develop sort of this critical filter and that's why they have that saying you can't teach an old dog new tricks because that critical filter really once the critical filter is in place, it keeps, information that, that continues to come at us. But now our mind is filtering it through this filter system that has beliefs that already believe things like, oh, it's hard for me to lose weight. Food tastes good when I feel bad, right? And then so once these beliefs are locked in, it becomes a lot harder to change them. So we need to learn to work with them rather than work with our mind and, and learn to open it up rather than to, fall into these like, defense mechanisms that then just keep us stuck in the same roadblocks that have been keeping us from losing weight.

Rita Black: So I like to call this, you know, deeper part of the mind, the inner rebel, because the inner rebel is the part of our mind that really wants what it wants when it wants it. And it doesn't care about the fact that you wanna be healthy. It doesn't care about the fact that you, want to fit into your bikini and look, you know, amazing in the summer or just to feel more confident or to feel just not crazy. Like why am I always struggling? And I feel like I, you know, can't stop myself. I can't stop eating even though I'm in pain, even though I am so upset with myself, even though I feel like a failure, I know what to do, why can't I do it right? It's, it's really, really frustrating and incredibly painful. So why it, so what we're gonna do is look at three ways that you can learn to get your whole mind working with you in order to circumvent or, or tame this 88% and actually get this 88% in line with your releasing weight and keeping it off permanently.

Rita Black: So the first thing is there I'm, I've divided the, these three techniques into before we have an impulsive episode during an impulsive episode and after an impulsive episode, because there are three ways that we can really go at, um, learning to tame our rebel. And, and if you implement all of three of these things before, during and after, you will then really be a long way ahead in getting that success that has been alluding you.

Rita Black: So the first thing is the first pack, mind hack is to start doing mind drills. Now this sounds really serious, but it actually isn't, it's actually really, really easy. So here's the thing. If you haven't noticed this already, most people gain weight at the same times in the same places with the same foods all over and over and over again, you know, the way that you struggle isn't once you've kind of like pinpointed your struggle areas. They don't deviate very much. I know it's crazy. It's but it's true. You know, if you really think about it, it's like, oh yeah, I do that. I do this, I do that. There's a lot of things you probably do absolutely perfectly and right. You know, and not that there's perfect, not that there's right, but that there are things that you are doing right now that, you know, if you kept doing them, you would release weight. But these, these are the things you also have a handful of things that are keeping you struggling. So here's the thing that we, when we struggle with our weight, I've, I, I, it's very funny to me, me that we keep thinking we're gonna go on a diet and all of a sudden those, those things, those handful of things that have been sort of our Achilles heel are gonna just disappear or go away because we're being good or exerting extra willpower. Well, no, they're not gonna go away, but you can learn to work with them, but you first have to recognize that they exist and you have to, you know, honor the fact that they exist and then you can start to work with them in order to, change them.

Rita Black: And so what I mean by that is to practice. And what I mean by practicing is mind, practice, closing your eyes and thinking those situations through ahead of time, when you're in a relaxed situation, like in bed in the morning or in the evening to start to mind practice, here's the concept behind this is athletes practice, their plays, whatever, whatever athlete they are. If they're a tennis player, if they're a, my daughter right now is learning tennis and, and she thinks through her, you know, her serve and, her lollies, before she goes and, and does a, a, you know, a tennis meet. Right. And, and I've been watching her improve and it, her improvement, isn't just when she's on the court and learning tactically, she is learning in her mind ahead of time. And she knows her weaknesses. She knows the things that she needs to work on. And so she thinks those things through like, what am I gonna do the next time in order to improve that serve? Right.

Rita Black: So if you're somebody who, for instance, every day after lunch or at, you know, like at four o'clock in the afternoon, gets up and, and goes and gets some, some sort of carby treat. And, and you know, that four o'clock is sort of your vulnerable time. If you're a little bored at work, or maybe you're a little tired and, and, it's just that time of the day where you're just your mind seems to be frozen. What you can do is you can begin in your mind, not at four o'clock because at once four o'clock is there, your mind is on automatic pilot, it becomes very, very hard to exert willpower at that time where you have a lot of willpowers in your mind, in your imagination. Thinking that time through ahead of time, like for instance, in the morning, just before you wake up, closing your eyes and thinking through like at four o'clock today, I'm, you know, instead of getting up for my desk and, and going downstairs to the deli and getting that, bagel. I, I can see myself getting up, going and getting a glass of water, um, you know, go going and getting the healthy snack that I packed earlier this morning, or, or I packed this morning that I will pack once I get up. And, and having that instead, and also really having imagining yourself, having that conversation with your inner rebel at that time, that inner rebel has sort of a voice to it. And that rebel might go, okay, let's, you know, get up and go and get our bagel. And, and instead of, you know, impulsively getting up and going and doing that following through on that habit, you can, you can practice in your mind saying, no, I'm gonna actually make the healthy choice. I'm gonna have that piece of fruit, or I'm gonna have a couple of slices of, or some yogurt or a couple of slices of deli Turkey, something that is more stabilizing and nourishing. And I can see myself finishing that snack, drinking that water, getting up and stretching up my desk and feeling awesome, because then you're using your mind, not only your imagination, which actually is down here in our deeper mind as well.

