My son is learning to drive. It has been a slow and anxiety provoking process! Two weeks ago was a crazy ride. I let him drive to school and on that one trip he almost plowed the side of the house backing out of our driveway and then nearly backed into the garbage truck on the street. 

As we were going along he failed to see the fire truck right behind us until it was blaring its horn at us and so in a frantic knee-jerk response he swerved to get out of the way, almost side-swiping 3 cars. To top it off he turned left into a line of oncoming cars almost getting me t-boned on the way–this was all within a 15-minute drive.

He knew that was a bad trip. He got out of the car when we got to school and I –shaking like a leaf–hugged him goodbye for the day. He said, “Mom, I am sorry maybe I shouldn’t drive anymore.” And I said “No, you have to drive, that is the only way you are going to get better. You probably learned more today on our trip here than you will learn in school–don’t quit, just learn the lessons you need to from what doesn’t work and move on.”

Yesterday he drove us again to school–he backed up like a pro and the whole drive was so in control I even had time to look at my phone for a few moments. He was so pumped and I was so happy for him–he has mastered a new level of competency–how? By making mistakes and getting right back on track.

Being consistent with weight release isn’t about being perfect–it’s a set of skills that we build and it’s who we become over time.

One of the most important skills for consistent weight release is the skill of getting back on track after going off track. So many people do not do this–they get caught up in being perfect and starting over. Did you do this when you learned to drive–no! You kept going…and learning and mastering driving.

So, in episode 61 of our Thin Thinking Podcast, we will dive in and explore one of the most critical mental muscles in our weight mastery journey – working out for consistency and getting back on track the moment you get off.

This 5-step process will help us to easily move back to our journey not feeling like a loser but still keeping motivated and self-loving to a successful weight mastery journey.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

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Transcription

Rita Black: As a weight expert, one of the biggest struggles I see is the mental struggle that people have when they get off track with their weight or health goals. Not only are we dealing with guilt and disappointment, but also the fact that once we get off track, the tendency is to be off track for a while, or at least long enough to gain a good amount of weight back, if not all. So in today's Thin Thinking Podcast, we are gonna explore one of the most critical mental muscles, like how to work out for consistency with weight loss, and which is really truly getting back on track the moment you get off. So come on in and learn this five-step process.

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 and welcome. Come on in. Are you keeping your sanity in this month of May? May, I know I said last time, I think my April was kind of crazy, but you know, here we are in May and this is when I see other people getting crazy. So I get crazy in April. May for me is crazy too. But this is when I see my clients, my students all starting to go pulling their hair outta their heads, cause lots of stuff is going on. Like kids are getting outta school and there's birthdays and graduations and weddings and lalada. And you know, we're back being out in the world again, to a certain degree. And the summer's coming up and this can be a great time to focus on weight with lighter foods and longer days but there are usually tons of interruptions to our focus like weekends away and travel and visitors. And so it could make a healthy season into a season of chaos feeling like it's impossible to keep on track. So this week I'm gonna share a coaching session with you from my monthly mastery community. And it's all about the steps that you can take to get back on track. I cover how to prevent getting off track in the first place and also what to do if you find yourself getting off track and what to do afterwards too. So I hope you enjoy this session.

Rita Black: Like Lisa mentioned earlier, getting into a plateau and starting to feel discouraged for a lot of people, you, you know, they get discouraged and then they start to get off track and we could look at that as self sabotage or we could look at it as, this is a struggle point that now needs to be worked through and used for the inner coach. The why I don't like that word self sabotage so much, is it because it, it makes us seem like we're bad people like, oh, I'm going to sabotage myself rather than looking at what the challenge is in that moment. Like this is a challenge and I can figure it out. And in the past I haven't figured it out. Like I haven't taken the time or put the energy into it. I've given up, not in a bad way. It's just like, okay, whatever, you know, we're human beings and we don't understand everything and, and we give up and I'm not saying this to be easy on yourself, but I'm saying when we, that self sabotage word for me, I don't know. You guys put in chat, what do you think? If you like it or not, I feel like it takes your power away from you. That word.

