Rita Black: A long term weight loss journey is really created from a place of self-love and self respect, but too often, the decision to lose weight comes from a place of self-loathing, rather than self-loving. Please join me to shift your perspective and gain some mental shifts on how to set yourself up for loving yourself and not loathing yourself down the scale.

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

Rita Black: Hello, everyone and happy almost Valentine's day for those of you listening to this session when it drops. But hopefully if you find this episode at later, the universe is bringing you lots of inner and outer love wherever you may be, whenever it may be. So in January, I offered a free new video series called the "3 Mental Shifts to End the Weight Struggle Once and for All" and I only made it available for five days. But I've gotten numerous requests from you all to bring it back and to offer it to people who miss the deadline. So I am, out of the love of Valentine's day and the love of you and self-love, I am making it available to the, for the next two weeks. So please go and sign up, that link is in the show notes. And I'm really proud of it. I, you know, I, when I was making it, I was just like, I wanted to really dive into those what I really feel are the main mental, like what really just gets in the way. And really honestly, these things can be shifted quite easily once you, you know, got, are, recognize them and start to get your mind wrapped around them. So there's some hypnosis in the series and there's some meditation, so go sign up and enjoy.

Rita Black: Now I am dedicating this particular episode to a really lovely, lovely human being in my monthly mastery group and her name is Judith. So Judith, if you're listening, this is for you. Judith is so amazing. She recently became a non-smoker, through my online hypnosis program called Smokefree123. That's how she came to me. And, she is such a ray of sunshine and is just so positive, so positive with other people. She went through this shift weight mastery online process, and she's in the monthly group and we have this like Facebook, you know, membership community thing. And, she's just in there sharing the most lovely things with everybody every day and such great thoughts and images. And what I really respect is that she is just making her life better. She is just, you know, one of these human beings who just finally said, you know, what enough of it, I am going to make my life better. I'm, that's my project. And she's going for it a hundred percent. Now, is it going all smoothly? No. But we're all human and it doesn't always go smoothly, but I love the energy she is putting into it. And, and she is so supportive of everybody in our group. It's a great community.

Rita Black: But you know, a lot of us, like Judith, can be really hard on ourselves. So as much positive energy she puts out, you know, I can tell she's hard on herself. And I asked my membership. I said, you, I said, Hey guys, I'm doing some more podcasts. What do you wanna hear? So I, I got smart and I asked the, you know, everybody in the group and Judith said, I wanna have one for loving yourself down the scale. So I did this session. It was, awhile ago. It was almost almost a year ago, over a year ago. No, almost a year ago. That was called loving yourself down the scale. And I don't think Judith had heard it cause she wasn't listening to my podcast yet at that time. And maybe you haven't heard it or listened to it. And if you did, and it was, you know, almost a year ago, I invite you to listen to it again because, you know, I, I don't know about you, but I do listen to songs again. I only, I don't listen to just songs once I listen, I play things over and over again and I have listened to podcasts over again. You know, if I found the information was worthy or later I'll go back and go, ah, I did not hear that the first time. So I'm inviting you and the, the, in the spirit of self-love to dive in, if you listened to it last year, I think it was like episode number five. But to listen to it again here, and Judith, this one is for you.

