Rita Black: Good or bad, on or off, all or nothing. These are the states of being that we come to know in the weight struggle. We know how to be good. We know it like an old comfy blanket. And we also know being bad. It feels familiar, painful, yes, but familiar. Our brain has built these neural highways of behavior and they are now worn down pothole roads that we drive upon without even much conscious thought. When we aren't on these roads, we even feel lost. A fire alarm goes off in our head and we swerve to get back on. Not because they work for us, but because they are familiar taking us around and around in that weight struggle cycle. But the key to consistency is knowing what to do when you get off track and to get yourself right back on track and just keep going. And I'm gonna be showing you the five key steps to do this. Building a bridge from that old highway to a new fabulous highway of consistency so that you can stay on track, achieve weight, release momentum, and release the weight for good. So join me for this road trip into new territory and come on in.

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, bestselling 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. I hope you are doing great. I am excited to be here today with you here in the end of January of 2024. I'm really glad that we are three weeks into the new year. I have to say it feels now like we're getting used to the new year. I bet. You know, for me, I always know, okay, I'm feeling good in the new year when I am just writing 2024, whatever the year is on my checks and in forms. And things have kind of settled back into normal life after the holidays. I love going into the holidays and the holidays themselves, but I get to a saturation point with the holidays. I don't know if you're like me, but I get to a saturation point where I'm like, I'm done now. I'm ready to get back into the swing of things.

Rita Black: My kids have gone back to college, thank God. And I am back into my groove and refocusing. And if you're like me, hopefully you are refocusing, feeling healthy, getting into your healthy eating style and maybe refocusing, you are on your weight goals after the holidays. So if you're doing good on your trajectory, awesome. I hope you've established a good routine and feel like I've got this and maybe you are feeling like you're losing some steam and focus. Somebody told me this week, I believe it was this week, maybe it was last week, that January 11th is actually the day that most New York resolutions fall apart. Can you believe that? But yes, we can, because we know we're dealing with the subconscious mind that wants to go right back to the old and the familiar. So if you're feeling good and empowered, like I said, awesome, today's coaching is gonna help you take that momentum and keep going. And if you're feeling a little less focused and feeling like you may be slipping, I think today's coaching will be really helpful for you to stay on track. Because I wanna take a look with you at this very interesting time, the gray area of between getting off track and getting yourself back on track ASAP to your weight mastery journey.

Rita Black: Now, I know when we have been steeped in the world of weight management for as long as most of us have, our focus is usually on the getting the results part, right? What you are eating, how you're moving your body, and all that good stuff to move you forward with. And a lot of attention is paid at the beginning of the year on these things. And those things are important for getting the results over time. But the big challenge isn't food or the exercise, and probably that's why you're here with the Thin Thinking Podcast because we know it's the over the time part that is the most important and the over the time involves our mind.

Rita Black: And today I am talking about the magic word consistency because ultimately of all the keys to long-term permanent weight mastery, consistency, being able to get on track as quickly as possible after getting off track is really the key to success. Getting back on that journey. ASAP, no matter what your food or exercise plan or fasting plan or whatever that stuff is, getting back on track after getting off track. A lot of people are working with different types of regimes, intermittent fasting low carb or many different ways of eating, trying to vegan, trying, you know, making their own choices about how they're feeding their bodies, finding nourishment, times they're feeding their bodies. That's all great, but any of these plans are gonna fall apart if you get off track and can't get yourself back on track. I've seen it happen thousands of thousands of times.

Rita Black: So today we are going to uncover the five keys to getting yourself back on track ASAP. But before I do, I wanted to let you know that here in January, we have a couple of days left to the Shift 30-day Weight Mastery Self-Study Process. And it's a special offer that's gonna be running only a couple more days. So when you enroll, now, not only do you get this amazing hypnosis based process for a year to use as many times as you like, but you also get a free live shift process. And we will be doing one this spring late April into May or this coming fall late September into October. And you also get a super New Year's bonus. It feels almost weird saying that now three weeks in, like, come on Rita, the New Year's is over. But I'm giving you a New Year's bonus of the Shift Weight Mastery Express, which is a bundle of our five top hypnosis downloads that include hypnosis for the desire to exercise stress management drinking less and more. And you can get the links in the show notes. There are over $800 worth of bonuses when you enroll before the 23rd of January, 2024.