Rita Black: And I really, feel like more, what we wanna get super curious about is weight masters is our struggle points and we all have them and they, we all are perpetually working through them and you know, we, we, you know, we get better at them and we sometimes we solve them completely or sometimes we're aware, oh, this is gonna be a challenge. How am I going to overcome this challenge? Or, oh, I was challenged and I kind of succumbed, I got off track, but I, you know, now I'm gonna be working on getting back on track. So, how does self sabotage happen? I think it's, there's so many ways that it could happen, but the way I see it playing out for most people is we have historical struggle points that come from various conditioning that we've had. I have this saying, you know, the louder the critic, the louder the rebel. Meaning, you know, some people I think think that they don't have an inner critic. I, I have a lot of clients who say, I just, I'm all rebel. I have no inner critic. Or I'm all critic. I have no rebel. But I honestly feel like when we're acting out, it's because our inner critic, there's some sort of expectation that is not, you know, like, and then our rebel is reacting against it.

Rita Black: And so, yeah, like the self sabotage feels like a word that's like, I'm a self sabotage and I'm kind of like, I've got a, this condition versus, you know, I'm a weight master on a journey and there are gonna be challenges and barriers along the way. And sometimes I'm gonna get off track and I'm going to figure it out and get back on track. And I have to support my life to do that. I have my commitment, I have my vision. And, you know, it, the great thing about the word self-sabotage is we all kind of understand what it means. But I encourage us to like really refocus and, and use a different vocabulary that allows us more power in the situation.

Rita Black: So the louder critics allow the, do you guys get what I mean? Like when we're really starting to pick on ourselves, then that's often when we start to go, oh, screw it. This is too hard, you know, because we're, we're being instead of engaging ourselves and motivating ourselves and inspiring ourselves with our inner coach, you know, like Lisa, I, you know what we were going through with your plateau, you know, that really took a lot of inner coaching. Whereas in the past your critic would've been like this isn't, you know, like you are not, this isn't gonna work out, you're eating too much, or you're not exercising, you're not doing this right. And then it's easy to go, ah, screw it. This is just too hard.

Rita Black: There's, how many of you guys know put a, why in chat, the word halt, for in weight management terms, the word halt, put a Y if you know what I'm talking about, just so I know. No. Okay. Okay. So, halt is a oh, okay. Okay. Well, good. So I'm, I'm going to teach you this word halt. So halt is this word that means it's an acronym for never get too hungry, too angry, too lonely or too tired, cause that's generally okay. Kurt. Oh, Kurt. And I wanted to say awesome. I'm glad you're back in water aerobics. That's so great. So hungry, angry, lonely, tired are usually the times that kind of set us off for, you know, what you would call self sabotage, but like, how many of you guys have had that experience where you hit zero and it was a lot harder to stay on track or eat healthfully when you got so hungry, you know, you just started grabbing for whatever was convenient.

Rita Black: Yeah. So hungry, angry, you know, I have that like angry and resentful are like the, you know, the most fattening emotions I think. I think, you know, being able to know that, oh, I'm feeling, you know, like I have that term at, am I going to eat over this? When we're feeling a feeling like, let me work through this feeling because feelings are gonna make us, you know, stress eat or, or, or resentment eat. Like I'm so mad at that person. I'm mad at this situation, you know, like it's not fair. Lonely, loneliness, I think is also something that a lot of us, you know, especially, we all know that from COVID like COVID was so isolating. But, and tired. I mean, I, I definitely know when I'm more fatigued, it's way easier for me to reach for food for the, that, that quick energy fix or, you know, it's a lot easier not to stay on track when you're tired, you're, you're depleted and your resources.

