Rita Black: As we head into the last days of the summer and into the fall, and soon the holiday season, we are gonna be faced with many social situations. In last week’s then thinking episode, I walked you through a very strategic step-by-step plan on how to prepare mentally for any social event. Now, in this week’s episode, we dive into the event itself as I give you three very powerful tools to help manage stress and overwhelm, stop those impulsive desires to overindulge in their tracks, as well as how to easily get yourself to get back on track before heading off into the land of what the hell eating if you overindulged, and then of course, what the hell overindulging and then suffering the next day and also on the scale. So join us today, no need to RSVP. The party has started and we are waiting for you. So come on in.

Rita Black: Did you know that our struggle with wave 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. Sound good? Let’s get started.

Rita Black: Hey there friends. Welcome and come to the party. Come on in, make yourself at home. God, I love to entertain. I really do. I do not know why. Probably ’cause my parents never ever threw a party. So when I left home, I definitely wanted to learn to have a party and to party and to go to parties. My roommate and I in college and my best friend hosted super fun parties at college. She was southern, and I think I’ve told you about her before if you’ve listened to this podcast. And she was already a partier. So when I became her roommate, the first thing I noticed was she had her desk turned to the hall door. And I was like, and she had a thing of gin, just a little thing of gin. She was a very dainty and very southern, she had a southern accent. She was from Nashville. She was like, you know, she went to an all girls Catholic school. She was like, she was like, well, I just wanna be prepared for when people come by.

Rita Black: And so the door was always open, people would always be dropping in. She arranged all these, you know, stupid dorm chairs into sort of like a social seti, front porch arena. And I don’t think I ever got any homework done in that room. I always had to leave. But anyway, she knew how to throw a party, I’ll tell you. And so I learned from her. And I remember one of our first parties was this southern bohemian party, and we went to a friend’s apartment because we were in a dorm. And this was the eighties we were living in Greenwich Village, which was super fun. And it still felt like the beats were there even though the beatnik poets were long gone. But we made we went to a friend’s apartment and made all of this comfort southern food, like Creole and jambalaya and a bunch of stuff.

Rita Black: And then we brought it back to our dorm rooms and we had a party and we made all of our friends recite beatnik poetry. And then another fun party I just remember is my, well, second year my husband and I lived in London the first year we ate Kentucky Fried Chicken on Thanksgiving because we didn’t have any friends and we, you know, didn’t know what to do. But, and there was a Kentucky Fried chicken, ironically on the high street near where our flat was. But no, my husband and I had a big Thanksgiving bash for our British friends, and we all dressed up like pilgrims and reenacted landing on Plymouth Rock. That was super fun too. So I’ve hosted many parties many times and I overate and over drank and regretted and my behavior. And because of course I was always trying to lose weight.

Rita Black: So when I shifted almost 30 years ago now and released 40 pounds I didn’t stop throwing parties, but I shifted who I was as a hostess and as a party goer, you don’t need to stop enjoying being social when you release weight. In fact, I love far more being what I like to call social light rather than the old ways I connect with people way more, you know, and have more fun. I’m more myself and I wake up the day feeling clearheaded and light and, you know, I get on the scale and I’m still the same weight I was when I released 40 pounds all that time ago. Well maybe it goes up a little bit because of the eating salt or something, but you know, it’s, the scale isn’t going up. But I’ve heard from so many of you that you would like to find that same blend of being out in the world able to be social, but still being able to manage your weight.

Rita Black: So last week I got into some preparation ideas and today I wanna dive into three party techniques that I think you will find really helpful. Now, all of this info and more you will find in my new online hypnosis based social eating mastery program called the Social Light Toolkit. And I just wanted to create a comprehensive online program with an app that you can access really easily and learn how to be social light. So you can use the powerful mindset tools before social events to prepare anytime, anywhere, like I said last week, whether it’s cocktails with a friend or a big fat Greek wedding or office party or just, you know, dinner with the neighbors. The social light toolkit has you covered with hypnosis, meditation, coaching sessions, a little huddle for right before you go to any event and all of your social eating and drinking needs.

Rita Black: And like I said, I put a lot of coaching in there. There’s many coaching sessions in there. One for being sociallight for before the event, during the event, after the party, because some of us, let’s face it, post eat after parties. And that does us in there’s hypnosis sessions including one for, you know, mindful drinking, slower drinking, drinking less, yes, drinking less. There’s a preparation mental meditation that prepares you, oh gosh, there’s just so much in here and it’s a party in and of itself. So and only for four more days there is a huge, huge discount. ’cause like I said, this is its premier. It’s the social like toolkits per world premier. So I’ve discounted it a lot. And then there’s an even bigger discount, more than 50% off when you bundle the socialite toolkit with the emotional eating toolkit, which is another handy dandy toolkit for all of your breaking free from emotional eating mastery needs, hypnosis and coaching and cognitive coaching. So check out the show notes, just, you know, there’s lots of info for you to explore and see what exactly is in this thing. Well, it’s all there in the show notes in the link.

