Rita Black: If you had to make three decisions that would change the course of your journey with weight for the better, what would they be? Since we’ve been exploring the decisions of success with weight this month, I wanted to finish it up with the three most important decisions that I had to make. And most successful people who had long-term weight management had to make. There are, of course, hundreds of decisions in a long-term permanent weight mastery journey. But these are the big ones, the bold ones. These decisions you make from within deeply and profoundly with all of your being. You make these three decisions, you will own your weight mastery journey forever. So start by making the key decision to come with me, and let’s get started.

New Speaker: 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? Hello. Hello. Come in. How are you? I need to take a breath. It’s been a month, how about you? Okay, good. Now I can be here and present. Now. I hope everything is aligned in your world and that spring has finally sprung for many of my listeners, those of you in the northern regions, and those of you in the southern parts of the world starting autumn. I hope your autumn is a beautiful season unfolding for you. And the month of May, as you know, is coming up soon, which means the Spring 2024 Shift Weight Mastery Process, which I will be leading, is coming up and it’s currently enrolling. So if you’re listening, as we are dropping this episode anywhere before April 26th, the doors are still open and we have had just such an amazing couple of weeks leading up to enrollment.

Rita Black: And then with the doors opening and it, like I said, it’s been busy. We have so many people signing up for what is gonna be one of our biggest shift weight mastery processes yet, which is really exciting. I only lead this online 30-Day Shift Weight Mastery Process, which is hypnosis based twice a year. And I love doing it a lot. You know, with all of my being however, it is like I give my all so I can only, I limit it to twice a year. So if you are interested or you’re just hearing about it, saying, what is this thing? The link is in the show notes where you can learn all about it. And there are bonuses galore, like our carb savvy workshop and our three hour orientation kickoff. And all of these processes have amazing processes to melt away limiting beliefs around weight and to get you going on your hero’s journey of weight mastery.

Rita Black: So check it out. It’s an online process with an app and a website so you can access the course through your tablet, through your phone, through your desktop or all three if you choose. You get daily hypnosis meditations and coachings for 30 days and all of them build upon each other to break you free from the weight struggle and begin really releasing weight at a rate you decide so that you can have lasting success, but really creating a way of living that you love that allows you to live at your ideal weight, which we’re gonna talk touch upon in this podcast a little bit. But the live shift weight mastery with me part is weekly meetings. So every week we gather and I teach something like night eating or we work through emotional eating and it gives people a chance to ask questions and really dive deep.

Rita Black: And it’s kind of, I like to call it a rocket launch orientation process because it’s really, it is a Kickstarter into your hero’s journey of weight mastery. And that’s coming up on April 27th. Wow. Soon. And all of the meetings are recorded. And I also lead everybody’s favorite carb savvy workshop. Like I said earlier, it’s a bonus which people love, love, love ’cause it’s incredibly eye opening and we have a lot of fun. And as you can tell from the way I’m hopefully being effusive about this is there is magic in doing the live process. I am in the community giving people lots of love. All of my coaches. We have 40 coaches this time giving lots of love and encouragement and answering questions. So most of you may know if you’ve listened to some of the success stories along the way.

Rita Black: We have amazing people who go through this process and get incredible results. Many of our coaches have been through the process and are either near or maintaining their ideal weight, and they are all so generous in the community with their support and guidance. And so check it out, you know, if you’re at all interested I just went on a little tangent there, but you know, just if you want more information or reach out to me if you, you know, get this podcast via email or if you want my emails in the show notes, I believe, just drop me a line if you have questions.

Rita Black: So now without further ado, let’s dive into the three big, big, big decisions that I think are the big kahunas of long-term weight success. Because they are the deep, deep, deep decisions that you have to make from that aligned you you know, I mean that part of you, the two parts of you, the deep part of you. And what I mean by that is the powerful all knowing wise and resourceful you, your inner soul, your intuition, that that part of you, that ancient part. And then the more you, you the one that lives our everyday life, the more externally facing you, the one that pays the bills and goes to movies and brings soup to your kids or your friends who are sick. And, and this part of us is all the, also the wanting part of us who wants to feel more energy or the what part of you that wishes your tomatoes would rip in faster. That’s, that’s me. So I just threw that one in there. And then, and the wanting you who wants to lose weight once and for all, those are the two parts of you.