Rita Black: Okay? So let's talk getting yourself back on track, which is, in my opinion, the keys to the kingdom of weight mastery. Now, I've been maintaining my ideal weight for 28 years. Many of you may know that some of you may not. And some of you know, it took me nine months to release 40 pounds and then 27 years and three months to maintain it. And now to be sure there are many things that I have done to maintain that weight. I have always, always stayed focused on the nine skills of weight mastery, which are based on many studies of people who have kept weight off over time. And I really have to emphasize that these are skills and they are not being good. And in the shift process, we immerse you in this amazing skillset and use hypnosis and meditation to do so, to get your deeper subconscious mind that resists change, to get aligned with that part of your mind that really wants that long-term weight release.

Rita Black: And also to be free of that on again, off again, cycle binging, all of that. So these skills and really narrowing down the skills, like the most important skills I feel for consistency is the mind skills, managing this relationship between your inner critic, your inner rebel, and your inner coach. Because when things go south and you get off track, and my friends, let us be really clear, you are going to get off track in any weight journey. And it's preposterous to think that you won't. We live in a real world. I mean, okay maybe if you live at a weight loss camp or if you can afford a 24/7 coach to follow you around. Maybe, just maybe, you won't get off track. But for the rest of us we are going to get off track. Now, let me be clear, 31 years prior to releasing weight and keeping it off for 28 years, I yo yoed up and down the scale, pretty much 40 pounds a good part of my life.

Rita Black: Now, the only difference between the Rita pre-shift and the Rita Post-shift is really where I put my focus on the nine skills and really the ability to get back and stay on track. Now I wanna tell you a quick really funny story. Maybe some of you have heard this, but I think it's been a while since I've told it, so I hope you don't mind me telling it again. 'cause I think it's kind of a hoot. My husband many years ago when we were living in London, worked for a man from Australia who was a merchant banker or a, not, I'm sorry, not a merchant banker, but just, you know, a banker. He was a stock market guy. He worked in the city, it's called city. There's this special part of London that is really the Wall Street of London, but they call it the city.

Rita Black: And it's circled by a wall that is this old medieval wall. I think I've got my history right. But anyway, so my husband would trott off to the city and work for this man. And so he got to know him and this man was very generous. And he would have me and my husband over to his palatial apartment. We, or flat, I wouldn't call it, you know, even a flat. It was more like a palace, but it was in a building. So but it wasn't a big estate or house. He lived in soho. So it had chandeliers and marble floors and all the fancy trappings of somebody who has lots and lots of money. And we loved going over there because, you know, they would feed us caviar and champagne. I mean, they really treat us nice for, you know, we were like, you know, taking the tube over there to their house and, you know, we did our best to dress up, but you know, it wasn't that pretty.

Rita Black: But anyway, so he was married to a woman named Joanna who was so full of life and she was this bubbly woman and very vivacious. And she, you know, she and I both smoked at the time and she decided she wanted to quit smoking. So she hired this man 'cause she had the money to literally follow her around 24/7. And anytime she felt the urge to smoke, he would talk her out of it. Don't you love that? I mean, what a concept. So she quit smoking because this man followed her around and told her, Hey, do you really wanna do that? I don't think you wanna do that. Let's reconsider this. You know, here's some other things you could do in this moment. So that all worked out really well for her. But the problem was about two months later, she had found that she had gained about 20 pounds and she was horrified because she had all these expensive clothes and she needed to fit back in them and look amazing.

Rita Black: So she hired this man back to follow her around and pretty much do the same with her eating and talk her out of any impulse to eat, snack you know, eat more than, you know, one serving of food at dinnertime, et cetera. And she released the 20 pounds. Now, I don't know if she kept it off, but anyway, that was her, that's what she had her do. And I just think that that is marvelous that she had the funds to do that. Now, you and I don't know, maybe you've got those kinds of funds or maybe you wanna, you know, throw your money away, but you don't need to because we do, by the way, have a 24/7 available coach inside our own mind. And we have to just cultivate this coach and cultivate this relationship with this coach and ourselves.

