Rita Black : Go on a diet, lose weight, reach your goal. Or at least that is what the dieting industry would like us to believe. But here is the thing, there are six stages that most people who have taken weight off and kept it off long-term, have had to go through in order to achieve not just their ideal weight, but long-term weight mastery. And today, I’m gonna walk you through not just one, not just two, but all six of them. And I cannot wait to get started. In fact, what are you waiting for? Come on in.

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

Rita Black : Hello friends. How are you today? I’m doing pretty good today. Now, if you’re with me in real time, it’s the month of May and Yeehaw. I always feel like celebrating. We have gotten through the winter and tax season, and for me, I am starting the live Shift Weight Mastery Process online this week. So I love this time of year. I love, love, love doing the live shift. I can only do it twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall because I give so much during this time. I’m, it just is. But it’s so fun and it’s so moving because I just see so many people having transformations. I love it. Soif you wanna join us, please find the link in the show notes for more information. It’s very specific. We walk through everything.

Rita Black : And now in honor of the Shift Weight Mastery Process, I wanted to dive deep into the whole weight mastery journey, because it’s not just about releasing weight and the scale, but it is a deep, powerful and meaningful internal journey of shifting your inner communication, taking back your powerful beliefs and habits. They may be currently keeping you in a frustrating place. And for those of you who have shifted and gone through the process with me, I know you’re gonna love this because you will see what stage you are at, wherever you are at, because it’s always changing as well.

Rita Black : Okay, let’s start from the very beginning with stage one, the pre-journey. Now the pre-journey is what happens even before you begin your long-term weight release journey. So this is the, the stages leading up to your making that very first step. And at this point, we are what we would call the reluctant hero in Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, which is every culture’s story of the hero’s transformational journey, a journey of transformation. In the beginning of the journey, the hero is always reluctant. And if we look at Hollywood films, you always see the first half hour of the film is usually the hero doesn’t wanna do what the hero ends up doing.

Rita Black : They, the hero doesn’t want to leave the village, doesn’t want to save the girl, doesn’t believe in themselves enough, doesn’t, isn’t compelled enough. They are in, this is definitely true with us, when we struggle with our weight, we are stuck in that diet cycle. We have a reinforced limiting identity where we see ourselves as a struggler. We have a lot of negative self-talk. We have a lot of limiting beliefs and habits, and we really feel like the problem is us. And the idea of going on diets or losing weight is an idea of deprivation. Not of transformation. It doesn’t seem fun. It seems shameful. It seems like we hold it in this really limiting place in our head. And as well, we should be, because the diet industry has really created this external structure that we are supposed to focus on.

Rita Black : And we’re supposed to focus on a diet. So we are brought up, or in our diet culture, the focus is outside. Find the shake, find the exercise machine, find the right thing outside of you. That’s going to be the miracle that’s gonna change it, because God knows you are not the miracle. God knows that you are the problem that needs to be fixed by this external thing. So we spend all this time looking outside of ourselves and going on off all or nothing, good or bad, yada, yada, yada, yada, right? So, and we don’t wanna be deprived so we hold back. Moving forward seems uncomfortable. It seems scary, but eventually with all heroes, the pain pushes until the vision pulls. And that means we get in enough pain to wanna make the change, that it becomes too painful in this horrible, awful place of struggle.

Rita Black : That we are willing to be uncomfortable. We are willing to stretch, we are willing to step outside of our safety zone. And this is what happens in Hollywood movies. The hero is somehow forced outside of his safety zone into a new world. Just like you think of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. The tornado pulls her, you know, out of our family home and into this place called Oz. And, you know, it was swirly, swirly and scary and all this, but she gets to this, you know, new place. So I know for me that moment was, you know, I was a chronic dieter, chronic binge eater. And I remember being on a diet. I got to a certain, I had got on the scale and I had actually lost weight. But that, it just, in that moment I cracked and I was like, it doesn’t even matter that I lost weight because I’m gonna gain it back.