Rita Black: You are engaging our imagination ahead of time, and you're creating a new neural track for a different behavior ahead of time. So what you're going to find is that it's gonna be a lot easier to follow through on the healthy behavior, if you think about it ahead of time, and that is going to engage your whole mind in going oh, wow. That, yeah, that sounds really good. We'd love to, come home tonight. Having felt like we weren't, you know, already eating a bunch of carbs and feeling bloated and bad about ourselves or, or, or, you know, now needing more carbohydrates because we stimulated that part of our brain. And now we, the car zombie is awake and we want more, oh, wouldn't it feel great just to go home and feel good and in line with my, you know, best weight release efforts. So what, what you can do is the best time is either in the morning or the night before to do these mind practices, to practice the day, you know, wherever your challenges are, wherever your vulnerable places are in the day, go ahead and just start practicing alternative behaviors that are going to, you know, be in line with your best weight release efforts.

Rita Black: Now, following along on this, we can also, uh, leverage the moment too. So like, let's say we didn't do our morning drill, or we did our morning drill, but there's still that impulsive, excuse me, that impulsive part of our brain that is like, I like, for instance, let's say we were in the, grocery store and we're standing there in line as you do. And you know, how they position all those, really refined, highly, highly, you know, Impulse oriented foods right there as you're heading out the grocery store. And just in time for you to throw it in your card and just check out.

Rita Black: Let's say that you are in that situation. There's gonna be that inner rubble part that would be like, oh, we'll get it for the kids, or, oh, look, that, that, that might be great to have on hand this weekend when company comes over or, oh, look, I'm not gonna eat much. I'm just gonna eat a couple of bites and then we'll put it away. Right. We'll put it away. So when we feel ourselves getting that, that there's that part of us, and it's almost an agitated feeling. And, and here's the thing that it isn't, it is it's you, but it's really the part of your brain that in a rebel part of your brain is really driven a lot of times by dopamine, which is the reward neurotransmitter and a dopamine's very agitating. So you might get that like agitated feeling like I really wanna put that thing in my cart, or I really wanna eat that food. So when this is happening, if this is happening in that moment where you're really feeling drawn towards something, and that, you know, that impulse is almost like just pulling you forward, what you can do is take a breath and, and do what I will call, a better offer for your dopamine brain or for your inner rebel and how we can do that is first we wanna think through, because oftentimes when, like, let's say there's a, you know, really amazing looking baked, good sitting there. And, and you wanna, you, you wanna put that in your cart. When that is going on, that dopamine brain, like I said, is pulling you forward. Um, but if we take that breath and, and we, instead of going, no, we can't have that. And we're working against like trying to resist the baked good. Instead if we, we, if we say to ourselves, well, I could eat that baked good. I could, I mean, I could put that in my card and I could take it home, but now let's think that through.

Rita Black: So this is a technique called thinking it through, and it's really easy. And what you do is you literally just think through what would happen is if you took that baked good home and you sat down and after dinner that night, when everybody was in bed, you ended up eating that entire bake, good, or part of it, or a couple of slices of it or whatever the thing is. And, and just what you're doing is thinking it through from the pleasure, because right now your brain is going pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. But we wanna move the brain from pleasure to pain, pleasure to pain, right?

Rita Black: Because this is when, when you think it through, from the pleasure point to the pain point, what happens is that part of the brain goes, oh yeah, that's not gonna be so good for me. That's not gonna be so fun because it really, ultimately our mind really wants what is best for us. But the problem is our impulses, our reptilian impulses are very powerful and we fall into these traps. But if we can think it all the way through to the pain point and keep thinking it through, oh yeah, that's, I'm gonna feel bloated. And I'm gonna feel mad at myself. And I'm gonna wake up the next morning and kick myself. Like, why did I do that? I was doing so well. Then, then that, that offer doesn't seem so amazing. And then what you wanna do is once you're like positioning the pain in front of yourself, you, you offer the alternative route, which is like, let me keep this baked good on the shelf. Let me go home and eat my healthy dinner and imagine how good it's gonna feel to go to bed, feeling light, one day closer to your weight release, you know, goal. And what happens in your brain is the dopamine, the reward center brain kicks and goes, Ooh, that sounds like more fun to me. Right? So, so we're, we're taking that impulse. We're thinking it through to the pain. So like pleasure to pain, to Ooh, better offer being healthy, feeling confident, feeling good about myself, right. And this is a really, really powerful mind technique. So check that one out too.

