Rita Black: Did you know that in research, studies of people who have achieved and sustained long-term weight management, most of them credited having a support team as one of the keys to their success? Well, it's true. The world is full of challenges and temptations that can sabotage your weight goals. Even the people in your life can unknowingly throw you off track. That is why building a support team that is there to guide you, cheer you on and keep you focused, is crucial to lasting success. So in today's episode, I'll be breaking down the five key people you need on your weight support team to help you not only reach your goals, but sustain them for the long haul. So let's find out who these five people are. Grab your contacts list 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's 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. Sound good? Let's get started.

Rita Black: Happy November everyone. Come on in and have a seat. Get cozy. We are officially in November, and as we all know, lots is going on in the world, but I like to keep things cozy in here as we focus on the world of weight mastery with you, my thin thinking community. So come on in and just get a break from all the hullabaloo that is going on in the outside world. We are gonna talk about building a weight mastery team today. And in thinking about our podcast, I was thinking about my wonderful team that helps create the Thin Thinking podcast. And I want just to show them my gratitude and say thank you everyone. I have amazing Sarah and Daryl and their team, and they just do all the amazing back behind the scenes stuff that allows me to come here every week and not being a technical person. As you know, I am not.

Rita Black: Well, if you don't know me now, you know I'm not, I am certainly not editing or doing any of the fancy past stuff behind the scenes. Oh no. Or you would never have heard podcast number one. So I have to thank them for making my world work and for keeping this show. And it feels so good to be supported. And it's amazing when you think about all the things you do in your life about how many people are probably involved somehow in what you do. I mean, you know, we talk about parenting, it takes a village. Well, for sure it does. And you think about, you know, your work life and all the people that are involved in, you know, whatever your organization or what you do do for you. I am gonna be having surgery later this month, fingers crossed, because I belong to Kaiser Permanente, who really doesn't believe in scheduling things too tightly until the very last minute.

Rita Black: My husband, you know, in the spring had a knee replacement surgery, and I think they moved that deadline a couple of times. So I can say this month with somewhat you, hopefully it will happen, but, you know, I'll keep you posted. It's not a, it's a pretty big surgery and I'll talk about it later. I want, I'm gonna get into other things now, but the point being is that as I'm approaching surgery, I'm sure I'll, you know, be freaking out and then I'll have to share everything with you. So, stand, you know what should I say? Standby for that one. But for right now, the only point I'm making is, you know, I have, this surgery has been sort of in the making for a number of years. It's something I knew I was gonna have to have and eventually, and so I had many people like supporting me and making the decision to have it.

Rita Black: Then because it's a preventive surgery, and then also all the people who, and my medical team, my doctor my old doctor who then is retired, but is consulting with the person who's going to be doing the surgery. And then my, you know the many, many people who obviously as you know, in the world of medicine support them. But then I also will have my recovery team, meaning my husband and maybe my son if he comes home from college for the weekend or so while I'm recovering. And my friends who have my friend Julie, who I hike with, who is a former nurse who is offered to support me. And, you know, I'm lucky, I just have amazing people around me, and I'm sure my team who helped me with my business, they will be, you know, standing in for me while I'm, you know, coming off of all the major drugs afterwards.

Rita Black: So, you know, you think about like all those people involved in your life and you think about all the many things you do in your life and all the different people. So it takes a village. And rarely though, do people think about how essential having a team is with weight management and how people often really don't reach out for help. Because with weight, first of all, we're an island, right? We think we're alone. Nobody suffers like we do. We don't wanna share our struggle, or if we have in the past, we don't want to, you know, oh, we don't wanna have that, like, oh, you're on another diet, or, oh, blah, blah, blah. So we kind of keep it to ourselves because there's so much shame wrapped around it. So often we're hiding our struggle. And so we're just going to dive to letting that belief go because you are not a weight loss island, my friend.

Rita Black: And because that, before we dive deeper, I also wanna invite you and remind you that I have a free masterclass that you can join for free where we do some weight hypnosis. So if you haven't done hypnosis before, you can get a flavor for it. And where you're gonna get support from me and insights that I think are gonna be really helpful for you we really talk about a lot. This, what I see as the main driver of the biggest struggle for most people, and they don't even know it, which is called the wait struggle cycle. It's a mental habit that keeps us struggling. It's the number one subconscious habit. And when you can break free from that and break through that, then that unlocks the doors to dissolve other, all the other sub habits, which are the things that you feel like you're probably struggling with the most, but they're all kind of underneath, locked underneath this bigger mental cyclical habit that we get stuck in and keeps us struggling. So, so, so I sign up, get some support, it's free. You can do it from your phone, your tablet, your desktop. I mean, come on, people. It's the, the links are in the show notes, so check it out. Now let's dive into it building a team for our weight mastery.