Rita Black : And what the hell am I doing with my life? And how much longer is this going on? And I just sat down on that scale and cried and cried and cried and cried. And, you know, really this little voice inside of me just said, you know what? There’s gotta be a better way. We got to do something and I believe in you. And that was my opening. And I don’t know where you are in your journey. You might not be in this pre-journey. Hopefully you’ve moved on and you’re in a different part, the stage. But if you are still in that pre-journey, you wanna know that you are actually the answer, not that stuff outside of you. So start there.

Rita Black : Stage two, the turning point, turning from the outside to the inside. So for me, on that scale, that was my turning point. You’re starting to change from the inside. And part of this, this means taking full responsibility for developing yourself and creating a lifestyle that is gonna support you. So unlike a diet that you go on, okay, I’m gonna go on a diet for a month and lose a bunch of weight and not eat and over exercise. This is a journey that you are embarking upon, and you’re gonna take yourself seriously on this journey. It’s not the normal go on a diet because we feel fat ,gotta lose weight, lose some weight. Okay, we feel a little better. So then, you know, we celebrate by going out to eat. No, this is your mindfully making a commitment to yourself and saying, I am going to develop myself, take care of myself. I’m going to create a lifestyle that supports me and being fitter, healthier, lighter. Start to create a vision of that who you are becoming. So not just of your weight, but who is that person that you are turning yourself into, that you are cultivating. And in that vision, you start to cultivate a belief in yourself.

Rita Black : Not being perfect on a diet, but just focusing on skill building, right? So we’re not focusing on good or bad, but we’re developing the skills of weight mastery. Now, in my mind, there are about nine skills from the studies that I’ve done, you know, and I’ve synthesized them down. Again, we can look at them as being good on a diet. You know, the, some of the skills are things that you look at, oh, well, that’s what I do when I lose weight. But why, from a cognitive perspective, it’s wonderful to see them as skills is because skills are always something that you’re always developing rather than doing. In order to lose weight, you’re developing yourself. So you start building the skill in your mind, and it works out into your life. It’s like a muscle. It just gets stronger and stronger and stronger the longer you work it.

Rita Black : So I see those nine skills as three different skill sets, the mind skills. And these are what a lot of the skills that we talk about here on the Thin Thinking Podcast, developing our inner coach, recognizing our inner critics, starting to advocate for ourselves against the critics, starting to advocate for ourselves and protect ourselves since our inner rebel. And setting ourselves up for success and managing those voices, starting to separate ourselves out from those voices and actually recognize that those are thoughts and beliefs that aren’t about us, but that are, that are just old patterns in our brain. And then there’s the weight skills, the way of developing a way of living and moving. So energy balancing and approaching weight like a scientist versus a dieter. Getting really clear on your weight release goals. Looking at behavior, looking at what you’re eating, how much you’re eating, and starting to look at what you need to do in order to reach your goals.

Rita Black : So it’s not so much from deprivation, but how much does your body need in order to sustain you at your ideal weight? And how do you develop a way of eating that you enjoy that allows you to do that, that isn’t about being good, that is about getting curious and cultivating something that you own and that you value so that you are in the driver’s seat. And that is very exciting. You feel empowered, you are in charge and you can adapt your eating to what works best for you in your life. And then there are the environment skills. And these are crazy important skills. They include the skill of having the right people in your environment. And that doesn’t mean divorcing your husband, but that does mean maybe getting people to support you differently and training them to treat you in the way that you need to be treated.

Rita Black : Because you know, how people are treating in ourselves in our life right now are the way we’ve kind of trained them to treat us, right? We have, you know, smiled and accepted the bagels or the donuts, said thank you or have eaten them. And that tells people, oh, she likes that, or he likes that, so let’s keep doing that. So we can’t make it so much about their fault, although, you know, they might be pretty stubborn in their wanting to present such foods to us. But it is really about advocating for yourself and learning how to do that in a way that it’s a win-win for you and a win-win or win for the people in your life. And also setting your environment up for success. Now with my chef 30 day process, we use hypnosis and meditation and coaching to dive into this transformational process and make changes from the inside out.