Rita Black: And once we do we have our power back, right? We wanna be able to turn down the volume on that inner critic who wants to point out all of our shortcomings and that inner rebel who just wants to have what she wants to have and doesn't really care about your desires to be healthy, confident, and free. So we've just gotta turn the volume down on both of these entities and turn the volume up on our inner coach.

Rita Black: So, coming back to me and my journey of 28 years of maintaining, which basically by the way equals 1,456 weeks, or if you wanna look at it in days, that's 10,220 days. I sat down and figured that out. That's a lot of time. And in that time, full and honest disclosure, I have gotten off track over 250 times. I would probably say more like 300 times or 400 times in that time. And I didn't have an outer coach like Joanna to get me back on track. And I had to learn to do it myself as quickly and as lovingly as possible with my inner BFF inner coach. And like I'm saying, have been able to manage my weight for years despite being off track that many times. So long term weight management isn't about being perfect, it's about self-management. I wish they would call it weight self-management because it really is about managing ourselves. I get off track and I just take the necessary steps to get back on track and voila, I will continue my journey. So now we are gonna focus on you.

Rita Black: So our initial problem, so the problem we are up against is when we get focused on losing weight in some way, we feel good, right? We pulled it together after the holidays, we are eating healthfully and we're feeling good. And it feels good to feel good. It is a high that we get almost addicted to, right? But a sinking feeling in the back of our mind that that shoe is going to drop, right? We never feel a hundred percent confident in that feeling good, but we're taking it. We're riding that high, but with that sinking feeling in the back of our mind, and then along comes a day or a weekend or a week where we get off track where our eating kind of falls apart, where it doesn't look like the plan we were on or our fasting schedule or our, you know, healthy vegetables and whatever we're eating. But we're, we get out of that groove that we were in. And when it happens, we don't like that feeling. So that feeling of getting off and not being good puts us into what I call a gray feeling, gray feeling.

Rita Black: It's like a thwarted expectation. We haven't been good. We broke our fast, we ate a carb we didn't eat mindfully or we didn't eat what we were supposed to, and we don't like how this feels. It feels bad after feeling so good and back in the back of our brain, the fire alarms go off and that inner critic swoops in and says, you blew it right? In some way or another. Maybe not necessarily in that language, but she's letting you know you were doing good and now you are bad. And I'm so disappointed in you here you are failing again. You know, what did you think? We thought we were gonna do good. We thought this was the end of our troubles and you failed me. You disappointed me. Utter disappointment. Now, do we like this feeling? Absolutely not. It feels horrible and awful.

Rita Black: And we want to disconnect from this feeling. So now something magical happens in our brain, you know, and this is the weight struggle cycle. This happens. We get in this addictive cycle where we're feeling good, something happens, we get off track, and then that inner critic comes in, abuses us, and then this other part of our mind swoops in and offers an escape. And this escape is so seductive. We're gonna be good tomorrow or we will be good next week. And that seems like such a great idea, right? That is so seductive. I'm gonna feel, feel good now and get a fresh start tomorrow. So that promise to be good later, wherever later is lets us off the hook of this feeling bad, right? So that seems really good, right? But the problem is that what happens when we say we're gonna start over tomorrow?

Rita Black: Be honest. What happens when we say we're gonna start over tomorrow? Do we go back and eat the salad? Or do we go and continue to eat whatever we were eating that got us off track and then maybe a few things more and a few things more. And we wake up the next morning, we're like, well, you know, tomorrow's not Monday, so I'm gonna keep eating till Monday, right? And then maybe we get off track for a longer period of time, or we just are in that place where we are numbing out, not thinking about it or just, you know, not on track, not where we wanna be. So to the extent we promise to be good, really literally gives us permission to be bad. So, and that does provide that relief and we are off the hook. It does also provide the ability to overeat after probably restricting ourselves and, and in a very disciplined way, in a very rigid way.