Rita Black: I mean, there’s many, many parts of you actually. There’s many aspects of you if you’re a student of mine, you already know that. But when it comes to making those big, huge life changing decisions, haven’t you noticed that there are these aspects of you? And I feel like when they are aligned and you make a decision from both parts of them, you not only feel at peace with that decision because, you know, sometimes we get decisional anxiety. We’re like, did I make the right decision? Did I not? Should I do this? Should I not? Should I do that? But when we make that decision from that, those two parts of us, and they’re aligned, you feel a sense of peace with that decision and that decision sticks. Like when you go back, you make that decision like, I’m gonna go back to school, or I’m going to move, I’m gonna move to a new place.

Rita Black: Or Yes, I’m finally gonna go to Paris. I’m finally gonna go after all those years. Right? And that sense of alignment and peace that comes with truly making a decision from all of you. So you say to yourself, should I do this? Should I not? And the parts of align, and it feels like this. Yeah, yeah, we should do this. We’re reverberating throughout your entire being. So these are the kinds of decisions I am talking about, not just the, oh yeah, I should do that, or, Hmm, let you know the impulsive decisions. These are the deep ones. So most of you know I struggled with weight most of my life, you know, for you know, decades. And so some of you know that, and maybe some of you who are new to this podcast don’t, but my first memories were literally of stealing candy from the corner store.

Rita Black: And I wasn’t really good at stealing candy and I really actually wasn’t stealing cause I actually thought it was free. I just kind of, I I just went, you know how you go down that candy aisle and there were all those back in the day, you know, 2 cent candies that would be, you know, the jaw jawbreakers and all those little things wrapped up and they were just kinda loose in these boxes. And I just went and just grabbed them and put them in my pocket thinking, Ooh, cool, this place is really cool. They’ve got a lot of candy. And then I got caught by the store owner and I had to put it all back and it was horrible for, you know, a 4-year-old to have to do that. But that memory of being caught and, and it was you know, it was, it kind of started me on that little journey of like, Hmm, is there something wrong with me?

Rita Black: Am I a sugar criminal? So you get it. I was shoving sugar and carbs in my face early on, and I was surrounded by the stuff because my mom, bless her, was a feeder and she was a really talented feeder. I mean, she cooked good stuff. And so I struggled and then I dieted and then I lost weight, and then I struggled and I dieted and I lost weight and yada, yada yada. On and on, you know, because it’s the same for all of us, for all weight strugglers being good, then being mad, then being good again. So, and I know it gets so boring, it makes you want to cry. And when we’re stuck in that cycle, it’s also really scary because it takes over your mind, your being, your consciousness. It’s not just the weight part, but the obsessions with food, the obsessions with losing weight, the self negative self speak, the whole world is the consuming, scary, frustrating, and boring as all hell world.

Rita Black: And let’s face it, let’s all pause here for a collective scream about how frustrating the whole weight thing is. And you have my permission. When I used to run all day seminars with the shift back in the day, like in the, you know, 2007 when we first gave birth to this process, you know, we would all stop before we went to the first lunch, hold hands and stomp up and down and acknowledge it’s frustrating. And we all screamed. It was very primal and it was really good because, you know, let’s face it, it’s frustrating. And when you’re alone with it, it feels like you are all alone. And it’s only your thing, but it’s universal. So let’s all just take a moment, take a nice deep breath, fill those lungs with air and scream. I’m not gonna scream into the microphone, but ah!

Rita Black: It is so frustrating. It’s so boring. It’s so awful. And now we can collect ourselves. Take a breath and just be here now and shift. So chance to just, I hope you let off all that pent up frustration and let it fly out of you. And if you still haven’t, just take another scream and scream while I’m talking. It’s fine. Just join me in saying it’s frustrating. Okay, great. There, we’ve said it. Now what are we gonna do about it? Well, I remember hitting that point of no return one day, you know, after losing some weight and getting on the scale and the scale was actually down. So this was a weird day because I, you know, was literally getting on the scale. And any other day I would’ve been thrilled and excited that, hey, the scale is down. But instead it was a different type of day because I literally felt like, who cares?