Rita Black : But I want you to see that this first set is the shift in mindset more than anything else. You are the hero deciding to go on the journey. Now, Michele, who you maybe heard in last week’s podcast, who has released 35 pounds since the last October’s shift, she definitely did that. She definitely not only used the process to start to develop those skills, but she made that decision that she had had enough of that old dieter mindset, she was not going to go back there anymore. And that she really recognized that she had to change some ways of thinking, not only about food, but about herself. And if you haven’t heard her podcast, please go back and listen to it. It’s very inspiring. She’s continuing to grow and make amazing changes in her life as she continues to release weight. Now, she’s gonna be also, she’s gonna be a coach in this upcoming shift, and I’m very excited cause that’s her first time coaching.

Rita Black : So stage three is the building skills stage. So around a month to six weeks in, or it may be even a few months. Usually what happens as you’re releasing weight, the scales stops moving as fast. Our, and our initial enthusiasm wanes. And this is true for most of the times if you, because of the way that weight release happens, we release a lot of water weight up front. So as we start to really begin truly releasing weight, fat weight, the scale moves a little more slowly. The, also our body is adjusting. So in the first six weeks, maybe two months, things slow down significantly often, and this is where the initials enthusiasm about releasing weight wanes. And life takes over. And a lot of times when we’re losing weight we lose focus because it’s not so exciting getting on that scale.

Rita Black : And we start getting tempted. Our support system forgets that they’re supporting us. We start going out more socially. We aren’t keeping ourselves in the house on the weekend, on the diet anymore. We’re like going out with our friends. So when we’re on a diet, most people just keep dieting and they get bored and they feel deprived. And usually the focus is just on the scale. And this is a real danger zone where many of us would just give up or stop trying. And now are they at fault? Are we at fault for giving up? No. But what is going on is all these old beliefs and habits that we’re always waiting there in our subconscious mind start resurfacing and they start having more power. We start giving them more power because we start to feel insecure again. You know? When we’re in the beginning and the scale’s going down, oh, we’re feeling strong and it’s easy to say no, but when we flatline and the enthusiasm wanes, well that old insecurity, like, I’m fat and it’s always gonna be like this. Why am I even bothering to do this? Ugh, this is boring. This is when things start to come up and we start getting off track. But we need to keep going. So we need to engage the mind more deeply and in a different way.

Rita Black : So here is what the focus is in this critical stage is instead of focusing on the scale, I mean we still are mindful of the scale, but we start focusing or continuing our, and deepening our focus on self-development, continuing to build those skills of weight mastery, continue to improve our systems, because most of long-term permanent weight mastery is systems that we create in our life that repeat over and over and over again, planning ahead, making sure that you are set up for success, setting goals, following through when you’re exercising, all of these things are usually built into systems. And, you know, sometimes our systems change because our lives change and we also learn, need to learn flexibility. But usually we just get off track and then we give up. But we need to also build the skill of getting off track and getting right back on track.

Rita Black : So this is an opportunity rather than a failure. It’s an opportunity to learn. Getting back on track is actually a muscle you need to develop in order to be successful on your journey of long-term weight mastery. A lot of people are, I got off track, I blew it. I’m not perfect. I’m gonna start over again. And I am so excited when people get off track for the first time. I was like, good, now you get to start flexing that. Get back on track muscle. That is critical in long-term success. Strengthening the skill of getting back on track. This is where we have to love ourselves and forgive ourselves. And again, not just focusing on the scale for results, but on ourself, developing the skills and communications, internal communications, because that scale, it flatlines and it flatlines many times in that journey. And guess what?

Rita Black : The scale isn’t fun. So continuing to focus, not just on the scale for results, but on ourselves. Developing skills and communications is really important because sometimes in a journey, the scale flatlines with a plateau and the scale isn’t as fun. It’s not giving you that dopamine hit. The, many people give up because they’ve been on that weight loss honeymoon and feeling great. And then the plateau hits and the fun ends and all the insecurities come flooding back in. And when you see this as developing yourself, you keep going. When have the other areas of your life been boring or flatlined? Because they all do our jobs, our relationships. What do we do? Do we give up? No, we dig deeper, we get more curious, and we learn lessons and make corrections. And guess what, when you do that in the area of weight, the scale will go back down or we’ll keep going down.

