Rita Black: Maintaining your ideal weight can be challenging whether you've released 10 pounds or 40 pounds. But in today's episode, we will hear from shift community member Kelly Simmons, who has been maintaining her ideal weight, having released well over 100 pounds. And you probably think, what is she eating? How is she exercising? But the key to Kelly's success has been in some major shifts that she's made in her mindset. In my interview with Kelly, we are going to explore her weight release story, but for our mindset of maintenance series, we are primarily going to look at what is the mindset that she used to keep the weight off and is continuing to use. So, grab your winter coat because we are heading to Alaska, 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: Welcome everybody. Come on in. Hello. Hello, hello. We are counting down to the beginning of the holiday season, just a couple of weeks away from Turkey Day for those of us in the United States. And how are you doing? How are you doing here? In the middle of the month of November? I hope you're well. I am so excited because this year we are not having Thanksgiving at my house. So that means I only have to cook one thing, yippee. And I probably won't even cook. I will make a salad. Well, I'll kind of cook because I've been thinking about my salad. 'cause I love to cook, so I love to think of things around those things. And I was thinking, I'm gonna make a winter salad. Have you ever made a winter salad? I got inspired from a magazine article. You know, again, I read some cooking magazines that aren't the most healthy or shifty weight magazines.

Rita Black: But I'll get inspiration from them because I always find it as a challenge as a cook to swap something from heavy and fattening into something light and stabilizing. So that's one of my little fun challenges I make for myself. Maybe you do that too, and if you don't, try it on. It's super fun and you can do it often just by reducing the fat maybe by swapping out ingredients. But, so the article I looked at was for a winter salad that had like candied nuts and lots of dressing and sugary cranberry you know, dried cranberries. So I was inspired to swap it out and shift it up. We call it, you know, shifting the, making it healthier. And what I like about winter salads, if you have never made one before, is they often have roasted or cooked things in them.

Rita Black: So you'll have a bed of greens of some sort, but then there'll be roasted onions or Brussels sprouts or pumpkin. And so this particular recipe had butternut squash some nuts, but, but like I said, a little sugary nuts. And and sometimes these recipes will have a sort of surprise tart or sweet flavor added on. Like for I, you know, like to call it a zing or zest or sizzle is another word that I like to use for these things. So my salad is gonna have kale and romaine as a sturdy base, just so the, you know, the, the winter part, the warm vegetables won't wilt it. And then I'm gonna add roasted butternut squash that is not piping hot, but that has, you know, cooled down and, and is warm. And Brussels sprouts that also have been roasted. And my little flavor sizzle instead of the candied pomegranates, I mean, sorry, candied cranberry are gonna be pomegranate seeds from my pomegranate tree that I I bought a pomegranate tree twig, I should say, when we moved into our house in 1994 and I bought it for maybe $7.

Rita Black: And now it's this big huge pomegranate tree that bears me lots and lots of pomegranates, which I love. There are some years we haven't gotten a lot of them, but usually we have a fair amount of pomegranates. So I've had to be very creative with pomegranates and I give a lot of pomegranates away to my friends. And then on top of pomegranates, I'm gonna also add some roasted pepitas, which are pumpkin seeds, for those of you who dunno what pepitas are. And then some sort of lemony dressing with mint and parsley in it. Gosh, I go, I just wanna go make that now.

Rita Black: So I love holiday cooking, but now that I'm living my life down the scale, 40 pounds for, you know, a zillion years like I said, holiday cooking is more about challenging myself to find the lighter holiday fair. And so I challenge you to, you know, create as we go into the holidays, don't be like, it's either chicken and broccoli or all the fun holiday food, but how can I make that holiday food healthier for me? That is always a great challenge to have. And if you're already doing that, awesome. Good for you.

Rita Black: Okay, so speaking of lighter, I interviewed the shift community's very own Kelly Simmons about her weight maintenance for our fall or autumn mindset of weight maintenance series. And I can't wait to share this with you but here is some coaching. Don't listen to what she is saying, but listen to who she's being. That is the key to mastery. Who you are being becomes the key to long-term success. So really listen, allow your subconscious mind just to get trained in the way of beingness around mastery and maintenance. And if you want to learn more about shifting your mindset, you can always join my free masterclass. The link is in the show notes. We do a light hypnosis session for weight release. We really get into how to shift your mindset for long term success, not just for success, but long term success. Now onto Kelly, let's download some of her wisdom here today.