Rita Black: It doesn’t matter. It’s just gonna go up again. You know what I mean? Like, I had hit the end of the road, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t, I just, you know, just sat on the scale and I felt this wall right in front of me and just said, what am I doing? It’s this my life. And I sat down on the scale and I cried. And I literally let out a cry that lasted for a really long time. It’s just like, you know, when you sit down and you let it all out, but like, just really let it all out. All the frustration, all the sadness, all the crying for, you know, the wasted time, hating myself letting my life pass me by where I’m focused only on this one thing. All of those things just crying and crying and crying and I was at my lowest low.

Rita Black: But you know how it is when you know things get so bad. It’s like you touch the bottom of the pool and you all of a sudden start to ascend. Well, in the midst of my letting it all out, I heard a voice and it was that inner me I was talking about just a few minutes ago. And that wise me, the all knowing me, and it just said really clearly, very softly, very wisely, never again. Nope, we are never going to start over again. And the outer me heard that, and that inner me and the outer me together was like, music to my ears. I said, yes, yes, we are never starting over again, and we are never dieting again. And like I said, that decision just reverberated throughout my entire being.

Rita Black: So for me and for most successful long-term weight masters, that there, there comes this kind of a turning point where it’s like, okay, this is where the rubber hits the road. And never again, we’re not, you know, messing around anymore that we just take that sacred vow never to start over again. And maybe it sounds simple, you know, maybe that’s very simple sounding, but it’s not easy because we get so addicted to starting over. In fact, let’s look quickly at why we are addicted to starting over in the first place. Let’s face it, there is a huge upside to starting over, or else you wouldn’t be doing it. One, we get to get out of the discomfort of not being perfect and promise to be perfect tomorrow. That’s a huge win. You know, when we are in that all or nothing good or bad, on or off mode, which we are usually in, when we’re stuck in this weight struggle cycle and we get off track, what usually happens first? Well, that little inner critical voice will come and start kind of beating us up, right?

Rita Black: Saying, oh, you blew it. You got off track. And, and it doesn’t feel good. It’s uncomfortable. We don’t like it. Cause we get a little high from being good. I’ve talked about this a lot in previous episodes. There’s a little being good high that we get kind of stuck on. And so the critic kind of comes around and knocks us off our little, I’m being good pedestal. And then we fall into the depths of being bad. There’s no middle ground. We’ve talked about that. There’s, you know, in the world of the weight struggle, there’s no good, you know, there’s only good, there’s only bad, there’s no middle. And it feels really uncomfortable and weird in the middle. And so what happens is this other part of us, our inner rebel, wants to take us off the hook. That’s very good at taking us off the hook that Andre will say, Hey, you know, don’t worry about it.

Rita Black: We’re gonna start again tomorrow and we promise to be good tomorrow. And that does a number of things. You know, we’re smart people, we’re not dumb. We, we do things that kind of make sense. So, so here we are feeling bad, feeling uncomfortable, feeling not so good inside, yucky inside. And human beings don’t like to feel yucky. We do lots of magical tricks on our head to get out of feeling feelings. And one of them is letting ourselves off the hook and saying, I will be better tomorrow. And what happens is it immediately quiets the negative chatter in our brain. Okay, well, that’s pretty good. And it makes us feel good about ourselves in the moment. Like almost like going to confess confession at church, you know, and being cleansed of our sins. You know, I have to tell you a funny story. Have I told you this story?

Rita Black: I don’t know that I have. I’m gonna tell you, and maybe you can tell me if I’ve told it to you. But on Saturday nights, my dad and I, when I was a kid, like it was a nah, just almost like a pre teenager, my dad and would always say, okay, come on Rita, let’s go to church. You know we were Roman Catholic and my dad is very devout. He was and was trying to be a priest before you met my mom. And so we would walk to church from our house in Seattle to our church in our neighborhood, and we had to walk through a park and we walk. So it was a big father daughter’s thing. And, and we would go to church and he would make me go to confession with him. I we didn’t go to confession together, but, you know, I would go first and I would go in the confessional.