Rita Black: So why do you think having a support team is cited by people who have been successful in the long term? I actually think having a support system is so important that I have actually made it one of the skills of long-term permanent weight mastery, which are basically built, or I didn't make these skills up. They were gleaned from a lot of research into long-term success studies. So, and I saw people who are successful are supported. And research shows that even in support groups, that people are twice as successful for long term success in any type of endeavor, but definitely in weight.

Rita Black: They have found that people in weight support groups are twice as successful and for twice the amount of time. Now, like I said, it's really easy to give up when we're by ourselves. Most of the reasons that we aren't consistent with weight is that we throw up our hands and we give up at some point. We give up on ourselves. Mostly, you know, you, anybody who struggles with their weight, I consider them a very disciplined person because endeavoring so much to manage your weight, it requires discipline, it requires willpower. But I think the big problem we have, or the biggest challenge we have is our self communication. And so that's why support can be so helpful, because support can help bolster our own communication with ourself in this area of our life.

Rita Black: So here is the group. Without much further ado, this is the list of our support team, our Power five, and I'm gonna give the credit for this Power five to Stacy Powers, who is a coach.

Rita Black: Now, this Power five could be used for any endeavor, not just weight, but I certainly know that I had these five positions filled, not on purpose necessarily, but my, I naturally gravitated would be the word towards these key figures in my weight mastery and continue to have these figures in my life, maybe filled by different people, because people do come in and out of our lives, or we maybe need somebody with a little more experience or a little more compassion or a different person. So youwanna have these types of people in your life, but those positions may change. So here are the five positions.

Rita Black: So the first one is mentor, and I'm gonna get into each one of those, but I'm just, I'm just saying.The first one is mentor, the second one is coach. The third one is a peer, and the fourth one is the cheerleader, and the fifth one is the friend. Alright? So, and you can have more than one of any of these positions, but these are the types of positions you wanna start thinking about filling for your weight mastery journey.

Rita Black: So the first one is the mentor. And I would say a mentor focuses on providing guidance and advice for navigating your journey. A mentor hopefully is somebody who's been where you have been and can provide you the path and the vision and the inspiration, that knowledge, if they can do it, you can do it. So they're, they're inspiring you, they're guiding you. They, they've been there before, they've been in the trenches, and now they can be somebody from your life, but it can also be somebody that you listen to on a podcast like yours. Truly, I'd love to think of myself as your mentor or one of your mentors or on YouTube or some, some book that you read.

Rita Black: And I have found mentors in books and cassette tapes back in the day, then I moved on to CDs, and then I moved on to listening to podcasts. I consider I have a number of mentors in my life for varying degrees. I have a gardening mentor I listen to, and I have a mental health and mindfulness mentors. So I have lots of mentors in my life, and I hope that you start thinking of if you don't have mentors, that they're, these are very key positions for you to fill and, and you don't have to pay for them. They can be there out in the world, but they're just somebody who's inspiring you and giving, leading you forward on the path. Even if you don't know them personally they, you can feel like you know them personally, because mentorship, for me, when I was in my weight release mode, it wasn't just about food and exercise, but it was definitely how I managed my feelings and emotions, how I learned to love and nurture myself.

Rita Black: So I, it wasn't that I didn't have mentors for nutrition, but I, I did look for mentors or was, were drawn to mentors that were helping me mentally as well as with the food and exercise, if that makes sense. So definitely choose your mentor or mentors.

Rita Black: Now, a coach in my mind is a little different than a mentor, although they could be the same person. Their role with you is a little different when they're coaching you rather than when they're mentoring you. Because a coach works with you specifically to keep you accountable, to set goals, whether that's daily, weekly, monthly. And a coach will keep your mind focused specifically on meeting milestones, whether that's a weight release goal, an exercise goal, improving eating, or all three, A coach is gonna help you decide what is next. So it's, they're gonna be helping you focus your mind in a specific way. They're gonna also help you decide on how much you can bite off, so to speak, meaning how much you can take on without overwhelming yourself. And they're also gonna hold you accountable. And then when, and if you don't follow through, they're not gonna shame you, hopefully, but what they're gonna do is look at what didn't work, or if you don't meet that specific goal, they're gonna look at what didn't work. Again, not to shame you, but to really learn, help you learn and improve.

Rita Black: So now in the shift process, we work on developing what I would call an inner coach. Yes. So it's great to have an outer coach if and if you can afford one or to get your friend to be your coach for you, sometimes people coach each other or, or you have a coach in your life, great. But I really am a big believer in having a coach in your mind, 24 7. And so that's why in our shift weight mastery process, we definitely work on cultivating that inner coach, that one that can help us be successful in the long term. I definitely utilize my inner coach every day, every day of my life, you know, for very, for 27 years. So I'm glad I took the time and energy to develop my inner coach. And I think once you have an inner coach, it really gives you a lot of confidence.