Rita Black: Now the last one is one that is gonna seem probably it may seem a little woohoo to you. , but it's not, it's actually very cognitive. So, let's say you bought that bake. Good. Took it home. And you ended up eating a slice or two of it. And now we're at this other point in where a lot of people fall into this trap, the habit trap of starting over again tomorrow or on Monday. So, what happens is when we, that our inner rebel will say, oh, well, you ate the cake. You might as well just eat it all. And start again on Monday. What happens is not only do we, like, let's say if we ate a slice of cake and you know, that part of our mind kicks in not only are we not now, not only just eating one slice of cake, but we're eating multiple slices of cakes, then we're eating. We're compounding that by then giving ourselves free reign to eat whatever we want over the weekend, which will probably be, not weight release oriented, but more weight gain oriented. And then we'll start again on Monday. And, and not only is this fattening, but this is also creating a habit of starting over the start over habit is, is usually very deeply ingrained in people. And this is probably the number one habit that people don't even realize that they have, that is standing in the way of them taking weight off and keeping it off permanently.

Rita Black: So please do with whatever you do, do not, do not continue cultivating this habit, do, do not allow that inner rebel to say, Hey, let's start over again tomorrow. What you wanna do instead is this. You wanna forgive yourself? That's right. You wanna forgive yourself? Because typically what happens is when we eat something that wasn't on our weight release journey, there's this other part of our brain that kicks in, which is our inner critic. And our inner critic loves to yell at us and say, look at you. Why did you do that? You're a failure. Look at that. You're lazy. You're you're have no control whatsoever. And that freaks, there's a part of us that gets freaked out and really stressed out about this. And so it's really easy for that inner rebel to come in and go, well, let's get out of this pain. We'll just say, screw it. And we'll start again tomorrow. And guess what? All of a sudden, we're not in pain anymore. We're not being yelled at by our inner critic. The inner rebel is taken over, right? So what we don't wanna do is, we, wanna get in there immediately and forgive ourselves. So that will then calm down everybody. The inner critic, the inner rebel say, Hey, you know what? I ate that cake. I forgive myself, Hey, how human I ate that cake?

Rita Black: Now, at this point, you can do a couple of things. You can learn the lesson like, wow, that really didn't work for me eating that cake. But I forgive myself, how human, how do I move forward from here this very moment. It on my weight release journey. So you just forgive and move on, make the next meal, a healthy one. Maybe you wanna go out for a walk or exercise if it's not too late at night. I mean, there are many ways that you can just keep moving forward and not only will this be who cares, you ate one piece of cake in the long term scheme of things, not a big deal, but it's a lot harder to recover from those binges that happen when we're, we, we eat one thing and then that inner critic goes, you blew it. And our inner critic steps in and goes, so screw it. And then we are overeating for a day, the next couple of days. And, and we're getting in that habit and that cycle, which makes that takes away. Our power takes away. Our confidence takes away our freedom makes us feel like we're in this weight, struggle prison and worried about like, it's always gonna be like this.

Rita Black: So, so forgive yourself, forgive yourself. I cannot tell you how slimming forgiveness is. Even if you don't wanna forgive yourself. I don't care. Forgive yourself. Anyway, I forgive myself. I have a term called Insta-forgiveness. I'd like, okay, I forgive myself. And, and I learned the lesson and I moved on. I move on and believe me, my long-term permanent weight release did not come from being perfect. It came from little shifts that I made in my thinking for giving myself, thinking things through. These are the things that are ultimately going to give you long term permanent weight relief success. So I hope you have found this helpful. I hope you believe in yourself because I certainly believe in you. I know the power of your mind, and I know that whatever you're up against right now, you can overcome it. You have that power, uh, but you, you know, now you have some, some tools to really dig in and to begin to get some success under your belt by, by using your mind more effectively. Okay, cool. I hope you've had a great lesson. I hope you have an amazing day and I'll look forward to working with you again.

Rita Black: All right. I hope you found that helpful. And I will look forward to being here with you next week and remember that the key and the only key, really, and truly the only key to unlocking the door, the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it.

Rita Black: Do you wanna dive deeper into the mindset of long term weight release, head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com, that's 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. Be sure to check the show notes, to learn more about my book From Fat Thin Thinking, unlock your mind for permanent weight loss.