Rita Black: So that's another indicator like those, you know, we, we as weight masters have to really be mindful and start to tune in and not take these things for granted. Like, you know, really, like I say, protect your zero. Protect, getting too hungry. When we get our emotions, you know, we're, we've gotta get, get to that point of like, oh yeah, I'm feeling this emotion. Let me, let me manage this emotion. Let me work my way through so I don't have to eat over it. And usually how I manage my, you know, a lot of times, if I'm angry, I have to forgive somebody or I have to forgive the situation, you know, like, and I'm doing it to protect myself, not the other person, you know? And I have to take action. I have to say, well, if I'm gonna forgive them, like, is there an action I need to take to ask, you know, like ask for myself, you know, it's so funny. My husband and his friends who are staying with us this weekend, they, they, they are such, I said, you guys should all have babushka little scarves that you wear over her head because they are like a bunch of women who are like, they are so, you know, they, what's that word? Gossip. They're the biggest gossips. I couldn't believe it. I was like these big grown men, the biggest gossips in the world. And they were talking about their friend. And I was like, you guys, like, you should just ask him for what you need. Cause there was one friend that wasn't doing and they're all like, he's this. And he's like, I was like, you should just ask him for what you need. They're like, like it was like the biggest revelation, like, oh yeah. Maybe like these are grown men who went, I, I don't know. I just, I was like, we, we, we have to look. And when we're filling an, an emotion, we have to own it and say, okay, I'm filling this emotion. How am I going to process? And how do I get what I need?

Rita Black: So anyway, I know that this isn't what today's lesson is about, but hungry, angry, lonely, tired, you know, those are things that will set us off track. And, and then we also need to start to really tune into ourselves. And I, I mean, I can't stress enough how weight mastery is really being about, you know, a hundred percent responsible for ourselves. And understanding instead of being a victim of when we get off track really owning it and really looking at how we're using that experience, that going off track experience, like let's say it's Friday night and we go out and we eat way more than we thought we would. Or we stress eat at the end of the work day or whatever is to start to really take ownership of that instead of denying like, oh, oh, this is a problem. I've got this problem. I'm a victim of this problem. Rather than that, to start to say, well, let me own this and say, what am I doing here? Is this a reward thing? Is this escape? You know, cause usually how we take ourselves off track is from, you know, we wanna reward or we want to escape or we it's a social situation that we always perpetually get in trouble with or we're very fatigued. And then we make a choice that maybe isn't so in line.

Rita Black: And, and because in the past, when we've struggled, our brain has gotten used to the food is the answer. Food is the escape. Food is the reward. Food is my social connector. Food is the way I manage fatigue. Right? We need to take ownership for that and go, I have this thing. My brain is trained to go to food for these things. Am I a horrible person because of that? No. But now that I know that, and now that I understand that, how can I start to give myself some alternative neural roots, you know, routes, not roots, but routes, you know, when I'm feeling reward, what are some other rewards that I can give myself? Or what is the reward of going out on Friday night? It's not just the food it's being with people and digging into that versus, versus, you know, eating overeating.

Rita Black: So looking at where your trouble spots are, your, your challenge spots are and starting to see that there's probably, you know, we gain weight with the same foods in the same times in the same places for the most part. So it's not gonna be a big mystery for you, what your, your challenge is. And, and probably as you are releasing weight, you are seeing more one progress. So you are working through some of these struggle points and figuring it out. But the other ones that are more tenacious and stick, those are the gonna be the ones that for weight mastery. Yeah. You're probably gonna have to work through that. And, and that's what, you know, your inner coaches for. That's what sitting down with yourself on Sunday and thinking those kinds of things through on a weekly basis is super helpful. It's also super helpful. I really love it. When you guys bring challenges like this, like Lisa said, how do I know about self sabotage? Like, let's discuss this stuff because that's the way we start to break through it together as a group.

Rita Black: So I hope that, so let's look at some stuff, like get out of pen and paper and I want to ask you guys some questions about our okay. So get what is getting off track. So please put in chat, like for what for you, what does getting off track or going off track mean for you?

Participant: Rita? Can you repeat that?

Rita Black: Yes. What does going off track mean for you? Meaning like, overeating, Friday night, you know, like where are your, where do you go off track? Like what, what has been, what does going off track mean for you? Like going off track for me? What, what does that mean? That means probably being social, like three days in a row. And then, and then overeating, because I've gotten, you know, my carbs zombie is awake. Getting off track for two days. Okay. If you don't track. Okay good. Night grazing old habit. Okay, good. Yeah. So, so we all have, or you can see like, those are all different things. Stop tracking calories, wondering too many. We can splurge stop working out. Exactly. So, starts out as momentary and then get back. Exactly. I mean, I have a, a Nancy there's something going on with me. I'm trying to avoid. Yeah.