Rita Black: Welcome back to the Thin Thinking episode. Kelly, it's really great to have you here.

Kelly Simmons: Thank you. It's good to be here.

Rita Black: Yeah. So you're just getting through the summer in Alaska. You were telling me before we hit record that it's now raining, getting a little cold. But I know I'm so proud of you having released an overall 140 pounds and 67 with a shift, but we wanna talk to you about maintenance today. But, before we do, for somebody who has never heard your story before, I just would love for you to just kind of give us the Reader's Digest version of your story so that they can, you know, kind of know the background and know how you got to being here today in maintenance for six months.

Kelly Simmons: So I think I've always felt like I've all been overweight. So I've tried it all. I've done the liquid diets, the starvation diets, the anything, anything. It was offered. I tried it. And about 10 years ago I started doing clean eating, but I finally even clean eating. I hit a plateau I couldn't lose anymore. And I, you know, same old, you know, something's broken with me, why can't I make it work? And I told a friend that it's gotta be in my mind, it's all I've gotta be the reason. And so I started doing some research and I found shift and that everything clicked. You know, it's been a long journey. It's been over 40 some years since I've been at this weight, but this last year and a half with shift has been great. And it finally, with that last piece of the puzzle of the last 10 years that I've been clean eating and trying to get the last of the weight off, it just, it worked.

Rita Black: Yeah. Well, I mean, you worked, your mind worked and you created a very powerful place to be you know, as, because it was, I know you released weight in chunks, like, you know, 140 pounds. If you think about that, that's an entire other human being that you've released, you know, like and and it's been a powerful journey. 'cause I know you said even before shift, you made a conscious decision to change and change your diet and change how you know, you saw yourself in. So as you were getting towards, you know, this place you are now, were you afraid, like what kind of feelings have been coming up, you know, like came up where you, as you were getting to this place where you knew you were like going to be settling in to more a maintenance mode, more than a roll's mode.

Kelly Simmons: So, you know, I always told everybody, I I know how to lose weight. I don't know how to keep it off.

Rita Black: Right.

Kelly Simmons: And so that same old adage of, okay, am I gonna be able to do this? Am I gonna be able to keep it off? And what I've learned is I, I never believed in myself. People never believed in me. So even so, when I'm starting to struggle, they're there to, okay, it's okay. You can lose it again. And I, and I got tired of that. I wanted to feel good about myself all the time. And so this time with the shift, I learned to believe in myself to have that confidence of, oh, you know what, I'm in control of me. Not these fad diets, not these quick fix. If, you know, and if in maintenance, if I decided to, oh, you know what, you got into a little bit of cookies or whatever, it's okay. You know what to do, use your tools and get back to where you need to be. And I don't have that fear of gaining anymore.

Rita Black: That's so great.

Kelly Simmons: I know even if that scale changes, it's gonna come back down because I have it, I can do it.

Rita Black: Right. And what I'm hearing is, and I've heard this too with some of the other shifters I've interviewed, is there is, there's this distinct difference between good and bad. And then like, in what you're learning is, or you've learned are these skills and these tools and the answers in you. So it's not, you're not being good, you're not being bad when you eat the cookies, you're making a choice, and then you have the tools to get back on track and keep going. That's huge. And I think a lot of people, I've been talking about living in the gray, like, you know, the black and the white, and then there's the gray. And, and what you're talking about is really the gray, you know, the really managing yourself and managing your feelings. What do you think has been the most helpful mindset tool that has helped you with regards to that? You know, has it has it been positive affirmations? Has it been hypnosis? Has it been thinking your day through ahead of time? Like, what are some of the mind tools that you've been using that have been helpful for you?