Rita Black: And, you know, for those of you who are not Catholic or have never been in a confessional at, in the time, because this was like the seventies they were these tiny little boxes you literally got in and the priest would move the thing to the side and say, yes, you know tell me about your sons, or whatever. I forgot what he said, but, you know, do you have anything to tell me? And you know, as a kid, I’m just like, okay, well, I didn’t wash the dishes, you know, when my mom asked me to, I, you know, I hit my brother. I, you know, did this. I, I kind of came up with my little list of things and then, you know, you would say, okay, go save five Hail Marys or something. And, and then I would go, so I was literally in and out, like, it was like fast food, you know, like until your confessions leave.

Rita Black: But my dad, he went in and he was literally in there for an hour, and this was weekly. So I was like, what the hell is my dad like an ax murderer? Is he having an affair on my mother? But I, you know, so as a kid, this was very mysterious to me, but I realized, and my mom kind of explained it to me, she said, it’s kind of like dad goes and talks to the priest about life. And I realize that, you know, now looking back, it was therapy for my dad. It was my dad. My, the priest was my dad’s therapist. And I, you know, I think for a lot of people back then when therapy was very voodoo and, and, you know, people didn’t really go to therapy you know, my dad probably needed it. He had been through two major wars, probably had, I know he had PTSD, but, you know, so his whole thing.

Rita Black: But anyway, it was like he would leave that confessional looking so happy and clear, you know? But by the time we were crawling back next Saturday night, you know, he had that dark dark face again. And so it’s kind of like that whole thing of like, you know, we come along and absolve ourselves of our sins, like, we’ll be better tomorrow, and we promise to be good and we’re gonna start the diet over tomorrow. And it’s like, we get this free pass, but, you know it, it has, its, its side effects, right? So, ’cause my dad never felt totally absolved. He never was able to forgive himself. He had to go get forgiveness from the outside. So the cleansing feels really temporary because, you know, again, my dad, he went back every Saturday for just as long, you know what I mean?

Rita Black: So that feeling of letting ourselves off the hook and that bad feeling of, you know, going away, you know, letting that bad feeling going away triggers something else within us. And you all know what I mean, because it gives us the permission to eat, right? So, you know, since I already got off track and I’m gonna be super good tomorrow, then I can eat whatever I want today. And this is also a really big upside. We’ve talked about this little cycle before, but if you’re new to this, it’s just like this is the, this is this piece of the puzzle that gets very addictive because now we’re eating all this, you know, know, carby, sugary, salty, the foods that, that we restricted ourselves from. And the brain sees us as a big pleasure spike. And and then we do all this under the radar eating, which is secretive.

Rita Black: And you know, it has sort of a romance to it until we eat too much and then we feel bad. So all of this little cycle can really have a big upside in the moment. But let’s now look at the downside. It ultimately makes us feel horrible about ourselves. Every time we start over, our subconscious sees, you know, us starting over and it starts reinforcing negative beliefs. Like you can’t stick with it. You have no willpower, you are addicted to food, you are never gonna be successful. And those beliefs stick and become how we see ourselves as a struggler. And we also get in the habit of being good and then being bad, and then being good again. And the cycle has a pattern, and the reward center in our brain responds to it, cue, routine, reward, you know be good, get off track you know, promise to be good, eat a bunch of food.

Rita Black: And there’s a pleasure spike there. There’s a pleasure of letting go of the restriction. There’s a pleasure in eating the, the dopa food, the hedonic food, and, and if, and, and then it feels like a compulsion. We feel driven to do it because the brain is driving us to it, the dopamine center saying, do that, that’s gonna be fun. Do that, that’s gonna be fun. And we, so we get stuck in it. And then we feel like we, it’s the cycles having us rather than us creating the cycle. And if these habits and beliefs aren’t bad enough, we never learn any lessons about how we got into those situations where we got off track. And so we can never make changes and we just feel stuck and hopeless.

Rita Black: Now listen, anything you have mastered in your life, so let’s just take a breath. Anything you have mastered, you haven’t given up on and you haven’t started over, think about your work. You just got better. You made mistakes, you learned, you self-corrected and you improved, or somebody else gave you some feedback. Okay? Thank you very much improved with being a parent, right? Never perfect as a parent, but you do learn to improve view self, correct? You know, being in relationships, any, anything, gardening, you know, this, this year doesn’t look like last year some things I’m better at and some things, wow, I thought I was good at that. And now, you know, it, we’re always looking, observing, correcting as human beings, right? That’s something we’re good at.