Rita Black: So you can see that we all have our own thing. Like for me, for instance, this week was probably, for me, going off track is not exercising as consistently as I usually do and not really tracking food, food as closely. And you know, maybe I haven't gotten overboard, but I like woke up this morning and I was like, okay, I haven't exercised in the last three days. You know, my husband's friends have been here. I mean, it, you know, I have every excuse in the world, but I was like, get up, get on your Peloton, do your thing. You know? And because I just had that little moment with myself as like, this could go a little fur because my brain was like, oh, you don't have to exercise this morning. The guys are all around. It's like, and I was like, oh yeah, I heard that little voice. I was like, okay, take a breath, you know? Yeah. It's time to get back on track.

Rita Black: So, but yeah, going off track can be a momentary thing where it's just like, like you said, you know, you don't track for a day and that's sort of like, it's not a long term thing, but it's momentary. It could be a few days where, you know, a weekend away where you're like, oh, I don't care. And we, and, and then it, and then Monday morning we come back and find a little harder to get back on track. Yeah. Sometimes when we're things are going well, and we're getting close to a milestone that could definitely trigger that. Yeah, like the reward eating or, maybe a little like, oh, you know, I'm almost there. I don't have to work as hard. It might be a few weeks. Like how many of you guys during the shift process have been off track for a couple of weeks and felt like you had to bring yourself back? I know Nancy, I think you've felt like you've, you know, there have been some times where you got off track or, um, like even in the wintertime when we're struggling, Tali had a month of that. Yeah.

Rita Black: And, you know, you guys, here's the thing we're gonna get off track, in our weight mastery journey. I think that is something that, you know, we have a lot of shame around like, oh, I'm off track and I should be ashamed. But you know, I, I, I think the more that we own it and the more that we take those shame away and really go, how do I get back? Like, I'm really proud of you Tali. I mean, like for, you know, I know you were like observing things and being very present and you challenged yourself and you got your inner coach together and you got back on track. And I think the value of getting off track and getting back on track is you start to trust yourself that you can get yourself back on track. You know, that is a muscle getting back on track is a muscle that the more you exercise it, the more experience you have, the more ownership you have of your weight mastery, because you are gonna continue to get off track throughout. It's not gonna be perfect. It is never going to be perfect. We are human beings and we have wiring as weight strugglers. We do have wiring that sometimes gets trip wired. And, but now we have skills and we have our inner coach and we can start to manage it differently.

Rita Black: So here's some questions for you guys, how I want you guys to start to get used to recognizing the signs, like, how do you know when you are on track? Like what, what tells you put it in chat or you can write it down or both preferably, how do you know when you are on track? What are your key indicators that you are on track? Maybe for some of you it's tracking your food? Maybe it's a certain amount of exercise per week, you know, like there should be probably okay. Andrea says it's her lose it. She looks to that, the scale, yeah. Sunday planning for the week. So, you know, when you're checking in, you are doing that, you know, and you probably, what I would suggest you guys is it would be helpful for you to have three things that, you know, like when you are doing these things, you know, you're on track, right? Like for me, it's a certain amount of exercise per week. You know, I try to get five in, you know, sometimes six or, you know, sometimes seven, but five is my, like my baseline and tracking if it's not tracking and lose it, it's really being consistent with like, knowing what am my Sunday planning like, those are my, those are my like touchstones I know I'm on track when. And, and I think why that will be helpful for you to have at least three is then, you know, when one falls out, oh, what's going on. You know, not that it's bad, but the it's a, it's an indicator like your car, you know, your light flashes on when you need an oil change. Tracking food, drinking, water, and visualizing awesome Robin.