Rita Black : But we need that inner coach, that inner scientist who’s also compassionate and forgiving. We also need that inner cheerleader reminder that we can do this. We’re developing ourselves as a leader of ourselves. I think of Lisa, who is in our monthly mastery membership, who was plateaued for a very long time, but even during that time because she was having issues with her ankle and she needed to have surgery, so it wasn’t possible for her to exercise during that time, she still showed up for herself and deepened her commitment to her inner communications, even as the scale was still flatlining, even as she was going through surgery and recovery, she continued to take care of herself and show up for herself and really look at this as a commitment to who she was becoming, to developing herself and leading herself through that. And she’s now continued on the other side, releasing weight, hitting new milestones. But she went through that time. And that time isn’t a negative time if you allow yourself to develop yourself. And this is all a journey of developing yourself as a leader of yourself. So journey of self-love. All right?

Rita Black : Now, stage four is what I call the solutions point stage. Now you are further along on your journey. You’ve released some serious amounts of weight. You have the food part down, you have the exercise part down. You’re in smaller clothes, people are noticing your weight loss. You have developed yourself. You have the systems down, you have the inner speak going great. You’re coasting along, you’re going in plateaus, out of plateaus. And you just be, are becoming way more adept at all of this. So the next stage is a stage where most people get stuck and turn around. And you would think of this as a great time.

Rita Black : But if you have ever been here, you know, it’s also a great time of of vulnerability because in order to keep going, you need to stretch into your identity of self-leadership and self-coaching even more so. Why? It’s, it’s at this point, we lose the pain. It’s at this point we lose the pain. Meaning whatever was pushing us in the beginning, I’m fat, feeling fat, clothes don’t fit, feeling ashamed, mad at yourself. That pain goes away. And we forget why we started. And it’s usually at this point in our journey where the deeper issues start to appear that will need to become, need to be overcome in order to continue. Some things that could happen here are we are stuck at a weight for a very long time. A big life change happens when we release weight. Things happen in our life.

Rita Black : Things happen in our life when we’re not releasing weight. So sometimes we move, we get a new job, we go through a crisis or a family goes through a crisis or something just like hovering above that 10 to 20 pounds above our ideal weight. What is gonna get you through this struggle point isn’t being good or more self-disciplined, but it’s going to require your observing. What are the behaviors or habits or thought that are keeping you from moving forward, whether it’s stress or emotional or social or other people, or you’re just feeling more vulnerable because you’re smaller or it’s physical. Maybe something came up physically that you got injured and you need to work through that subconscious resistance and find the solutions. Now this can be an exciting time of courage and adventure as a hero on a weight journey, but otherwise, these obstacles begin to own us.

Rita Black : And old patterns, eating and thinking behaviors begin to resurface. So often the solution is to get curious instead of critical. And we need to make whatever is happening in our life a project instead of a punishment. Every challenge is figure-outable, but we need to figure it out. So I’m gonna just use an example from my life about how I made something into a project and worked through it. Because like I said, a lot of the things that come up are coming up again and again and again. Maybe for somebody it’s night eating, maybe it’s social eating maybe it’s continual stress at work. And again, as you were releasing weight initially and developing your skills, you had that power behind you of the pain. But once you get to a certain point, the pain is no longer there. And this is where so many people lose that thread through and begin to revert back into old behaviors.

Rita Black : So making whatever is the obstacle in front of you, the project, helps your brain start to look at it in a different way, not as a problem, but as a project. And your brain is a solutions creating machine. Meaning, you know, it’s like a computer you can put in a question and it will start to go to work on it even when you aren’t consciously aware of it. So from my life some of those of you who know me and who’ve worked with me, you know this story, but this was a very clear and specific problem, which was whenever I would travel and I was traveling a lot at the time, I was releasing my weight I would come home and I would binge eat so and so, I was traveling enough that this became a problem. And then once I binge ate, sometimes I would, that would roll into a few days more of bingey behavior and it just wasn’t working out for me.