Rita Black: So as I've been thinking about this week's episode and thinking about all of my students that I've had over the years, one student really sticks out the most to me. You know how you go to think about something and then that one person just kind of lingers in your mind? Well, the person that lingers in my mind when it comes to loving yourself down the scale is my old student named Monica. And she was in my shift process a few years ago and very much a successful woman, you know. Very highly regarded in her community. Beautiful. She has her own successful business, a super loving, amazing husband, highly functioning kids. This woman had it all. But Monica was so unhappy with herself and her weight very, very much so. She told me that she had spent tens of thousands of dollars on weight loss plans, spas, fat camps, you name it just everything. And she could lose the weight. She was an expert at losing weight. She said that was never, ever the issue. She said to me, I have the willpower in the short term. If you told me, eat dog food and drink this yucky drink, you know, for six weeks I would do it if you convinced me that it would help me lose weight. I would do anything not to feel fat and feel like a pathetic beach whale. But then once the diet was over, all my weight would come back almost immediately, Rita. It's like the second that scale hits that magic number, I head for the fridge and it's embarrassing because I'm a very public person. And my whole community has seen me go up and down between size four and size 14 over all the years I've been in my community. I am such a failure at this and it really makes me depressed. It makes me wanna hide. And I really think I'm hopeless. Even though I have this great life on the outside, I spend most of my waking hours beating myself up about my weight and hating myself for being so weak.

Rita Black: So Monica had to learn to start from the same point that I'm going to walk you through today, starting from a point of self-belief, self-respect, and self trust. Even when she felt overweight rather than self-hate, distrust and disrespect. Why? Because unless we start from a place of self-belief, self-respect, and self-empathy, you will always be chasing your own tail when it comes to weight. Here is that fat thinking, dieting illusion given to us by our culture and the dieting industry, go on a diet, get thin, and then you will have been a very good girl or a very good boy. You will have attained your weight and you will finally, finally be able to give yourself permission to love yourself. After all. you will have earned it.

Rita Black: It sounds so crazy, but isn't this what we believe? When we are struggling with our weight, we do not let ourselves love ourselves. We are overweight. That is not lovable. We are out of control - disdain. Obviously, we cannot be trusted. We are lazy. We're good for nothing and completely and totally hopeless. Who would love us? Honestly? This is a painful place to be, but usually it is where we are at when we struggle with weight and believe me, we just wanna escape the pain of self-hate by pulling it together and focusing on getting the weight off as quickly as possible, even if it means eating the dog food diet that Monica was joking about. So the short term solution and we are thrown to is to pull it together because the moment that we are on a diet or a plan or a regime, all of a sudden we feel in control. We feel good. See I'm not so bad. As long as I'm behaving and getting this weight off. And then I will really love myself. The self-love will flow naturally somewhere over that weight loss rainbow.

Rita Black: But what is the problem with this? The illusion is that when we lose the weight, we will love ourselves. But now we won't. The same monsters still exist in our head once we reach our skinny weight. And what will happen, we will get to our skinny weight and realize, huh, life hasn't really changed that much. And we'll get discouraged and eat, or think that we have to keep going and keep releasing weight because we don't love ourselves yet. And five more pounds. Yeah. Then I'll love myself. Or we still hate our body and getting thin didn't make our legs any longer or our belly any flatter. Or we make getting thin mean that we will finally give ourselves the permission to do everything that we've always dreamed and have put off until we lose the weight. Maybe we'll find the job we love or allow ourselves to date. And so if we don't love ourselves or trust ourselves, the closer we get to our ideal weight, well, the fear of actually having to take action on our dreams scares the living crap out of us and we self sabotage. Or if we lose the weight sometimes a smaller us means we feel more vulnerable because the weight was a buffer and in a way, it gave us power - the power to keep people away, and the power to not be seen, and the power to not be held accountable.

Rita Black: If we start from a place of hating ourselves, when we start releasing weight, subconsciously, we are still harboring self-hate feelings about ourselves underneath the gloss of the dieting success. And the laser focus on the diet and being good on it is not training our brain to really learn how to really feed ourselves in a way that is sustainable and doable for when we get to our ideal weight. It isn't retraining us to problem solve when those challenge, challenges pose them themselves or we go through a stressful time. We are just focusing on getting the weight off so that we can accept ourselves.