Rita Black: So, yeah, so having like three indicators for you, I think will help, you know, when then, oh, there's a, I'm in kind of like a little, not the danger zone, but you know, you know, how here in California, we have the different colors of fire alert. Like it's a high, it's an extreme fire alert day, or there's, you know, it's a low fire alert day. You know, we have that like, oh, I'm kind of in this vulnerable place. How do I strengthen myself? And how do I, you know, or if I'm in a vulnerable place and I know I'm going to be going out this weekend or going away, how do I, you know, restrengthen my resolve and my vision so that I can get myself back on track. Almost bought a candy bar, which would've set off a binge, realized it and saw myself. Yay, Barbara. Good, good job.

Rita Black: So now how do you know you are off track? Like, what tells you, what, how do you know, you know, like what external or internal signs do, you know? Oh, I'm off track. You know, like for me it was like, oh, wow. I haven't exercise in three days. I didn't even like, think about, I was like, wow, crap. I have an exercise in three days. And I went out last night to a party and I, you know, like I ate fun. I wasn't off track with my eating so much, but I probably, I, I know I consumed more calories and I was like, well, if I'm consuming more calories, you know, where's my exercise. So how do you know you're off track? Put it in, chat

Rita Black: Off track too many calories for the day, anyone else. So I think it's important also for you guys to start to get really tuned in to signs that you are going off track, stop planning my food so I can eat what I want. I love that Nancy. But it's so true, you know, and in, because we don't wanna be a victim of this, we wanna start to look to this, you know, stop tracking, less exercise the food, you know, like I am learning more and more about business. Like I've been, you know, like running my practice for many years, but now that I, you know, I'm, I'm doing more stuff online, I'm really learning about data. And, and, and data for me has always been very important for weight management. And I, you know, now that I'm doing more stuff online, I'm, you know, I'm looking to these indicators every week, every day, like, how is my business doing? Right? And, and when I'm not tuned into that, you know, I can be, so I, I will come back and be like, oh, you know, something's off track, but I can always then pinpoint it and get to the root of what, oh, okay. I need to correct that. And I know a lot of you guys are in business and a lot of you guys understand what I'm talking about. Like we have all these key indicators in our lives for when things are going well. Like if we have kids, we, you know, look at like, what's going on with them, with school, with their mood. And, and we have these other things, but often we can get off track and not even know we're getting off track until it is then a problem. Right.

Rita Black: So, you know, you hear about people like not go avoiding going to the doctor until it's too late. It's like we wanna start to, you know, use our Sunday planning, I think is such a great time to just tune into yourself and, and start to look at what's going well, what's being challenging and really take that temperature of how's my weight management going? Am I, am I bored? Am I frustrated? You know, and start to, to get real about that so that then you can start to tend to that before it becomes a bigger problem and you check out altogether, right? Grazing, not logging, bringing trigger foods home, not doing yeah. Like when we start to go, oh, I can handle bringing those foods home. You know, like, like what Barbara was saying, almost bought the candy bar. She talked herself out of it. And maybe that, you know, maybe you wanna look at that a little deeper Barbara and go, oh, well, what was, am I feeling bored with what I'm eating? Do I feel like I need a different type of reward or a treat? Maybe I, I need something that has, you know, I need to invite that in, uh, something else in, you know, we, boredom is a really big indicator that you probably are about to go off track bored with your food. So, you know, when I get, start getting bored with my food, I know I get bored with my food, cause I start eating more of it. And so that's always an indicator for me to kind of bring new stuff in, to bring new recipes in, to find new rewards and treats. You knew it would taste good.

Rita Black: So I hope that's helpful. I, I think, you know, we just kind of go on in our lives and we are kind of, you know, living them and, but having these sort of built in as like I'm being on the lookout for these things, and again, it doesn't take a lot of energy, but it, it gives you a framework to know, you know, how things are going, how things are not so that we can be more aware of, oh, I'm getting a little off track here. Let me bring myself back rather than going all of a sudden, oh, I'm off track. I've been off track for a week. How do I get back on? It's a lot easier to manage it and make sure you keep yourself on track than it is to bring yourself back. Even though I do agree, like there's a value in coming back on track and working that muscle. I also think that just, you know, having your, and again, it, it, I think the Sunday meeting with yourself, the, you know, daily check-ins when you're, you know, logging your food and thinking about things, it should be helpful. But I think knowing what for you are the best indicators will be helpful for you.