Rita Black: And then the impulse is to kind of go in the opposite direction to start overeating. And this could go on for a day or a week or a month or a year. This disconnect is keeping us from consistency and long term success. So we kind of get in the habit of doing this, right? It's, it's just that cycle that gets repeated over and over again. That old black and white be good, bega bad adds to our weight problem. It reinforces the cycle, that struggler identity that we get stuck in that belief that it's impossible. And all of this is subconscious. All of this also builds and gets stronger and stronger the more it happens. So in the shift process, we focus on this part first, making sure that the you heading on your journey is in a different identity, not a struggler identity. In fact, we make sure that you are in a different world, the world of weight mastery, so that when you get off track, you have way more leverage and are seeing, getting off track, not as a failure, but as an opportunity to learn and build the getting back on track muscle.

Rita Black: But for the moment, let's just focus on breaking free from the cycle of building a bridge over this gray area between bad and good. Taking five powerful steps into a new set of thoughts and feelings and actions that get you back on track ASAP and the beauty and the reason of having this process internalized, then practicing it over and over is because you are building that muscle of getting back on track and you will get back on track without much interruption. And that will keep you on your weight release journey so that you can finally keep, get the weight off and keep it off into maintenance. And believe me, maintenance is also a mastery journey because I have had to get myself back on track during maintenance, and I've worked with many, many people, many, many weight masters who is the same.

Rita Black: We're still living our life, we're still being out in the world. We don't, you know, get the gold medal of weight mastery the moment we hit our ideal weight. We are still managing people, places, and things throughout our life. We just happen to be managing them at our ideal weight. But make no bones about it. We get off track, but we know how to get back on track and I'm just trying to be real with you so that you get the sense and you can get into these five steps and really take them to heart so that you can get some traction in this new year. So, drum roll please.

Rita Black: Step number one, accept and rejoice that you have gotten off track. You heard me, right? Accept and rejoice that you have gotten off track. Now, here's the reason. Getting off track feels shameful. We tend to tuck it into the dark corners of our mind. We don't wanna think about it, we don't wanna feel, we was like, oh, I got off track. Oh, I wanna get back. I'll start over tomorrow. So let's bring it out, the fact that we've gotten off track and celebrate it instead. And see it as part of your weight mastery journey. Because getting off track, my friends, is as valid as 30 minutes of yoga or a tofu and rice bowl or a tofu and veggie bowl because you are going to get off track. So let's rejoice it as an opportunity to get back on track as and build that muscle. Now, part of this is you're gonna have to stretch because we are going to normally when we get off track, have flooding feelings of shame and horror. So in that moment, you wanna take a breath, you want to feel that feeling and stretch through it and say, yay, I am off track.

Rita Black: Just start to do that, to rid yourself of the shame of that perfectionistic mind and critic and say, I have a chance now to flex my muscle of getting back on track. Yuppie! The more powerful that muscle is, the more masterful you become, the more consistency is your home. Okay, so let's just look at this for fun from a weight management perspective. So let's say I was on a diet and I ate a brownie. You know, I've been eating chicken and broccoli all week and came Friday and I ate a brownie. Now in the physical universe, maybe I ate some sugar and flour and chocolate and yeah, maybe it was like 300 calories over what I planned to eat. Maybe it played with my blood sugar a bit. Maybe I was not, it was outside of my fasting window, whatever it was.

Rita Black: We wanna own it. And usually the damage isn't that big in the physical world of weight management. Usually the damage that we do is more in our minds than on the plate. Look at a brownie, eat a brownie. Mentally we feel bad. Eks. Ugh, I was horrible. I got off track. I, I'm, that was bad. I blew it. All those words that we say to ourself and we disconnect and promised to start over tomorrow. Now, so far I've just eaten a brownie with some sugar and flour and you know, in the world of weight management not that big of a deal. But now, because I've disconnected for myself and I'm starting over tomorrow, I'm gonna eat five more brownies plus a weekend of overeating. So in the world of physics, the 300 calories now becomes 10,000 calories or more, plus the recovery from all of the g or refined foods that we chow down on in the meantime.

Rita Black: So if you accepted the brownie and rejoiced in getting off track, hey, I ate a brownie, you're still good. You're still a valuable person. Nothing is wrong within you or outside of you. This is a coachable moment, and you can be a learner instead of a loser. Starting to build that inner coach voice that's rational and compassionate instead of that emotional and judgy critic and that rebellious and impulsive rebel driven voice. And this can really make the difference in this shift. This is the key for most people except and rejoice, I got a bit off track and now I'm flexing that muscle con, staying connected with myself and getting right back on track.