Rita Black: So the decision to never start over again, you know, really, really truly not stay in the cycle. Scary what I can hear the perfectionist in you screaming, no, but I can tell you I am a Virgo and that decision brought me a superpower that I never anticipated because I was now a learner, not a dieter. And without knowing it, my decision not to start over, but to start to figure out a way of living that allowed me to live at my ideal weight, put me in this whole new universe, A world where maybe I wasn’t perfect, but I was committed to a path of figuring things out, to being committed, to believing in myself and my ability to improve, committed to longer, no longer being a victim of some diet outside of me.

Rita Black: And let me ask you, where would you like to be six months from now? Still starting over and stuck are on your journey. Free from that old start over pattern that takes away your confidence, that takes away your health, that takes away your life. It’s not only your weight at stake, it’s your freedom. So in the shift, we break that, start over again, cycle with hypnosis, meditation, and by really helping you shift into that different world of not struggling, but mastering your weight, not starting over, but improving and creating a life that supports a slimmer you. So you can stick with it. Shift from that identity of a struggler to not just a learner, but a leader. A leader of yourself.

Rita Black: Which now brings me to the next key decision that we want to make. And that decision is decide to be a leader and not a follower. You’ve probably heard me if you’ve listened to this podcast long enough, talk about the internal locus of control versus the external locus of control. Basically we are either owning and taking responsibility for something, or we’re letting external forces kind of run the day and run us. And I know when I struggled with my weight, I didn’t believe in myself. I was a screw up. I believed in the next diet or the next regime that offered that magical promise I followed. And as a follower, I followed everything hoping I would find the answer somewhere outside of me. It had to come from the outside because it wouldn’t come from the inside because there was nothing going on there as far as I was concerned that I could believe it. And by following, I also became a victim because I gave my power over to diets.

Rita Black: I gave my power over to other people and circumstances outside of me. I kind of lived my life defensively and not offensively, if you know what I mean. I would get out of bed in the morning and my life just happened to me, you know what I mean? So I easily ended up eating the wrong things at the wrong times. The boss brought donuts, yay, breakfast. Oh wait a minute. I would think after scarfing the third glazed donut, I promised I would be healthy today. Oh, well that boss, he brought donuts, it’s his fault. Oh, forgot to bring shoes for the gym. Oh, work was too hard. I’m too tired anyway, oh, my gym is too far away. I’ll think about it tomorrow. I’ll think about it tomorrow. Oh, it’ll be better tomorrow. And I blame so many things for my weight issues. I blame my parents for giving me my body that wanted to gain weight if I looked at a piece of cake.

Rita Black: I blamed my upbringing for immersing me in bad habits and addictions to food. I blamed my friends who always wanted to eat and drink at the wrong places and they were skinny. So that was so, so unfair. Why did they get to have a good time? And I didn’t. I blamed the city I lived in, if you can believe it, for having amazing looking food at every corner and on billboards. And yes, I did consider locking myself away in an nunnery. However, the nunnery would probably make fruitcake or fudge and then I would just be a victim of that, right? So you get the drift. Pour me, pour me, pour me another milkshake. I was a victim of my weight struggler life and I was a follower of whatever diet fantasy took me away to my fantasy of losing 20 pounds a week and waking up one day with long skinny legs without thighs, with shelves that you could rest a drink on.

Rita Black: So the decision not to start over tomorrow cultivated another decision. I told you they kind of piggyback on each other, these decisions, you know, decide not to start over via a leader, not a follower. Third one’s coming up. The decision was not only to cultivate the learner in me, but also the leader in me. And this decision started to give me not only the confidence I needed, but I started to cultivate that inner voice in me. What we learn about and focus on in the shift weight mastery process, what we call in shift, is our inner coach who becomes our inner leader, our inner guide on our journey of weight mastery. So when I decided to be a leader, I had to do some hard looking in the mirror. You know, leaders aren’t snowflakes, they don’t melt when it gets tough. They take responsibility for everything.