Rita Black: And how do you know you're slipping from on to off that's like, yeah. Like how do you know that you're slipping from on to off track? Again, for me, I mean, I would think it's the food I'm consuming. Like if I'm eating more refined carbs, then that's a real quick. When sugar, when I eat sugar and then I start to go, oh, I had some sugar and, oh, I'll have a little more sugar today, immediately my indicator that, oh, your brain has slipped into that. Oh, we could have more sugar and we could have more sugar mode, you know, like as soon as I'm like, I, I, I can eat sugar, I allow myself sugar. But when my brain goes into like, oh, I could have a little more sugar today, then I'm like, mm, no, this is, we are slipping here. You know? So, what for you, what for you, you know, tells you uhoh, I'm slipping from, from on to off. I know grazing and not logging bringing, but anybody have like any like that moment, you know? Oh, I'm slipping from on to off.

Rita Black: All right. So I'm going to now move on to, you know, getting back on track and I've made this a sort of, I've made this sort of acronym that you guys should all be aware of. It's in my book, it's, it's in this shift, but I wanna work through this because in, in my mind, it just having an acronym helps sort of train your brain in, in the steps. So if I find myself getting off track, like I did, you know, these last few days, I, I take a shift breath and what I mean by taking a shift breath is I take a moment, you know, I, I, okay, wait a minute. I haven't exercised, you know, I ate little more than I should last night. Like I stop. And I'm like, let me tune in here and let me, you know, like if I was really off track, I would be like, I'm getting really off track. Let me take a moment. And, and when, when I say that, I mean, I'm not gonna beat myself up. I'm gonna sit down and I'm going to figure this out and I'm gonna do this. You know, this is, I'm giving myself a gift here. So I, so I kind of a, that, that breath is like, okay, whoa, let's, let's tune in and let's figure this out.

Rita Black: And then, you know, you harness your inner coach. You don't wanna harness your inner critic and you're inner rebel. They're not gonna you here. They're, they've probably already kind of chimed in and started to beat you up. Or, like my inner rebel would say, Hey, you don't have to exercise this morning. You already have an exercise. You'll, it's a Monday, you'll get back on track. The guys are gonna be, you know, leaving. You can just have fun today. It's like take a breath. Okay. Cause I, you know, if I hadn't exercise this morning and like been lousy about my eating today, I, I don't know. That's one less day that I'm feeling good and present. And, I don't know. I feel awesome that I got on the, the, my bike and went, I was like, oh, thank goodness. Now I'm back. I feel so, so good. So, you know, you're focusing on problem solving and not blaming yourself or denying, which I think we're, you know, we can get really good at as weight strugglers, right. We're like good at like, that's not going on or I, it's not a problem or I'm da, da, da. Okay.

Rita Black: And then invest, investigate. And again, we've been talking a lot about this, like get the data and the facts and take ownership. And I cannot tell you how much weight mastery is about taking ownership. A hundred percent responsibility. You know, I don't, you know, a lot of people may like try to sabotage you. You may, but you've got the more you take responsibility for your actions, your thoughts, your beliefs, and, and understand that you can work through these, the more power you have and the less prone you are to react or be a victim of external circumstances. Look, they're gonna happen. But the more you are managing yourself, the, you know, the more easy it's gonna be to manage your weight. So get the data, get the facts and take ownership. How much did I, okay. I ate 10 pieces of pizza last night and I'm going to, you know, look at that. Okay. I, I ate 10 pieces of pizza last night, I drank a bottle of wine and I ate a piece of tiramisu. Let me get the facts, let me add those calories up. And, you know, that might be a hard thing to do to confront that. But the moment you do, you will feel way better. Right. You know, how many of you guys put in chat have had to sit down and add up like a ton of calories, but it made you feel better once you did that cause you just got clear. How many of you guys have done that? Like after a day of yes. Kurt. Okay, cool. Yeah, like after a, a night out or a long weekend, like just getting clear on what you did. I know Kurt, isn't the only one who's done that. Put a Y in, in chat if you've, you know, had to sit down and go, wow. I, I really did that. You know, there, there were weeks where I would get off track and some days, and not as bad as I thought, usually it's not as bad as you think it is. But you know, sometimes I, I remember weeks where I would have deficit calories and then gotten to Friday and Saturday and man like 4,000 5,000 calories. So I was like, well, I'm not gonna really weight this week. And I'm certainly might add some weight this week, but at least I know. And it's, and it is it's. So it connects you. What that does is it connects you back to yourself and once you see it's a number, it's a number. It's not, you you're, you're not the problem. It, and there's some, some pride in taking ownership about that, that, you know, we go through, right. So get the data, get the facts, take that ownership of that. The moment you do, write down the calories, it's the trick for success. It keeps it real also track if I have debit or credit to use the next day's calories. Right.