Kelly Simmons: I, I do, I don't do a lot of, well, I do internally, I guess the, the inner coach is my best, is my best friend. We, you know, you don't even realize how much you're conversing with your inner coach. And I do it a lot. We shift midweek, we shift midday. It's okay, we're gonna fix this. We know how one of the tools that I remember you saying is, you know, our brain doesn't know no. So if you say, no, I'm not gonna have a cookie, you want the cookies. So my thing is, I learned, never say never. How can I make this work with what I'm doing? So if I want a cookie, either I can make it healthier or I can choose to have that cookie. And then I've gotta re-shift my day or my week or say, okay, you know what, it's okay, we're gonna just deal with what we got and the next day we'll figure out, we'll eat more vegetables or something. So but just knowing that we've got all those tools, the mindsets, the hypnosis definitely helped me. My favorite one was patience and persistence. when the weight wasn't coming off. Have patience. Have persistence. You're doing the right thing. You know, just knowing all the tools. I mean, I used all, you know, internally you use them all, but the inner coach and, you know, in the scale, the scale, you know, I used to be afraid of it and hated it. And now I use it as a data, you know, what did you do yesterday? Well, what's the scale? Say, okay, let's shift and let's figure out what we need to do today.

Rita Black: I love how you're using all of those skills, which are, you know, they seem like diet things, but they're, they're really all using your brain in a different way. As you've gone down the scale, you know, significantly, what do you think was your biggest challenge along the way, or your biggest challenge? Like, it sounds like your, you know, maintenance for you has been fairly easy, but would you say that there have been challenges? And what have you done to overcome those challenges?

Kelly Simmons: So, yeah. Challenges, the first one was accepting the changes and seeing them. I remember my first 20 pounds, I freaked out. It was like, I, I didn't know what to do with it. Now when I've got the weight off, if I look down and I start hating what I see, looking down my body, I'll go to a mirror and then look at it and start saying, oh, but look at, look at, you've got, you know, you are looking at it in one section. You've gotta look at your whole overall body and everything is looking good. Everything's working well together. My biggest issue that I had recently is I'm getting, like I said, I'm getting ready to go see my folks for vacation. I haven't seen 'em in a while. And my inner critic finally found a voice, and it was my dad.

Rita Black: Oh.

Kelly Simmons: And I learned how to hide food and eat secretly, because when you're heavy, you don't want people to see you eating. And one of his biggest things was, you're eating again. Even I hadn't eaten all day, You're eating again. And I knew that that was coming or will be coming. So I've been working with my inner coach internally. How am I going to broach this subject with my dad and explain to him that I eat differently. Now I know how many calories I have a day. I spread 'em out. Or I'll eat a lot of vegetables so that I can get that bulk and not snack. So I've gotta learn, teach him that it's okay for me to eat, to maintain this weight the way it is. And so I've been internalizing that and figuring out how I'm gonna make it work.

Rita Black: Oh good. And that sounds great.

Kelly Simmons: Yeah. And then the other day my husband came up to me, I was eating a salad. He goes, you're eating again. And had to step back. I waited a couple days and then I had to have a talk with him and explain to him, that is a trigger word for me. Really big 'cause I'd wanna go eat. And I said, you know, can you rephrase that? So I'm teaching him how to rephrase it so that I'm not getting triggered in wanting to overeat.

Rita Black: I love that. That's really powerful of you. That's really great. I love how you waited a couple of days. Yeah. I think that's important. With your dad, it sounds like you can't really teach an old dog new tricks that you might just need to kind of laugh it off or, you know, let him have a say and then just take a break and go and go into your bedroom and breathe and connect with yourself and remind yourself. I'm whole, I'm here. So, so that's interesting that, that it sounds like a lot of your taking ownership of where you are right now is, you know, you've got a really strong foundation within you, but now it's like teaching other people that you're good. I mean, not being good, but that I've got this don't, you don't have to worry. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? The dad thing. You know, partially my guess is it comes from fear from him on some side of it. Like fear that, you know, and, and very old fear. I mean, come on, you're, you know, grown woman. You've been out in the world, you're successful, you have a, you know, you have a good life and you know, you've released so much weight. They, do they not comment on your weight release?

Kelly Simmons: They do a little bit. The first time I told 'em I lost like 140 pounds, his first comment was, how much more are you gonna lose?

Rita Black: Oh.

Kelly Simmons: Yeah. Yeah. They don't have that concept. I did take I did go out and do a photo shoot at JC Penney's with my husband, and I sent them pictures so that they could actually see it, you know, when you live so far away and they don't see you, they don't really understand.

Rita Black: Right, right, right.

Kelly Simmons: The numbers. So...

Rita Black: Did they say anything about the photos or, or?

Kelly Simmons: I, I, not, not a lot. Mom, mom told me that I was beautiful and gorgeous, and so, yeah.