Rita Black: And so slowly I did. I took responsibility and ownership for my body and its shape and how I fed it and how I exercised it. I took ownership and responsibility for my life and living it and not it living me like I had been. I even took responsibility for the way people supported or didn’t support me. It was all in my court. And so that put me in the game of my own life. It was like the lights on the Christmas tree in times Square, Christmas time being turned on. I see the light, I get it. I actually forgave my parents and my friends and my work. They were not to blame for my weight struggles, even my poor body. I forgave my poor body. It didn’t decide to be that shape. I could decide I hate it or I could decide to love it down the scale.

Rita Black: The choice was mine. I had to take that responsibility. I could decide to take ownership and to accept what I got from life and work with it. Instead of working against it. I could ask for support from my friends and my family because it wasn’t their job to fix me or read my mind or needs. I had to retrain them how to treat me. And I had to mainly start getting support from myself. When we take ownership for ourselves and begin to lead ourselves for every aspect of our weight journey, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s hard, but it gives you the ability to be rooted in reality. It gives you enlightenment. When I blamed my parents and my job and my friends and my husband, and my city, I didn’t learn anything. I just felt resentment and powerless a victim. When I took responsibility, I began to see that I could change what I could ask for, what I could create that was different.

Rita Black: I stopped living in the world of deprivation and started living in the world of transformation. I was responsible for each step I took. And so I began really creating my life and setting myself up for success within it rather than living defensively and hoping the day would turn out for me. And that someday, someday soon, it would all get easier and I would wake up and be perfect and be able to diet forever and be perfect on that diet. It doesn’t work like that. We have to take ownership, love ourselves down the scale. Does this make sense? In the shift we focus on cultivating ourselves as leaders by focusing on cultivating the nine skills of weight mastery, which are gleaned from the behaviors and habits of people who have taken off weight for good through many studies. Listen, you either have a plan or the world has one for you and it’s not a slimming one.

Rita Black: Let’s face it, ladies and gentlemen, that you, you, yes my friend, you don’t look to the left or right for somebody else. This I’m talking to you. You are a powerful leader. Take that in. You are. There are parts of your life where you lead yourself well and look at those parts and ask yourself, how can I apply this to my weight journey? I think it begins with inner communication and not giving up in the moment, but guiding yourself through those tough moments and learning from them. And that is how progress happens. And that is why we really develop that inner coach within you during the shift weight mastery process. This unleashes your power. Students are surprised about how much of a difference this one shift makes in such a short time. They have energy and enthusiasm they hadn’t felt in years all because they took their power back and started leading themselves.

Rita Black: And guess what? They get to see that they’re really great leaders when they shift their minds and they’re capable, they’re very capable of guiding themselves through those moments that don’t look so great. And learning the lesson on the other side, this is such an enlightenment. It just builds consistency and resilience like you wouldn’t believe. Look, I know it may sound scary to take responsibility and lead yourself being a victim and a follower can be seductive easy. You may be thinking, but there’s such a huge price. You stay small, you hide your light. And we get haunted every day by beliefs that keep us in a stifling world that seems real. Knowing there is more for us out there. And you are right there is, I remember hearing a speaker saying once, if you are waking up in the morning to that nagging sensation that there has got to be more to my life.

Rita Black: You are right there probably is. That really got me. This is the key. You are the magic bullet you were looking for. Not some pill, not some shot, not some diet outside of you. You transform your mind and how you communicate with yourself as a leader and not a follower. And you’ll rock your world like you have never seen it rocked before. Okay? Okay, now last but not least, the last decision. Let’s review, just to recap. One, we’re never gonna start over, right? And two, we are gonna be a powerful leader and not a follower. So what is the third? Well, you know, I released 40 pounds and have kept it off for 28 years. My maintenance will soon be turning 30. I was thinking about that the other day. I was like, Hmm, should I throw a 30th birthday party before my maintenance?

Rita Black: My maintenance is beginning to feel a little old. She’s seeing the wrinkles under her eyes. Wow. Okay. But seriously, when I was thinking about doing this podcast, I was actually, I had the last decision first. Like I had had this decision, I’m gonna just about to tell you I had it first because I thought I should say it first. But I realized it had to come last because it just piggybacks on top of the first two. And it was actually the third decision that I made. And that puts three decisions all into play deeply and profoundly in my life. And this decision happened in one of those moments when I was just down the scale around 10 pounds on my journey of weight mastery. And I was still a little focusing on just the weight part of it, okay? Being honest. And I was starting to feel those familiar feelings begin to creep up.