Rita Black: I have so many students in my shift weight mastery process, like Monica, who have spent tens of thousands of dollars who have had liposuction and surgery, have done very drastic things or taken products that aren't regulated. And they got to the right weight. But subconsciously because they still didn't trust themselves, they still didn't love themselves, they were disappointed that their ideal weight didn't change that, that their lives didn't magically change. In fact, they were very much the same. And because they hadn't learned to feed themselves in a sustainable way that they loved, that allowed them to live their life at this new weight, they began gaining it back and all the distrust and lack of self-respect came flooding back from that subconscious. Things quickly returned to the same old, frustrating place. I know this myself from it happening to me, hundreds of times, over the two decades of struggling up and down the scale of 40 pounds. This is a horrible feeling and it is a hauntingly familiar place.

Rita Black: So now I wanna walk through some ways that we can begin to turn this around. Some thin thinking ways that we can start our journey of weight mastery from a play of self-love. So the number UNO, UNO, Numero UNO thing that I will like you to do. And I will ask you to do, and I have all my students do. So this is something everybody does, is I'm gonna ask you to forgive yourself. Why? Because when we struggle with our weight, we have a lot of self resentment. We resent ourselves because of our health issues that come from weight. We resent ourselves because of the emotional issues. We resent ourselves because we feel like we are out of control, but we need to have self empathy. And again, for those of you who have been listening to this podcast, no, what I'm probably gonna say is, no, this is not a California woo woo thing. But this actually has been proven by science, that self empathy connects you to yourself and allows you, your brain to work more effectively with you. It gives you more consistency. It gives you more focus because you aren't so distracted. So I'm gonna ask you to forgive yourself, for many reasons, but because you deserve to. You deserve to be, you're on your own team and you really, really need to.

Rita Black: This isn't you duking it out with yourself and controlling yourself and beating yourself down into submission and being good. This is, I trust you. We are smart. We can figure this out. And we are going on this journey for the last time. And this journey is a journey of self realization of self love. And we are going to figure this out. You gotta be on your own team. So let's start by just saying, taking a nice deep breath in, closing your eyes and just saying, I forgive myself. Go ahead. Just, just say it just for the hell of it. Just say it and take a deep breath and let it in and let that ice around your heart, in the area of weight management. Begin to melt a little and love yourself.

Rita Black: Now, number two: start forgiving your body and start owning it, where it is right now. Oh yeah. That's a hard one right? But you know, know if you, we don't love our body and own it. Look, your body has gotten you to where you are in life now. And it has given you many things, many experiences. Our body is the vessel with which in, we re we, we live our lives. It's an awesome thing. No matter what shape it is, no matter what clothes it fits it in to, our body is amazing. And we need to forgive it. We can start by forgiving it because we also, not only do we resent ourselves, we resent our bodies. We resent them, I know. When I struggle with my weight, I resented every aspect of my body, but especially my butt and my thighs. Did they disgust me?

Rita Black: Now, here's the thing and the irony of it all is that when we release weight, you know, when we release weight, our body shape pretty much remains the same. You know, like I was always shocked and horrified because my sister is gorgeous. You know, I, I was the dark haired, lumpy one, I mean, we're both tall ladies. But my sister had long legs. She looked like a model. You know, she was blonde blue-eyed. Perfect, beautiful figure. Perfect silhouette. And, and I was the lumpy one, the pear shaped one, with short stubby legs. Even though I was tall, I had stubby legs. Somehow that worked out and I always believed, I always believed, I don't know how, where this came from, but again, dieting culture. I looked at magazines. I thought, well, when I lose weight, my legs are gonna grow long and they are gonna still, you know, they're gonna be these long live things like my sister's. No! When I released my weight, I, my body shape was pretty much the same, except my legs were leaner, my butt was slimmer, but I was still the same shape. Now, when I worked out that alters your shape a bit, but your body shape is your body shape. So start loving it. You know, my arms are shaped the way that they're always going to be shaped.