Rita Black: That's cool. That's nice. Yeah. Parents are hard. It's, it's hard sometimes because they hold you in a certain place in their mind. It doesn't change a lot. No. and you know, as a kid you just want so desperately for their approval, but they, they're, I mean, I How old is your father?

Kelly Simmons: They're mid seventies.

Rita Black: Okay. So he's not in, he is not super old at all. But, but just he, you know, he is not gonna change, but you can change your relationship to the way he communicates with you, and that's what you're doing before you even go. Which is very, very smart, I hope. I hope you have a good time just breathing through it. And, and do you have an escape route when you go to Florida? Like to, like, if you're feeling a little pent in the house, like you can get out and go for a walk?

Kelly Simmons: Oh yeah, mom, my mom walks the dogs, but we're, my husband and I already planned. We're gonna go paddle boarding, we're gonna do zip lining. I actually thought about, I might take my dad and see if he wants to go fishing. Oh, cool. And then I wanna go, remember I told you I wanted to ride a horse. Well, I haven't done that yet. Yes. So I'm gonna see if I can find a, a farm where I can maybe at least go touch a horse or go visit. And so I got some plans, I got things that we can get out and do, and I'm not gonna sit in the house and just twiddle my thumbs.

Rita Black: If you had to give advice to anybody who is like getting near their maintenance spot, their sweet spot, but there doesn't sound like you are afraid of it. A lot of people have fear that, you know, some fear that they're not gonna be able to keep it off. And there's that disappointment in, in themselves. 'cause I think it's almost a -P-T-S-D sort of thing, like losing weight and then gaining it back. It's so painful. You know, what advice would you have for them? You know, it's what, you know, given your experience, like what advice would you have for them as they're approaching their maintenance weight?

Kelly Simmons: So my, my biggest fear when I got towards mine was, you know, having to increase calories. That scared me the most because I, I redid my numbers and it's like, no, I can't eat that much food. So I still have my goal of calories, about 12, 50, 1300 calories when I exercise. I know I can add a couple extra different foods in there without changing the scale. So yeah, knowing your numbers, knowing your comfort. But don't be afraid to eat. You gotta eat. Know that there, you know, if the scale's going up, you're, you're avoiding something. You're not counting your calories, you're not being true to yourself of what you're eating. But you have to continue believing in yourself.

Rita Black: Yeah. That's so important. Very good thought. So how did it feel when you added a few more calories? Did it, it, so were you like, is it gonna, am I gonna gain weight? Am I, you know, like all of that went through your mind?

Kelly Simmons: I did. I first did, because I think it said that I could eat up to 1700 calories. I'm not comfortable with that. 1300 is still losing for me. But in the evening, if I feel like having a piece of dark chocolate, I know I have that buffer. Yeah. I don't overeat and, and hit my hard number, you know, my high number. I try and keep it low. And then I, if I do have that hunger or have that day where I want to eat more, I know I still have that window. And I am still, even though I've hit my goal weight, I still wanna lose a few more, shifting down a little bit, see if I can hit a, oh my gosh, you look too skinny. I haven't hit that spot yet.

Kelly Simmons: But I am, I just slowly, just slowly shift, you know? I'm okay if the scale goes up a couple pounds because I know I can bring it back down. And, and just learning to work with that little bit of a range, I think I've got like a three or four pound range and just, just give yourself some cushion. You know, give yourself the kudos that you're there and learn how to maintain, learn how you want to eat. But not just going back to your old way eating. You. You, you can't, you know, you're gonna

Rita Black: Do you feel like, oh, I'm sorry to interrupt. Do, do you feel like you kind of have an intuitive sense of now of how much is enough for you? Like, it sounds like you're kind of, even though you're collecting data, you're tracking, you know, your numbers, there's also an internal sense of like, yeah, I've kind of hit my numbers. I know where I am. Even if you weren't tracking.

Kelly Simmons: Yeah. May that mindful, mindful eating. Be aware of your you know, your hunger levels. There are some days that I don't weigh everything.there are meats, condiments, cheeses, things that are high dense calories. I still weigh because I give myself a certain amount. Like a piece of cheese. I have like eight grams between eight grams in maybe 15 grams at a meal. I know what those calories are and I know, you know, where I can add them, where I can't. And then if the next day the scale went up, it's like, oh, you probably add a little bit too much of that high dense food, but, you know, you don't have to weigh every day when you're in maintenance. But just those, you know, like my eyeopener on portion control was mayonnaise, you know, the, I use a really, I use an avocado mayo, but you just normally scoop it out, right?