Rita Black : So I tried to tackle how do I not binge eat when I come home from being traveling? And it could be have been just traveling for one day. It doesn’t ne necessarily have had to have been a week or a month. So first I tried just not eating and that didn’t work. I continued to, I came home and I just continued. I, I took some food. So my usual go-to foods and I just said, okay, I’m not gonna have those in the house. Well, I just ate some other food instead. I binged on that. So I go, right, well, maybe no food in the house. Well, what I ordered out a pizza . That didn’t work. So I didn’t get mad at myself. I stayed very self-loving. I stayed very in the project. I would get curious, okay, that didn’t work for me. What could it be?

Rita Black : What, you know, what, what can I do? Maybe it’s the time of day I’m coming home. Maybe I need to come home at a different time. But nothing worked. So I was at this for a while and as you can see, it was frustrating, but I stayed curious because I knew I had to find the solution and I knew there was a solution. Cuz I do know that everything, everything, everything, I’ve seen so many weight release journeys, everything is figure-outable. But you have to be committed and you have to have self-love. And this is why at this point in the journey, a lot of people start falling back because if we’ve just been dieting, we haven’t accumulated self-love, we haven’t started to develop self-love, we’re usually still stuck in self-loathing. And using that self-loathing to sort of be the motor of our weight loss.

Rita Black : You know? When I get the weight off, I’ll give myself permission to love myself. Versus by this point, loving ourselves, being our own best inner coach and really being able to having the tools that it takes to work through these problems. So I had become resilient, resilient working on this problem, even though I was still binge eating, I knew I was gonna figure it out and I did. I finally sat down and just thought, okay, it’s really not about the food. It’s really about my mind. What’s going on in my mind? And I realized that when I traveled it was different than my normal life. When I traveled, I had enough time. I’m a type A personality, I’m a list maker. I would make these enormous lists for when I came home. Well, I’ve been away and I’ve got stuff to do.

Rita Black : So let me just write this huge long list of everything that needs to happen when I come home. And it turns out that I was so overwhelmed by that list that I just binge ate as a sort of distraction and comfort because I was super stressed out. And I would binge eat, I would feel bad, and I would take that time of feeling bad to kind of be numb and not think about that list. I would take a nap instead. Or I would say, oh, I will figure out all those things tomorrow. So I recognized that what I was doing was I was not giving myself permission to just come home and relax after being away, but I was coming home and expecting myself to hop into action and to get all these things done. It was overwhelming me. And I was doing these sort of adaptive behaviors, what you would call numbing behaviors in order to cope with the stress that I created for myself.

Rita Black : So I said, aha. So let me try not having a list or making a very, granting myself permission to not get anything done that first day, whatever, whatever time I came home, I had permission to just come home, relax and start working on things the next day. And it’s amazing that once I did that, that need to eat alleviated itself. So I got to a root of the cause and I found the solution, but it took many trial and error to figure it out. But it did. And it helped aid me on finishing, releasing the last of my weight. But can you see how there might be something coming up for you that is a challenge? Maybe you do feel vulnerable when you release weight? A lot of people do. And that can be self sabotaging. And we need to know that we can take care of ourselves.

Rita Black : Maybe when we were smaller and a child we were in danger or something happened to us. Or maybe it’s just that we haven’t ever felt the small and we feel weaker or smaller or we don’t like people paying attention to us in that way. Maybe we feel like they can see right through us, or maybe they, we feel they can see into us or that they’re attracted to us and that puts us off or puts us in this weird place of feeling. Things that we haven’t thought before and I wanna remind you is that when you are on a powerful weight release journey, you are cultivating an inner communication system that recognizes these things and allows you to walk through them instead of running away from them or sabotaging yourself through them. Can you see how it’s different when you respect yourself, when you show up for yourself, when you believe in yourself, that you, these challenges that come up in life aren’t seen as roadblocks, but they’re seen as opportunities to develop yourself more deeply.

Rita Black : Now I’ve been maintaining my weight for 27 years and we’re gonna get into maintenance, which is stage five next. But I do wanna say that things still continue to come up in life that I need to work through. So the idea that we’ve been fed by the dieting industry, that we are going to all of a sudden magically have this path forward through to long-term weight loss without developing ourselves, without overcoming challenges is ridiculous. I mean, when you have a child, when you have a job, you recognize like there are gonna be challenges during the life of your career and that you are gonna go through challenging times. You recognize as a parent you are gonna go through challenging times with this child. Do you want to? No, not of, of course you don’t. But you recognize that it would be silly to believe that it’s gonna be smooth sailing in having a child or in having a career that you value or having any sort of goal that you value.