Rita Black: And you know, when I started owning my thighs and my butt, my life changed. You know, it started to be proud of how I, and it's a whole other podcast, but we're gonna talk, talk about really taking ownership of our body, but just for the moment, forgive your body and say, okay, body, we are going on a beautiful journey together. And I'm loving you right now, unconditionally where we're at, and I'm gonna continue to love and take care of you because you got to take care of your body as you're loving yourself down the scale. Think of all those times that we ate the horrible foods or maybe took those drugs that might have hurt our body in the name of the scale being down, but really not thinking it through and really harming ourselves on the way. We wanna show our beautiful body, love and self care, and really nourish our bodies. Love our bodies, worship our bodies down the scale, no matter where they're at. And you know what, it's so great that nowadays there's so many great role models of women and men out there doing that saying my body is powerful, no matter what its shaped, no matter what I, I love where the world is going with that, it still has ways to go. But you know, when I was growing up in the seventies, eighties, you know, and into the early nineties, it was, you know, it was a lot different than it is now. My daughter, who is 19, just turned 19, she and her friends had a completely different viewpoint in high school about their bodies than me and my friends in high school. So, and I was so glad that was true. Listen, girls still freak out about their bodies, and I'm not saying that all of that girl stuff, isn't still there. It is unfortunately, but there are a lot of leaders and there is a lot more conversation about this that's powerful and I'm really, really excited and happy that the conversation is turning. But we for ourselves need to just take ownership and begin a different conversation with ourselves. And that's what I hope that, that you begin to do.

Rita Black: Okay. And now I'm want you to think of this, this, this journey that you're going on as a journey. It's, it's, it's a lifelong journey that you are traveling on rather than a diet, which is a very short term thinking modality. A journey is a hero's journey. And you know, in again, I, I work in Hollywood, I know a lot of screenwriters and, you know, you think of a Hollywood film, a hero's journey in Hollywood scripts are based on the hero's journey. And, you know, the hero, decides to usually in a Hollywood movie, any Hollywood movie, the protagonist is going to within the first 30 minutes, decide to go on whatever adventure, whatever that movie is about. And then immediately the hero is thrown obstacles and that's what makes up the story is all the different obstacles the hero has to overcome. And within that journey, the hero is growing, learning, becoming a more expanded individual, stronger, stronger minded. And, you know, usually towards the climax of the story, the, the hero, you know, has to really confront the biggest fears, the biggest obstacles. But by that time, the hero has become so strong from all the other obstacles that they've overcome, that they are able to slay the dragon or to, you know, jump over the shark tank or whatever the thing is. And, and when, and, and, and come through that, that journey of transformation, and this is a journey of transformation that you are on. There will be obstacles that you have to overcome, but each obstacle will build and build you as a person. And I want you to see that you are a hero on your own journey and it's such journey of self-realization and transformation. So act like it, and not like you're all ashamed and on some diet that you're super focused on. And, you know, you'll love yourself when you lose 10 pounds, something more. And, and you know, now we see people who are on these transformational journeys, and it's really exciting to see people who have, have started something that's a little different, and a lot more effective in the long term.

Rita Black: Now I also am gonna ask you to do another thing, which is to start to communicate with yourself more powerfully. The way I like to introduce this to people is to start seeing that you have an inner coach within you. We know you have an inner critic. We know you have an inner rebel. They have been doing just fine with you, right? They have been beating you up and then seducing you to go eat food. They, they know their jobs really well. They're very loud voices within your head. I know because they were super loud within mine. They still exist. Mine still exists, believe me, but I've turned down the volume on them quite a bit because I have another voice in my head, which is the voice of my inner coach. And believe me, it's okay to have lots of voices in your head. It's perfectly normal. So, you know, enjoy. But that inner coach in you is the part of you that is wise nurturing, motivational, inspirational, and you wanna start to communicate with yourself in this way. Hey, I know we can figure this out. Hey, stupider people than me have figured this out, you know. Like talking to yourself like, Hey, you know, your, your own best friend, put your arm around yourself. Hey kid, I got it. Were gonna go on this and we're gonna make this happen. And you know, when I, when, you know, 25 years ago, when I sort of made my shift at my turning point, you know, I sat down with myself and I said, Hey, you know, we can do this.