Rita Black: You know, I was not dieting, I was not starting over again, but I was beginning to feel those like kind of like being a little mm, just, you know, fixated on things. And I see it sometimes in my students because the weight process is a process. It’s an unlayering. It’s not just about weight, but it’s an un layering of you. So because I now had an inner coach and I asked myself when I was feeling a little vulnerable about the scale and focusing on the weight, I said to myself, is the you living her life at her ideal weight going to be focusing on her weight or on her life? And that got me thinking about my life because my life had become so small as a weight struggler because I was so focused on weight. We all joke in the shift about how our weight is the number one hobby, but, but underneath most jokes are pain and it’s a painful truth.

Rita Black: And that got me thinking about my life at that moment, you know, 10 pounds down the scale. And I thought about the me who would be living my life 40 pounds down the scale long-term. And that me would’ve figured some things out about how to set myself up for success, how to feed and move myself in a way that I loved, that allowed me to live my life at my ideal weight long term. So that maintaining my ideal weight wasn’t what I was doing and being all obsessed about, but it was who I was being and who I was being had a life behind, you know, beyond the scale as well. So I made the decision right there that I was changing my life, not my weight. And from that point, things became more of a discovery, figuring out who that ideal weight me was and cultivating a life that would support that ideal weight me.

Rita Black: And that meant getting really curious about what foods worked best for me and which foods didn’t work so I could really enjoy and own what I ate and never feel deprived. And I figured out ways of moving that I loved, like hiking and biking that didn’t feel like chores or that had to do it that I love to do. And I will tell you, three weeks ago I went to a dance class and there were only 20 and 30 year olds. And I’m turning 60 years this year. And I kept up with those youngins and I was not great. I’ll be honest. ’cause I hadn’t been to a dance class like that, like where they taught you choreography and all of that stuff in a long time. But I, and so, and it was a blast. It really, really was a blast. So when we’re focusing on dieting to get to our ideal weight, there are so many things wrong, but the two main th main things are we’re focused on a diet.

Rita Black: So we have no confidence in staying at our ideal weight because we’ve just focused on a diet. We have learned nothing other than adhering to the diet. And when we fall off the diet or the plan or the regime, let’s face it, or the medication let’s face it, when you diet, you don’t change how you think. You just follow the plan. And the other thing is that you still are not enough. You still are not enough. That is right. When we try to lose weight from a place of I hate myself and I gotta lose weight in order to love myself, what happens is we get to our ideal weight and sadly we still dunno how to love ourselves. And often the pressure of what we expect we should now be that we are thin is so great that part of us freaks out and we subconsciously begin gaining weight back.

Rita Black: When you focus on changing your life to support you and your weight, you begin living your life now and setting yourself up for success now and loving yourself down the scale now so that when you get to that ideal weight, you have both the mindset and the life to support it. And so weight management isn’t something you do, but it’s baked in to who you are, deep into your subconscious. So not only can you maintain your weight, but you’ve also had the time to develop the other parts of you. I see students go back to school, become coaches, make bold moves like moving across the world or writing a book or taking on new fabulous chapters in their life because they have created the space in their heads and their hearts with a life that supports them and an inner coach who believes in them and encourages them along the way.

Rita Black: So do yourself a favor. Don’t start over, be a leader and start changing your life, not your weight. And the weight will follow. And join me for the upcoming Spring Weight Mastery Process. I would love for you to be in this with me. The link and all the details are in the show notes. And if you’re already signed up, I’m so excited I will see you there. And if you’re listening to this past the due date, you know, past April 27th or 26th, 2024, check out the show notes. Anyway, there’s always a way to begin your journey today waiting for you there. So I’m not gonna say anymore, just do it. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a wonderful part of our community. I’m so excited about this upcoming shift. I hope you will join me and have a great week. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door of the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it. I will see you all here next week.

Rita Black: You wanna dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release, head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com. That’s www.shiftweightmastery.com, where you’ll find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release tips, strategies, and more. And be sure to check the show notes to learn more about my book From Fat to Thin Thinking. Unlock Your Mind for Permanent Weight Loss.