Rita Black : There are always gonna be challenges that need to be overcome in a hero’s journey. In Hollywood it would be a very boring movie if the hero was never challenged and developed. Heroes get challenged. Heroes develop. They stay resilient and they move through the challenge. Okay? Okay, so now we’re at the maintenance stage. Stage five, we get into maintenance. Hooray, the day has arrived. Now, if we’re in a weight struggle or mindset, we have not built a strong foundation. We have become even more vulnerable because feelings now, all of these feelings come rushing back and we get into what I would call imposter syndrome, struggler identity. We really don’t feel, I’ve seen so many people achieve an ideal weight in a dieting modality. And they don’t feel like they’re thin enough. Oh, I’ve gotta lose more weight. Or they’re just still in that struggler identity.

Rita Black : They have no faith in their ability to keep the weight off because they haven’t focused on developing themselves or skills. They’ve just been focused on being good on a diet. So focused on that diet and not creating a life and a mindset that supports them. They don’t know how to eat normally or live in the real world. And usually the tendency is to fall into those old behaviors with food. Well, I lost the weight, so now I can start eating all those old foods that got me into trouble in the first place. Part of our mind says, you are cured, you can eat whatever. So we start eating our trigger foods. Our brain gets engaged and we start then in that compulsive eating cycle and gaining the weight back. And then we get a really afraid, oh my God, I’m gaining the weight back and I don’t know what to do.

Rita Black : And that stresses us out and even more. And we eat even more and we find ourselves gaining more and more weight back. So, and we don’t know how to get ourselves back on track because we haven’t developed that muscle. We don’t have that inner voice that was built to coach us back on track. So maintenance from a weight mastery standpoint isn’t the end. It is a new chapter that has many milestones within it. It’s a time to acknowledge your journey so far. It’s a time to use the same nine skills you use to release weight now to maintain. And in the beginning, I, you know, it can be scary, I’ll be honest with you. But we still, we have an inner coach, we have that foundation and we get curious about adjusting our eating and exercise to maintain. So it’s an exciting time. It’s a vulnerable time cuz you’ve never been here in this way before.

Rita Black : But it’s an exciting time because you do have the skills, you have everything that you need. And there’s times you just need to be self-assured, okay, yeah, I’ve got this, I can do this. Adjusting the scale, seeing that flat line, that can be shocking for people too. Getting used to getting up every day and just seeing the same weight. So that’s an adjustment in the mind. It can’t just be about the scale and you can see why, you know, one day it’s gonna get to flat line. So you have to diversify. You have to be focused on other things like developing yourself, developing skills and enjoying this life that you’ve created for yourself and feeling more and more confident. And often I encourage people to start developing themselves habits. Go back to school, get interested in things other than weight management. Get another hobby.

Rita Black : We’ve been having the hobby of the dieting for our whole lives. Let’s start cultivating ourselves in and our true interests and getting to really know ourselves as we are releasing the weight. And not wait until we’re at our maintenance weight so that when we get there, we have interests, we’ve developed ourselves and we are actually living our life, finding the right balance, settling into our new identity as a weight maintainer. And you know, it, you don’t ride off into the sunset per se, but this is a chapter about trusting yourself, trusting that you’ve got this. And it takes about a year. And you, and what I mean by that is you go through the various milestones, the holidays, birthdays, the summer traveling, and you then what I would say graduate into that sixth and final stage. So the maintenance stage is what I would call about a year where you’re really adjusting and getting used to things and getting that confidence.