Rita Black: It really helps for you to have that goal setting rational part of your mind rather than the critical and rebellious part of your mind. And I know we've talked about that a lot in this podcast, so I know you're up to speed on this, but definitely choose the coach. You could have somebody in your life, like I said, work with you and coach you and hold you accountable. I had this girl when I was releasing weight. I was had this girl who was training to be a fitness coach, and she helped me a lot, especially with keeping track of things. So one thing she helped me with is I had a really long plateau and I was getting really a little frustrated, although, you know, I wasn't on a diet, I wasn't trying to lose weight super fast, I hit this long plateau.

Rita Black: And so she had me track my food and exercise. And what was interesting is because we kind of treated it as an experiment, she said, you know, just do it as an experiment. Write down your food and exercise, look at how much you're taking in. Because I was convinced I wasn't eating hardly anything, and that I was really exercising a lot, and I tracked and I saw something really fascinating. I saw on the weekend I was overeating and that all that exercise that I thought I was doing wasn't doing enough to release weight with the amount of food that I was eating. I, I ate less during the week, but my mind interestingly was focusing on Monday and Tuesday when I was being very focused and not so much on the weekend when I was a little blosser, eating more, maybe having some cocktails or drinking.

Rita Black: And so that was so enlightening because then all of a sudden it made sense why I plateaued. I got really clear on the tweaks that I had to make in my behavior. So it was really helpful for her to guide me and step in and say, Hey, try this. And then she would look at my stuff with me and, and walk me through it. And it really helped me get strategic. It helped me get specific, and it helped me not kid myself basically on thinking you know, because our brain underestimates the amount, we eat a significant amount, almost half when we struggle with our weight. So it was really helpful for me to get clear. It wasn't like I was dieting, but it was more getting clear and, and being what I like to call an inner scientist, getting the facts and getting really clear with everything.

Rita Black: And that really helped me get clear on the path that I needed to take to release the rest of my weight. So I think a coach also reminds you of your original goal, because sometimes it's easy to give up and we forget why we're on a weight release journey in the first place, especially after we release a certain amount of weight and maybe we get out of the initial pain. A goal a a coach is also there to remind you, Hey, look, it wasn't just about getting outta the pain. It was about you wanted to be super healthy, you wanted to get super fit. I'm, I'm a stand for your original goal and commitment to yourself. I remember writing the book from Fat to Thin thinking, and I got to the middle of it. And as much as I love helping people in this way, I got really down on myself.

Rita Black: I was like, why am I even writing this book? Nobody's gonna read it. Nobody's gonna, I'm gonna get these really bad reviews on Amazon. And I had all these negative, just like all this negative stuff came flowing in. But my husband was my book coach and he was so helpful because he had, he has written so many books and I mean, he's just incredibly a prolific writer. And he said, look, you know, you, you should definitely just remember who are you writing this book for and what is the value you wanna bring? And so he helped me, you know, write a little list of all the, the person I was writing to. He's like, just think of one person you're writing your book to. And it was so helpful for me to get outta my little, me, me, me, you know, and I'm a victim and you know, blah, you know, whatever.

Rita Black: That really just negative head you get in, when you take on a big endeavor, it's really easy to forget and get down on yourself. And how many people give up in the middle of their weight release journey. A lot of people hit a plateau, oh, it's too hard, I don't care. Oh, and you know, I'm gonna love myself for who I'm, which you should, you should love for yourself for who you are right now. But if you have a goal and you wanted to reach and you wanna be healthier, you wanna be fitter, you wanna be stronger, whatever that goal is, it's really wonderful to have somebody at your side reminding you who you are and who you wanna be.

Rita Black: Alright, so now number three, a peer. P-E-E-R-. A peer and a peer or you know, is somebody who is on the same journey as you. How cool is that? Right? Somebody you can complain to exchange ideas with, get insights from, from, you know insights from how they are doing and talk about food ideas, exercise, the ideas. Our membership, our monthly Member Mastery membership group is a great example. People are all on the same journey. And maybe you have a group on Facebook or online. And even within our membership, there are smaller groups of people like Buddy Systems who check in with each other on a weekly basis. They report their progress on Friday. There's some walking groups who, or people who have created walking groups at work who at lunchtime they go out and they walk. I, I'm thinking about Melanie, who's kind of gotten people from work to go walking with her at lunchtime. And so who can be up here with you in your life?