Rita Black: Now, step two, own what happened and yourself. And this is a chance where you can get clear with your coach, not just labeling, I'm a pig and I hate that brownie. This is where that impulse to disconnect from ourself is so strong, right in this moment where we recognize, oh, I blew it, or that wasn't good, or I shouldn't have done that. We wanna stay with ourself in the moment, my friend. I ate the brownie, I hadn't planned on it, but I ate it and I'm still lovable and I'm still me and I am still enough. It's so important to stay rooted to you, your inner essence. There is nothing wrong with you, stay rooted in you. The brownie was a brownie, not a disqualifier of your worthiness, right? But it can feel like that. And I get it, but you know what it's like to be there for a loved one who is feeling down or think about how you would speak to a friend in a moment where they were feeling really down on themselves.

Rita Black: And the shift we work on that inner coach, your inner guide, your inner nurturer, that is like that powerful you in that moment, like with the friend, but you're using that voice on you and it becomes a resource in these weak moments where we feel so small and so wanting to disconnect from those feelings, but that powerful inner voice, that ability to be the adult with the child, that ability to be the good friend to the good friend of you can pull us through. It's like I want you to imagine like the wise part of you holding the hand of the vulnerable part of you and guiding you across a bridge, right? That bridge over that gray feeling that we're that feeling between good and bad. We need that powerful inner friend, that inner compassionate coaching guide to pull us over those feelings and into a new world to help us cultivate this inner voice.

Rita Black: It helps to practice mantras that remind you of your worth. Sometimes it's hard to feel like they're real in the moment, but if you practice saying them when you're feeling good about yourself, and then imagine being in a moment when you're feeling bad and practicing it in your mind, your subconscious can't separate fantasy from reality. So practicing being enough and using a mantra in an off-track moment will help you when you really are there. So just to synthesize that explanation all down practice when you're feeling good about yourself ahead of time. Oh, I'm gonna feel bad in the future when I get off track, it's probably gonna happen and I probably am gonna feel those feelings. And when I start feeling those feelings, I'm gonna remind myself of my worth. Does that make sense to you? I hope it does. I ate the brownie.

Rita Black: I didn't expect to, but I did it and I am enough. I am worthy, I have value. Or you could imagine your coach instead, if you don't wanna say, I am worthy, I have value. You imagine your inner coach saying, I, you are worthy, you have value, and you may still have some negative feelings running through you in that moment, and that's okay. But what you're doing is staying connected. You're standing your ground, staying rooted in yourself and pulling yourself through the moment with kindness, compassionate, and in connection to yourself. And you're building that next plank on the bridge to staying on track with step one. We felt we built that first plank. I meant to say that. Sorry, we built a plank, you guys. So let's go back to step one and build a plank. Okay? That plank on the bridge of going over between good and bad is built. And now we're gonna build the second one with the second step, which is own what happened. And yourself. And just to remind you, step one, we, where we built that first plank was accept and rejoice.

Rita Black: So let's move on now to step three. Forgive yourself for not doing what you had planned to do. Forgiveness connects us to ourselves on a heart level. And I'm not being woowoo even if it sounds like it, because I've done studies that show that self-compassion is a powerful, powerful motivator. I know if you're a student of mine or a regular podcast listener, you may have already had the step of forgiveness down, but I really feel like you can't practice it enough. So I'm gonna have you practice this moment right now. I call it for me it's an insta forgiveness moment. You don't have to make a big scene about it.

Rita Black: But what you really wanna do is once you have rejoiced in the fact that you've gotten off track and that you're flexing that muscle and owned you know what you did, and you know, you've really taken that second step and acknowledged what you did own owned what happened in yourself forgiving yourself is going one step deeper in. So just try putting your hand over your heart. Now, I know you didn't eat a brownie and I'm pretending I did. So I'm gonna be me having eaten a brownie. You can do this for something else or you can just pretend again, practice helps us ingrain this in our mind. So put your hand over your heart, take a deep breath, close your eyes and just say it. It's so simple. I forgive myself for eating the brownie and not having planned it and say it three times. Taking a deep breath in at the end of each forgiveness. And why three times as important is 'cause the first time it's gonna be kind of surface. The next time you're gonna get a little more, and usually by the third time you're feeling it. So I forgive myself for having eaten the brownie and not having planned it and taking that breath in.