Rita Black: So, and then once you have that, that's the time for the forgiveness, right? And that's the time to go, okay. I forgive myself, you know how human, I'm gonna, you know, it's not about letting it go, but it's just like acknowledging it and going, you know what? I forgive you and reconnect with yourself and believe in yourself because you have to forgive yourself to restore belief. Right? And, and that is the most essential key because the moment we do something that we see as bad, or we see as not right, we lose trust in ourself. And we lose that belief that we absolutely need to stay on track and to get back. Right? We, we need to believe in ourselves a hundred percent. And so, and what is going on while you're doing all these steps is there's another part of your brain that watches you saying, oh, you know, Rita knows how to get back on track. Like she's taking care of herself. We can trust that Rita's gonna do this. You know, like you're, you're, there's all these different aspects of you working together within this process to not only, you know, reconnect you to yourself, but to start to trust that you know what you're doing and that you're gonna continue to build this, right?

Rita Black: Learn the lesson again, most of your struggle points are gonna continue to be your struggle points until you work through them. And I'm not suggesting you work through them all at once, you know, because you've probably discovered workarounds for some of them, but like Andrea and Lisa, both of, you know, both of their questions came from them, acknowledging something like, oh, plateaus, you know, I'm in a plateau. And that was very challenging for me. And I've had plateaus before and those were, you know, like those were what would take me back to weight struggle. So let me start to work through this in a different way. Andre is at a place where she doesn't know all the answers yet. And she's at this place where she's asking questions, like, because this sounds like it has been a struggle point for her to get to her ideal weight, you know, and that doesn't seem like it would be a struggle point, but for her, it is. And so acknowledging that and understanding like I need to, you know, I don't have all the answers right now, but I'm working on this and I'm working through this, starts to give her her power. So, as frustrating as it maybe.

Rita Black: So acceptance of what's going on because I think we try to resist, you know, the more we resist stuff, the more it persists, right. I know that corny old saying, but I mean, it's absolutely true. And owning, it starts to dissipate the pain of it and allows us to have some clarity around it. And then taking action. I think often when we get off track, you know, when we're able to forgive ourselves, reconnect with ourselves, it really, really helps to sit down and create a new vision of from where you are to where you are going to go. AUm, and, re-exciting yourself, like with Andrea, I was saying, okay, maybe what you need to do is have a new vision of what maintenance looks like so that it looks like a goal. You know, like if she's results oriented, maybe she needs to reconfigure maintenance, not as this flat boring, you know, no results sort of thing, but that it's, it's exciting, challenging. And what, what would the results look like? You know? And she may have never thought of that before, but now her brain is gonna go, okay. Yeah. What would results for maintenance look like to me so that I can stay engaged so that it can feel like I'm still on this journey of transformation. Even though I'm at my ideal weight, how do I look for different indicators that are gonna tell me, you know, and, and I do think looking to others who have been maintaining their weight is also, you know, a great help.

Rita Black: So taking action, creating the new vision, the new goal, you know, often like, like for instance, my pizza and wine scenario was like, okay, well maybe I'm gonna even gain a half a pound this week, but you know, where am I going next week? How can I reengage and how can I now, like maybe be look to the weekend? How can I help myself on the weekends plan things through so I don't have that happen again to me.

Rita Black: Well, that wraps up another week. Thank you so much for joining me for this week's podcast. Please subscribe in the show notes so you can always have a little thin thinking coming your way every week and just take a deep breath through this busy time. 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.