Rita Black: You know, there's another way. And, and you wanna be your own best friend. You wanna be on your own team. And you start to think of that, you know, and if you need to cultivate that voice within you, think of maybe a mentor in your life, or maybe a therapist that you worked with, or maybe you're, one of your parents or a aunt or an uncle or somebody who is just very nurturing and very mentoring of you, or maybe yourself and the way you are with other people. Maybe you are a leader in other areas of your life. Think of the way that you communicate with other people, think of the way you communicate with your friends. That's the way you wanna start to communicate with yourself. Cause it often is not. We usually are very cruel and, and very high expectations with ourselves. Ways that we have expectations of ourselves that we never put on other people, but we do on ourselves. So start creating that inner coach.

Rita Black: And speaking of expectations, start creating realistic expectations that you can follow through on. Often when we are stuck in the weight struggle, our expectations of what we need to deliver on are crazy. You know, I have people coming to see me or am processes who expect to lose crazy amounts of weight per week and not doable at all and certainly not sustainable. Crazy amounts of exercise when they haven't been exercising in God knows how long, like these expectations come out of nowhere. I mean like, why would you expect to work out an hour and a half a day, seven days a week when you haven't worked out in two years? You know, why would you do that to yourself? Because what happens when you don't do what you say you're gonna do, you don't believe in yourself, you start to distrust yourself. You start to have a lack of respect for yourself. You start to see yourself as a failure. You start to see yourself as somebody who doesn't do what they're gonna, they say they're gonna do. So guess what, do what you say you were gonna do? You know, have a plan for the day that is doable. Even if it seems a lot smaller than what you would think would be, you know, right.

Rita Black: Create doable plans for yourself, especially at the beginning and with doable goals in mind because actually research shows a slower weight release actually is more associated with long-term success than a fast one. You know, if you're speeding down the scale, how are you gonna learn how to sustain that? You aren't gonna be able to sustain that? Not at all. So what you wanna do is create those expectations and goals. You wanna do what you say you're gonna do. So make it doable and you'll do it. And you go, wow, I did that. I followed through and guess what? You stay connected to yourself. You show up for yourself. When you set these huge unrealistic expectations, you are not showing up for yourself. You are disconnecting from yourself. It's, it's like you are putting yourself through some crazy obstacle course and saying, go and do it knowing you are gonna fail. Why would you do that to yourself? You love yourself. Be good to yourself, set something that you know, we're gonna get a win here. Have a consultation with your inner coach. Can we do this? Does this feel realistic? Good. Okay. Let's go. But make sure you're checking in with yourself and saying, is this realistic? Can I feel like I can get a win here? We wanna go for the wins and the small wins are awesome. There is good as the big wins. Just one little win at a time adds up to a big long term weight release. Believe me, mark my words. I've seen it hundreds and thousands of times. Just trust.

Rita Black: Now, if things don't go right, forgive yourself. What did I learn? Learn when you lose, don't lose the lesson. You know? So forgive yourself. Oh, I did that. Oh, I ate the cookies that my boss left and I wasn't going to, I did that. How human I did that own it. Forgive yourself. What did I learn here? What did I learn? Well, maybe you needed to take those cookies and just throw them away or give them away as soon as they're on their desk or as soon as they landed on your desk. I don't know the answer to that because everybody is different. And what they need to do in different situations is different. I can't tell you what to do, but I can say that you know. Nobody is in your head 24/7, 7 days a week, except for you. So when you cultivate that powerful inner coach within you, you are a long way forward in your success journey because you've got a free coach working with you. That's awesome. And forgive yourself. What did I learn? That's what your coach is gonna start to ask you. What did we learn here? How can we make this better next time? How can we improve on this?