Rita Black: I forgive myself for having eaten that brownie and not having planned it. I forgive myself for having eaten the brownie and not having planned it. And don't forget to take that deep breath in that really pulls that forgiveness right on in. So here's the thing, nothing is wrong per se with a brownie or you, let's be very clear. You're not really having to forgive the brownie, but acknowledging it and forgiving it, this is really more cognitive. It's not like you're going to church and asking for forgiveness, but what you're doing are very powerful cognitive steps to bring you closer and closer to yourself to bring you over that bridge so that you can move forward. So forgiving yourself opens your heart back up to you because our heart holds a lot of resentment. And when we do something like eating the brownie, it gets triggered and we get into that err, I'm disappointed. And owning and accepting eating the brownie gets our head in the game and forgiveness gets our heart in the game with us.

Rita Black: So that step is a heart moment, and that's important in our journey in these five steps. So next step four. Oh, wait a minute. Let's go back. Let's take another step. Let's build another plank. We just built the third plank at the bridge. We're putting it on there. Okay, we're testing it a super strong. Okay, now we can go.

Rita Black: Okay, step four. Learn a self-care lesson from what happened. So step four is to learn a lesson from what happens when we hit that eject button and just start over tomorrow. We never learn anything to help us improve. Often we get off track with the same foods in the same times, in the same places with the same people. So why not learn and implement change rather than just thinking someday, you're gonna magically just be perfect in some mystical future. So back in the brownie situation, we can ask what happened? What did I learn? I usually like to go all the way back to the beginning of the day, if you can believe it. It's not just like while I ate the brownie, you know, I am a fat pig or I was impulsive or you know, I'm a sugar addict. No, no, no, no, no. We wanna go way back, back to the beginning of the day where was something in that planning or thinking things through that could have happened in the morning when I know I may be in a place where I tend to be vulnerable. It helps so much to acknowledge this and plan for it early in the day. So much of what takes us off track isn't because we're bad or we're broken or impulsive, but because we haven't set ourselves up for success, we haven't taken that self-care time earlier to set up ourselves for that time later.

Rita Black: And, you know, if you think about planning for a trip, you know, you don't just all of a sudden throw your clothes if you're going on a long trip, like the journey to weight mastery. You're not just throwing your clothes in the bag and heading off, you're thinking things through. You're planning for what you need in particular situations. And in all this coaching and students I've worked with and the years and years that I've been doing this, most things fall apart for people because they neglected to take that time to think things through. And that's usually because they neglected to make themselves a priority. They never got in the habit of it. Make their time and their their life a priority, making that morning time a priority to think their days through. I I am very intentional with my time and my days, and I didn't use to be like that at all.

Rita Black: I would just head into the day like, well, I hope I, you know, have a good day. But a part of the biggest joy I have of being on my journey of weight mastery is that it's allowed me, it's, I've had to become intentional about my life, about my week, I think my week through, I think my month through. And, and I'm not, I, am I a control freak? Well, I don't think so. But I do enjoy being able to create my life and to know, okay, you know, things may not go as I planned, but I would love to finish this week feeling light like I took care of myself and to that I took care of my body. And what do I need to do to do that? What do I need to do that to do that today?

Rita Black: And sometimes there are gonna be vulnerable times in my day if I'm going to a party, if I'm going out to dinner I just, you know, have been to my mother-in-Law's house, you know, and I thought that all through ahead of time, sometimes it went great and as planned, and sometimes it didn't look as pretty and I had to kind of adjust and get back on track. But I set myself up for success as much as I could. So thinking, you know, so when you get off track, don't lose the lesson. Get the lesson so that you can implement it. And, and I only got those lessons when I really started to, to remove the shame and say, okay, this didn't go for me like I planned and I love myself and I advocate for myself, so I wanna learn something here so that the next time I'm in this situation, I don't lose like I lost right now.