Rita Black : And then finally in the sixth stage, you will go through the milestones as a maintainer, like I said, the holidays, birthday’s in that first year, and they make you stronger and you become more and more confident in living your life at your ideal weight. And then there is this next stage of transformation where you go from being a weight releaser to a weight leader. And what I mean by that is the transformation you underwent, not just with weight, but with your self leading. And you begin to inspire others by becoming your best self, not just on the outside from the inside out. And other people see that transformation. They see, wow, she’s kept her weight off for over a year. What is she doing? And it’s, and maybe they aren’t even interested in weight release, but they’re, they see that journey of transformation and they are inspired by that.

Rita Black : So many of the people that I’ve coached and who’ve gone through and have had that long term weight mastery have developed themselves and gone out into their lives and are leading people in the areas of health or in other areas. They’ve taken on leadership positions, they’ve changed jobs, they’ve just become fearless. And that came not from being good on a diet, but developing themselves and that powerful inner communication. Why do we fear risk? Often it’s not about what others are gonna think, but because we’re gonna beat ourselves up if we fail, right? So because we have a powerful inner coach inside us, even if we try something and it doesn’t go as expected, we are still on our own team. In fact, we applaud ourselves for being courageous. So that’s what I mean. Like former clients who hit their weight mastery years ago go out and do amazing things. Steve, one of our coaches from last year, he’s writing a book about coaching. Janet became a groove instructor. Laura became a health coach. I have clients who have gone out and become healers. I had a client who went to law school at the age of 57. Others ventured out into their lives and started businesses, started a new relationship, got into travel. What would you do if you didn’t have a fear about failure?

Rita Black : So my friends, you can see that the weight mastery journey isn’t just one of deprivation or being good and failing, but it’s one of ultimate transformation, the hero’s journey. And I hope that our little talk today has inspired you to see that you can do this just one step at a time, one stage at a time. And I would love to guide you through the first part of your transformation, those first 30 days where we start to really shift outta the beliefs and habits that have kept you stuck. That inner communication system that gets broken down and decree that powerful inner coach with a vision moving forward, releasing weight at a rate you decide.

Rita Black : The process that we are going on begins May 3rd. So in just a few days, that’s in the year 2023 just in case you’re listening to this five years from now. And this process is online and it’s 30 days long, but it’s led by me. So that means we have coaching sessions every week with me. You get a chance, you can be coached by me. We have a bunch of amazing coaches who have gone through this process. Some of them you’ve heard speak on this podcast. They are going to be in our community Facebook group. They are also at our meetings. It’s a 30-day process everyday. You get hypnosis coaching and meditation and audio that’s in a very easy to use app or online portal or both. Whatever way you choose. We also have some special workshops. We have the kickoff workshop, which is really designed to before you even begin the process, getting you to believe that you can be successful with a hundred percent of yourself.

Rita Black : We have a carb savvy workshop, which really is about transforming your relationship with carbs from one of being owned by them to being empowered and being the boss of them. And then we have a final consistency workshop that is really about your continuing out into your life after the 30 days. Continuing on those journey into the next stage. We also have a 15 day money back guarantee. So if you enroll and then just decide it’s not for you for whatever reason then you can get your money back. Hypnosis is a great way to make changes deep in your subconscious mind. It’s also fun and relaxing and people love, love it. So check it out. There’s a link that gets into a bunch of information and client transformations in the show notes. And if you miss the shift, if it’s past that date, there’s gonna be a link in the show notes so that you can get on a journey to weight mastery anyways.

Rita Black : And if you doubt you can be successful because you have failed too many times or are too old, please check out episode 111 where I prove every one of those theories wrong. It’s so easy to stay in doubt. It seems comfortable, it’s easy to say, I don’t have time, I don’t have the money. Those thoughts own us. It seems like the easy response. But think about if things stayed the same for a month or six more months, or this time next year, you’re staying in that same frustrating cycle. It’s so painful, my friend. I believe in you even if you don’t believe in yourself. And sometimes that’s all we need, is someone holding that space of belief long enough for us to get started. And then that little spark of belief in you grows into a flame. And before you know it, you are setting the world on fire.

Rita Black : No, not arson, but living your best life fully expressed, vital, healthy. So just take that first step, whatever that is for you, and have an amazing week. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door, the wade struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it.

Rita Black : You wanna dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release, head on over to www.shiftweight mastery.com. That’s www.shiftweight mastery.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.