Rita Black: Set yourself up for success. That's the next thing. I can't tell you how many people wake up and hope the day works for them. You know what I mean? Like if you don't have a plan, the world has a plan for you. And it isn't a, it isn't a slimming one. If you know what I mean. We step out the door and there are food signals and food signs and food messages all over. We walk into Starbucks, oh, there's a big array of food. We go to the grocery store, they've positioned everything so that your eye hits it just at the right place to so that your impulse control completely goes out the window and you grab that product and you buy it. The world is not set up for you to win. Let me just be really blunt and honest with you. And I think, you know what I'm talking about. So you, my friend have got to set yourself up for success and you need to set your environment, at least your environment and keep your environment like a mama bear.

Rita Black: And if you're going into the grocery store, know what you're gonna get and get the hell out. Get the foods that work for you. Get the hell out and have a plan and have a list. You're going out, have a plan mind and know how you wanna feel leaving that place. You're going to the restaurant or the party. You know, if you don't have a plan, the world has one for you. So set yourself up for success, your environment, and the people in it. Meaning, you know, let people know how you want them to treat you now that you are treating yourself differently. You gotta, you know, get people enrolled in supporting you. It's a huge part of weight mastery. You have to have the team, you know. The Olympic athletes, they got the team, you know. The, the movie stars, they got the team. You, you're a star, you're a weight mastery star. Get your, your support team. I can't do tell you how many people I have on my team so trained. My husband, my kids, my friends, I have friends who, had different friends every day of the week. I'm working out with them. I'm hanging out with them. It's a beautiful thing. And they've got me trained too. Believe me, we're, we're all working for each other and we're all working to be healthy and have fulfilling lives. I mean, isn't that great when you are in it for someone else and they're in it for you. There's nothing better than that. When you're both like wanting transformation and awesome life for each other, there, it doesn't get any better than that, does it?

Rita Black: So, you might have to train your friends a little. You might have to engage them in getting healthy. And if they don't wanna go along for the ride, that's cool. You know, that's, that's them. And, and, and you know, you work on your plan and they'll see you and they'll see your transformation and believe me, they're gonna want a piece of that action. And, and, and you can be their leader. You can let them, you know, you can show them the way. You can model that awesome behavior for them, but it's got to start with you loving yourself down the scale, because that is irresistible.

Rita Black: So, make yourself and your health a priority above other people. So, I cannot tell you that you should be doing this enough. And I, especially for you moms out there, especially all moms put themselves at the bottom of the totem pole. It just drives me crazy. And yes, I am sometimes guilty of doing that myself, but I work very hard to let everybody know, my children and my husband, I'm like, if mama ain't happy and nobody happy. So mama self care comes first because then when I'm taken care of, guess what, everybody gets taken care of. I will take beautiful care of you when I take care of myself. It, when I'm not taking care of myself, guess what? I become resentful. I become a victim. I become a, a martyr and martyr and victims, they're not fun to hang out with. So don't be a martyr. Don't be a victim. Take care of yourself first and get your family enrolled and supporting you too, because you support them. So get them to support you.

Rita Black: Here's another one practice saying no, no, no, no, no, no. No, thank you. Oh, no, thank you. Oh, that looks great. But no, thank you. And when I say practice that, I mean, practice that before you're in the situations where you actually have to say no. Create some boundaries. Boundaries are very slimming, you know. Don't say yes to everything. Say, oh, I will think about that and let me get back to you and then say, no. You know, when somebody offers you something, you know, often our impulse is to say, oh, thank you and take it because we all wanna be liked. We all want, we don't wanna upset anybody. We don't wanna rock the boat. But most of the time, what we're doing is really hurting us by saying yes. So say no, say no. You know that I, when I started my business, you know, somebody said the mark of a successful business owner is a business owner that says no, and I didn't really get that in the beginning, but I get it now. Because you get so many offers, you get so many people coming at you asking you to do things, you know, and you wanna stay focused on what you need to do for you to serve your people the best. And the best way is to stay focused. And if we're saying yes to everything else, we get very distracted. So when we're saying yes to everything out in our weight lives, we get distracted and we get overworked and we get overwhelmed and we get spread out too thin. And that is fattening. So say no, no thank you. However you say it in whatever language you say, learn how to say it and practicing it.