Rita Black: I wanna feel like I won. I wanna feel like I got something out of this. So do I need to feed myself differently? Earlier would be a question I would ask myself. Should I not bring that food into my house because I know it's a trigger? Food would be a question I would ask myself. Do I need to practice saying no to my mother-in-law, or no thank you, or being okay with it before I even see my relatives. Like if I'm going into that situation, how do I be okay saying no thank you already knowing that I'm gonna be saying that going into the situation. You know what I mean? Practicing it in your mind ahead of time really helps you say those things like, no thank you in a way where you're honest and sincere but you aren't letting yourself down.

Rita Black: Like I said, I got off track over 250 times, maybe 300, maybe 400 and I learned 400 lessons, , that's pretty awesome. So there were 400 things I never had to repeat and do again. Now, prior to that, in the 31 years that I was struggling with my weight, I had the opportunity to learn many lessons that I didn't learn. I just kept trying to be good. I just kept trying to be perfect, and I kept banging my head against the wall again and again. So did we just build another plank on the bridge? I think we did. Let's build that plank and let's take that last step and which ironically is take the next steps. And there's many steps within this last step.

Rita Black: The fifth step, you wanna create a vision of where you're going. You wanna plan to get there, you wanna have your next meal be a healthy meal, you wanna exercise if you can, and hibernate the carb zombie if needed. So let's break that down a little bit. So making a vision of where you're going next is really important in this last moment. So you've rejoiced that you've gotten off track you've acknowledged and owned that you got off track, you've forgiven yourself and you have learned the lesson. Now you're gonna create a vision of where you're going next because we wanna pull you out of those feelings and engage you in a powerful, glamorous feeling of, or a sexy feeling of, Ooh, how's it gonna feel by the end of the week because I've stayed on track, I got right back on track and I'm feeding myself healthy, whatever. You know, let's say if you were a day off track or a, or a brownie off track or a month off track, wherever you are engaging your brain and where you wanna go is where you're putting your focus and where you put your focus excites your brain. Quick aside I had a hypnotherapist, a friend who coached athletes and he was a, he, he didn't coach athletes, sorry, but he was a hypnotherapist for athletes and he had many kids coming in and he would coach them.

Rita Black: And these athletes, these kid athletes would come in and be really hangdog. They were like, well, they didn't very do very good at the game, and I suck and, you know, I should give up sports and Blah, blah, blah. And you know, really down on themselves. And, you know, when he was asking them, well, what's going on, why you're here to see me? And then he would ask this question and it just totally changed their posture. It changed their tone, it changed their beingness. He said, what do you like about the sport? Or what do you love about the sport you're doing? What do you love about golf? And the kid would kind of just sit up straight, go, oh, well, you know, there's nothing like walking along the greens and hitting that ball down the fairway. I don't know anything about golf, but, you know, or the bouncing that basketball down the court and doing a jump shoot and the excitement of the game and the feeling of power that you get. So you could see really right up front in their faces, this change in seconds just by changing the focus.

Rita Black: So when we're feeling down and in that gray area, and we're focusing ourselves forward on that vision of who we are being, who are becoming, and I like to focus a week ahead of time. You don't have to go too far, but I, I just wanna focus either a week or a month ahead of time and refocus yourself on the journey where you're going, what you wanna achieve, why you're achieving it. You know, we forget in that moment that we're not just in it, we're the weight management, but we're in it to create a more powerful relationship with ourselves. So seeing ourselves at the end of the week, feeling connected to ourselves, feeling strong staying on our journey, rather getting back in that weight struggle, it's a really powerful thing to do in that moment for yourself. It's such a great gift just to have a vision of how you feel.

Rita Black: Look at the end of the week, that connection to yourself. You can close your eyes and do it. And just spend a moment going, okay, where do I need to go? Where, what do I wanna do? Who am I being? What am I being a week from now? Where do I wanna be? And just like those athletes that were in a moment transported, shifting your focus from negative, oh, I blew it into who am I being? I am on a weight mastery journey and what is possible for me by the end of the week. There's so much potential in seven days how you can change just by getting back, eating in a way that you're nourishing and loving your body, you're moving your body that your mind can start to focus on that. Oh yeah, I want that feeling. I want to be that person.