Rita Black: When I was releasing weight, I definitely had some other people who were releasing weight that I would exercise with, and we would talk about what we were doing and what worked and didn't work. And I still have weight peers. I do this with people in my life who I've developed a healthy lifestyle with. Meaning, you know, we've been going and walking and hiking on a on a weekly basis. I have a friend I walk with on hike with on Monday. I have my friend I bike with on Sundays. And we have been doing this for years. And we really do motivate each other about staying healthy. We've gone through a lot of different life experiences together, having children now we're, you know, gonna be empty nesters and you know, we're heading into you know, new Decades together and and different goals and different focuses come into play. And peers are definitely people who can help you give you ideas and walk through this together. Not feeling so alone.

Rita Black: Alright, so number four is having a cheerleader. Somebody who believes in you and knows you can do it. They may not be on the journey with you, but they believe in you and they believe in you deep down. They know where you are going and they can be somebody you celebrate your milestones with. And they can also be somebody who helps pick you up if you've had a bad day or a bad week or a bad month. My husband was this for me on my journey of weight mastery. He loved me for who I was. So he never said, Hey, gotta lose a few pounds. Never, ever. And I loved him that for that so much. But he also knew that my freedom and my peace of mind were so important because I was so unhappy being in the weight struggle.

Rita Black: And he just saw me struggle so much, so often all the time. I was obsessed. And he just said, let me, what, what are we gonna do? Let's, let's, you know. So when I started my journey, he was helping me just the biggest cheerleader, anyone, Hey, you did that. You, you. And it wasn't just about weight release, it was about overcoming obsession with food and binge eating and all those things. You know, he's like, wow, you went to that party and you made healthy choices and you did great. And, and you know, so it was nice to have somebody to be victorious with and to notice. But there were also, he was not perfect. There were times I had to remind him, Hey, don't bring those bagels home. You're my cheerleader, right? So who can you get to be your cheerleader?

Rita Black: Or maybe you already have someone. And again, they could be also the peer. I'm, these roles can overlap, but I'm just kind of focusing you on just like different aspects of support that you want. And sometimes, a lot of times our support system needs reminding, and that's why it's good to have more than one type of support. And it, our inner support team, meaning our inner coach also needs reminding sometimes.

Rita Black: Okay, so last but not least, the friend number five, position. Somebody who knows you and can hear you and moan. Yeah, it's tough, it's hard, but you're gonna keep going, right? You know, they listen to you without judgment. Sometimes my friends, like my best friend Susan, never struggled with her weight, but she knew me so well and she knew the pain of when I went through with the yo-yo dieting, and she was definitely there for me.

Rita Black: And she could be a shoulder I could cry on and an empathetic and not non-judgmental ear to listen to me, because sometimes it really just helped to talk about all the secret stuff and get it out. And that was stuff I didn't wanna talk to my husband about. He was my cheerleader. But you know, she was somebody I could just tell it all to. I remember telling her that I was bulimic and about my bulimia, I wasn't my weight struggle spanned many years. So there were a few years there that I was bulimic and I was taking laxatives and I was throwing up, and it was such a secret, and I was so ashamed about it, and I didn't tell anyone. It was, it was, and then when I started my journey, I had worked through my bulimia, but I still had never told anybody about it.

Rita Black: And I just, I just told her, yeah, this is what, and we were even roommates when this was going on, and she was like, wow, I never knew. Gosh, I love you. You know, I'm so sorry you had to go through all that. And it was just so freeing to have somebody who you could be naked with just bear your soul and tell all your, like diet and shameful what you consider shameful secrets to binging for days, hiding food, eating out of the trash can, all that stuff too. And they just sit there and love you and say, wow, and I still love you. And that is such a powerful experience. So having somebody like that in your life is definitely wonderful as well.

Rita Black: Okay, so I hope that has been helpful. I'm gonna review these all now, just so you get it. If you wanna write 'em down, go for it. One, a mentor people who's gonna be your guide to a coach, somebody who's gonna get you specifics, set really specific goals and help you stay accountable. A peer, somebody who's in it with you, who's doing on the same journey, a cheerleader, somebody who's gonna jump up and down and be supportive of you even when you're down and a friend, someone who can just be there, who can stand by you, know who you are and love you for you, who you are today, and is also supportive of the you you are becoming. So if you don't have anyone yet, that is okay. We have opened up a little room in your subconscious mind for those people now to come in. And I hope I'm one of those first people as one of your mentors, I would be honored.

Rita Black: And don't forget to let me support you by signing up for my free masterclass called How to Stop the Start Over Weight Struggle Cycle and Begin Releasing Weight for Good. The links are in the show notes. I look forward to seeing you there. And remember 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 see you here, same time, same place next week.

Rita Black: Thanks for listening to The Thin Thinking Podcast. Did that episode go by way too fast for you? If so, and 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 Fact 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.