Rita Black: Another one don't put garbage in your body. I have a word. I didn't make it up, but I have taken ownership of this word. And this word is gak and gak kind of signifies like that kind of super refined sugary carby food. It doesn't need to be sugary necessarily, but super refined carby food that has no nutritive value, that is, you know, just absolutely you eat it and it takes away from your body rather than giving to it. I call it gak. Now, you know, sometimes if you bites a gak is, can be lovely and everything, but often when we are overeating often when we are binging, we will put any sort of gak in our mouth, any sort of shit in our mouth, just for the sake of like eating. And we wanna start to be selective. You know, we wanna start to be a snob about food. Let's just put the, a plus food in our body. And I don't mean just, you know, the fruits and vegetables and lean proteins. Obviously, those are the, a plus foods and healthy fats, but I just mean any food that you're gonna put in, you're gonna own it. And so you're gonna love it, you know, enjoy it, eat a few bites of it. We are gonna talk about, you know, food a lot more in later podcasts because I want to get the mind stuff right first, but just, you know, put the a you're you're an a plus person put the fricking a plus stuff in your body and leave all the other shit on the side. Excuse my French but I'm getting protective of you. I'm being the mama bear here. Like you don't deserve to put that other crap in your body that gak in your body. Put the good stuff in and leave the bad stuff on the side.

Rita Black: All right. And then, respect yourself. Care enough to learn what doesn't work and correct it. Don't stand for traps that own you. Don't get into situations that, you know, your gonna struggle with. You know, like I said, protect yourself like a mama bear. You're gonna start to recognize the vulnerable times while protect yourself. You know, like you would one of your kids, or you would your best friend. You wouldn't let your best friend go into a bad situation. You wouldn't let your best friend date a crappy guy, but, you know, that's often what we'll let ourselves do. So we'll just let ourselves go blind into a situation we know we're gonna get railroaded through. Stop doing that, you know, show up for yourself, respect yourself, you know, respect the food you put in your mouth, own it, and respect the situations you put in yourself into. And don't put yourself in situations where, you know, you're gonna fail, you know, or, or, or think it through so that, you know, you can make it work. But, you know, stop letting yourself get into those situations where you get into trouble. You don't, you, you don't need to do it, respect yourself. Start respecting yourself from that place, a fierce place of, like I said a mama bear. And, and, you know, a mama bear can be ferocious and we wanna start to come with that self love and that ferociousness for ourselves. We own it. Okay.

Rita Black: And get support, get lots of support. Get lots of love from your friends, from your family, from groups, and keep coming to this podcast. I'm here for you, I believe in you. And, and I know, I'm speaking to you, like, I know you are on your journey of weight mastery. I have no doubt in my mind. So, get the support where you need it.