Rita Black: I want to, I am becoming to come to fruition, right? So we're refocusing ourselves on our path forward and then have a plan to get there. How am I gonna do that? What do I need to do? And usually the first step is to create a healthy meal for yourself. And if you've just eaten a bunch of food, then you probably don't need to eat right away, but just promise to yourself that whatever meal is next, maybe it's breakfast the next morning, or the first time you eat in the day the next morning, or maybe it's the next meal in three hours from now. Or maybe it's right now. Sometimes if I eat something really sugary on an empty stomach that I hadn't planned to, I'll eat something like protein definitely that will stabilize me and make me feel more even keeled. And I do that sort of to protect myself and nourish myself so that I am feeling like I'm taking care of myself.

Rita Black: And then I will exercise. I had a mentor once said, every time you get off track, the best thing you can do for yourself is to move your body if you can. I mean, if it's the middle of the night, maybe not the best idea, but maybe even just doing a little dance, turning on a song from Spotify, your favorite song, and just being in your body for a few minutes, being connected body to brain. It's such a great feeling and it reminds you that you are, you, it kind of roots you back in your body as well. Or go for a walk around the block if it's not the middle of the night. I know some of us can binge at night and so, you know, dance around your kitchen or go for a walk if it's during the day or you know, go to the gym if you can just move your body.

Rita Black: And then you might need to hibernate your carb zombie if you've really gotten triggered. If you've been eating sugar and refined carbohydrate for a number of days, chances are your brain has kind of gotten really engaged in that. And we're gonna be looking at that in a couple of podcast episodes from now. How to hibernate your carb zombie, but really you know, take care and lower your carbohydrates for a few days and eat. Get your proteins up. Make sure you're getting at least 60 grams of protein per day if you're a woman. And making any carb choices, wholesome carbs and vegetables and fruits and keeping the refined stuff really to a minimum or even keeping it out of your diet for the next few days. And I say diet loosely, I just mean the way you're eating. Just because that tends to flip the switch back on that dopamine driven brain that has gotten kind of off kilter and kind of is driving your eating behavior.

Rita Black: It's not you, but it's that part of the brain just gets really engaged. And then, you know, we end up eating stuff we don't even wanna be eating just 'cause that part of the brain just gets so engaged. So hibernate that carb zombie, it might not feel good to do that sometimes if we've been really off track, eating something healthy seems really disgusting and gross. I know it's a weird brain thing. But just force yourself too and you'll be really glad you did because within a meal or two you're gonna start feeling better, more yourself and detached from that part of the brain that just wants to drive that overeating, carb like behavior, refined carbs, I should say. And then now with those five steps let's just take that last plank and put it on that bridge.

Rita Black: And now we have this magical bridge. This powerful bridge. It's not so magical. It's magical because of you taking yourself over that bridge one step at a time. The magic is in you when you stay connected with yourself and moving forward on your journey of weight mastery. So I hope you feel now that you have all of those five steps and there's no disconnecting from yourself. There's no shame, but self ownership, self-compassion, self-care, and a strategy to move forward. And you can see how these five steps can make the difference between the weight struggle and weight mastery. So if you are ready to stop struggling and make your powerful journey to long-term weight mastery, just reminding you the links are in the show notes for you not only to enroll in the 30 day weight mastery process, that is a self-study process that you get for a year.

Rita Black: But when you enroll, you also get the live shift process this coming spring or fall. And you get the super nears bonus of the shift Weight Mastery express, a bundle of our top five hypnosis downloads that include hypnosis for the desired exercise stress management, drinking less and more. And you can get the link in the show notes over $800 worth of bonuses when you enroll right now though, you gotta go and do it now because this bonus is going away in a couple of days. There's a lot of information. Just click the link and if you wanna learn more about how the process works and all the details, it's all right there. Once you click the link and when you enroll, I will be there on the other side to greet you in an orientation video when you enroll. So my friends, I have really enjoyed our time today. I hope you have enjoyed building that bridge over that gray area from good to bad so you can continue your journey to weight mastery to make, make sure after all that building to wash your hands, and take care of yourself. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door, the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it. I will be here with you next week. Have a wonderful, wonderful week.

Rita Black: 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. 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.