Kelly Simmons: I didn't realize what a hundred calories are. And you just learn how to chisel that down and figure out where your number is so that you can still have that flavor without having too many calories. And then, so yeah, and just watching your, your portion control. And so, no, I am not afraid to eat anymore. But I add a lot of vegetables if I really am hungry and I want to eat and eat and I will load whatever I'm eating with veggies.

Rita Black: Yeah. Well that's so smart and healthy as well. So not a problem there. Are you, what would say has been your funnest moment hitting your ideal weight and or, you know, and maintaining, like what's in all of this? Was it the photo shoot at JC Penney or was there some other highlight?

Kelly Simmons: Seeing people, I used to work at a chiropractic office and I changed jobs, but seeing people that I saw every once a week, and now I'm seeing 'em, they don't know who I am. I cut, I cut like nine inches off my hair and lost.

Rita Black: I know you do look a lot different than you did prior to this, so do you go up to them and say hello or say, Hey,

Kelly Simmons: Do you remember me ? And, and it shock people and then I can, and then, then I get in a conversation and I try and direct 'em to what I did. Uhhuh not how many people are ready to shift, but Yeah,

Rita Black: Yeah, yeah.

Kelly Simmons: Let them know. And that's one.

Rita Black: But I love that they, you get that acknowledgement, like that you see their shocked face and

Kelly Simmons: Yeah.

Rita Black: So such a metamorphosis.

Kelly Simmons: It is. And then that is, is is amazing. But my happiest thing is just that I feel so good and I am so active and

Rita Black: Yes, you have transformed your life because I mean, you, you and your husband go out kayaking and you go hiking and you do, what's that thing? The sledding in the -

Kelly Simmons: I do my kick sledding in the winter

Rita Black: Kick sled. Yeah. love that. And I mean, you've just been, you have in, it sounds like your whole vacation that you're about to take is all active.

Kelly Simmons: Yes.

Rita Black: Yeah. So, cool. That's so great. Well, I'm very proud of you, Kelly. And thank you for taking your time today to come on and share your, you know, journey. And we'll look forward to asking you more questions a little further down the road, but I hope you have a great holiday as well. But thank you for taking your time today.

Kelly Simmons: You're welcome. Thank you.

Rita Black: Wow. Thank you so much, Kelly. Wasn't that inspiring? And I hope you got lots of juicy tidbits from her now. And I wanna thank you just for being here and keeping showing up every week and being part of our vibrant and thinking community. And if you haven't come to my masterclass yet, please do. The holiday season is a great time to get your mindset in the right place. Because here's the thing, and I'm gonna be talking about it more as we go through the holidays. We could make the decision to like, oh, it's too busy. It's the holidays and there's so much fun food around. But think about as you are eating all that holiday food, how's that making you feel? Often we disconnect from ourselves when we're overeating during the holidays, over drinking and overeating, and then we don't really get the holidays.

Rita Black: You know, the holidays at the heart of it is about connecting to yourself, connecting to those you love, being grateful for all you have cherishing special moments. And if we give up on on being healthy and taking care of our bodies and, and giving up on exercising and moving, that is gonna take away from your holidays rather than adding to it. And, and I'm not asking you to believe me, I'm asking you to go back to past holidays and think about it. How did you feel during the holiday season? You know, you're sitting there maybe with your friends and family, but you're having an inner dialogue like, why did I do that? Why did I overeat? You know, beating yourself up while you're in the midst of a magical Christmas or Hanukkah or holiday time. So I, I'm speaking to the part of you that really wants to head into the new year and not like trying to start over and lose the weight that you gained during the holiday season, but the part of you who wants to be healthy through the season, connected to yourself, feeling like, feeling vibrant, feeling like you're ready and able to be present and mindful and really enjoy the holiday season this year in a different way.

Rita Black: A way where you are showing up for yourself and therefore being able to show up to the magic of the season. Okay. Just food for thought. Now again, so the masterclass link is in the show notes. If you wanna go sign up. It's easy. You can do it from your phone, your, your tablet, your desktop. We make it easy for you. Alright, so have a great week. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the doors of the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it. I will look forward to seeing you here, same time, same place next week.

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. 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.