Rita Black: And lastly, start living your dreams today. Today, don't wait for tomorrow. Don't wait until you get skinny to start living your dreams. Love yourself now, and start living those dreams so that they aren't so scary. So a lot of, I see a lot of people release weight and they get to their ideal weight. And it's so loaded with all these things they're gonna start doing when they get thin that they self sabotage cause they're super freaked out on subconscious level. Don't do that. Start be loving. You know, like if you wanna go back to school, go now. Make that part of your weight mastery journey. You know, I started becoming a hypnotherapist when I was on my weight mastery journey. I wanted that, you know, I was, I stopped smoking with hypnosis. I managed, you know, got my, my weight journey going with hypnosis. Hypnosis was a big thing. And I was like, wow, I really wanna help people in this way too. It's so powerful. You know, I want that for myself. I didn't wait until I was, you know, super, you know, at my ideal weight I, I started because I, it was part of my vision and part of my dream. And, you know, I've had clients who, you know, took this on board and it's like, it just makes me cry. It's so such a beautiful thing. When somebody really starts showing up for themselves and living their dreams before they release all their weight, I've had people go back to school, get divorced, get married, find the love of their lives even though they were 50 pounds up the scale, you know, they found somebody and, and you know, and they loved them 50 pounds above the scale at their ideal weight, you know. Have had people, buy homes you know, move across the planet, you know, leave a bad job and, and get a better job, start their own business. You know what I mean? Like, this is what I'm talking about. Like, this is your life. It isn't just about weight. It is about you showing up for you and you starting to really engage in your life on a different level, having a powerful vision and going for it. And, and so think about that.

Rita Black: Think about like, what if I've been holding myself back from and what could I just begin? You know, you don't have to, it doesn't have to happen all at once. What can you start to get curious about? What you can, you begin to surround yourself with? What could be that first step that you take with living your dreams today? So, Monica started loving herself down the scale. She started employing a lot of these thin thinking strategies we have been talking about today and a funny thing happened, you know what? She no longer felt shame around releasing weight. And she started sharing it with her friends instead of the secret thing that she was doing in order to, you know, get back into her size four dress. She started saying, Hey, I struggled with my weight and now I'm on my journey. And you guys come with me. And she started enrolling other people in her community and inviting them to get healthy with her instead of seeing herself as a failure. She started to see herself as a leader and she started inspiring others and they all love themselves down the scale too. And she released 50 pounds and she's kept it off for seven years. She got into exercise, she got other people into exercise. I think she's got like a running squad or a walking squad of friends now that she still goes and exercises every week with. It's a beautiful thing, but she created that from a different place.

Rita Black: So you can too. Now for this week's thin thinking, I would like to do a little repetition, what I like to call cognitive coaching. So if you're driving your car, you can actually do this with me. It's another term that you would use is called a direct drive technique. It's just a repetition. We're gonna, I'm gonna say the same suggestion over and over three times. And what you're gonna do is just repeat it powerfully to your yourself inside your own mind. And it's just to start to break up the, some of those subconscious, you know, disbeliefs, limiting beliefs inside your deeper mind. So just play along. You don't need to say it out loud, just mentally repeat it. And I'm gonna do that three times with each suggest.

Rita Black: All right. So here's number one. I forgive myself for struggling with my weight. Good. And again, I forgive myself for struggling with my weight. And again, I forgive myself for struggling with my weight.

Rita Black: I forgive my body for not living up to what I thought it should be. I forgive my body for not living up to what I thought it should be. I forgive my body for not living up to what I thought it be.

Rita Black: I am open to loving my body right now for all it is right now. I am open to loving my body right now for all it is right now. I am open to loving my body right now for all it is right now.

Rita Black: I am moving in the direction of believing in myself down the scale. I am moving in the direction of believing myself down the scale. I am moving in the direction of believing myself down the scale.

Rita Black: Last one, I am moving in the direction of loving myself down the scale. I am moving in the direction of loving myself down the scale. I am moving in the direction of loving myself down the scale.

Rita Black: Excellent. Good job. Take a nice deep breath in and just bring that all in as sort of your inner blueprint for the week.

Rita Black: Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of loving yourself down the scale, and please take advantage if you haven't signed up for that free video series called the "3 Mental Shifts to End the Weight Struggle Once and for All". Like I said, it has some meditation, it has some hypnosis, it's got some really great coaching. I'm really giving you my all I really am. And it, it's got a lot of motivation and inspiration and it's a fabulous way to love yourself down the scale. So go grab it before it goes away, and have yourself an amazing, wonderful Valentine's day in whatever way you celebrate or do not celebrate it. Okay. Take care and have a loving, lovely, amazing week. 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.

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