Rita Black: So today I’m sharing tidbits from my mastering social eating coaching session. So this is for when you’re at the party. There are three that I think you’ll find incredibly helpful. The first one is called the escape hatch, and it’s gonna help you stay out of stress and overwhelm and stay centered and aligned with your goals. So let’s have a listen.

Rita Black: I want to introduce you to another tool that I use all the time in social situations, as do many weight masters in social situations. This tool is called the Escape Hatch. When we are just living our normal lives in this digital world, our poor brain has so much stimulation that cognitive studies have shown that every couple of hours our mind needs a brain break in order to function well and not become overwrought and begin to get overstressed and irritated. And that’s on a normal day. So think about all that stimulation at a party and our poor whacked out brain is being lit up like a Christmas tree. This is one of the reasons, probably the biggest one that drives us to overeat or overdrink as an attempt to numb ourselves and bring ourselves down. This can be the root cause of much of our overindulging habits. So how can we bring ourselves down in other ways? The old escape hatch, my friend, where you ask Rita, is an escape hatch in the middle of a crowded party. One of my favorite places is a bathroom or bathroom stall. Why? It’s quiet. It’s far from the maddening crowd and music. You can sit, take a deep social light breath and just be with yourself and your thoughts even if you don’t have to use the bathroom.

Rita Black: So often in social situations, we go into external with the focus outside of ourselves, and then it becomes easy to be mindless with our eating or drinking. But just imagine coming into a quiet place like the bathroom or a bedroom where the coats are being kept or even stepping outside to get some fresh air brings you back to center. This allows you to think things through. Ah, can you feel it? All those buzzing brain cells starting to slow down, calm down, taking some socialite breaths there and connect. You are now back in your body in yourself with your healthy intentions and have the brain space to think your strategy through. Okay, well I hope you got in your social hatch and got centered.

Rita Black: So now the next tool is an NLP tool neurolinguistic programming tool called Future Pacing. And I’m gonna show you how to use it at a party to steer clear of bad choices. So let’s dig into that. Okay, now here’s another socialite tool that can help you in those more impulsive social moments. And this tool is called future pacing. There are many moments in social events where the promise of the immediate gratification of the moment far outweighs the consequences that we’ll feel in a few minutes, a few hours or tomorrow morning, the yummy appetizer being waved in front of you, the tantalizing cocktail bar with the array of choices and it’s all free. The bread the host baked from scratch and is just bringing out of the oven dessert trays filled with your favorites.

Rita Black: So how do we avoid being pulled into the impulsiveness of the moment and stay true to our vision and socialite selves? How do we leverage the dopamine raging in our reward center driving the desire to be happy, AKA drink or eat the thing? But here is the thing, dopamine makes us pursue happiness, but it doesn’t make us happy. In fact, usually a few moments after we indulge and give into our desire, we feel regret and it all begins to rush in. So we can now borrow a tool from neurolinguistic programming NLP, which helps our mind filter reality in a more powerful way. This tool is called Future Pacing. Maybe you’ve heard of it or used it in other ways in your life. This is how we social lighters use it in a very helpful way. Check this out in a very tempting moment, there’s always a tale of two futures.

Rita Black: And if you take a socialite breath in that moment and pause, you can literally beam yourself out into each future scenario for a moment. One, the future where you gave into the impulse. And two, the future where you abstained from the impulse and feel what the impact of your current choice would feel like and allow the future to help you make the healthier and more aligned decision with your weight goals right here in the present. So let’s imagine a decadent slice of chocolate cake is being waved under your nose and every fiber of your being says, I must have that take a light breath and pause, just allowing that moment to stretch out and buy you time. And now imagine, let’s go out into the future how you’re gonna feel an hour after eating that piece of cake. Of course, your reward brain right now is screaming, this looks so good and yummy.

Rita Black: But the non reward brain in its wisdom knows that after you eat that cake comes a blood sugar spike, and then a crash and a feeling of regret and feeling bloated. So time travel out there to that future, imagining that feeling. I can certainly remember that feeling my friend, and I’m sure you can too. And what you’re doing is using your feeling brain, the limbic brain, the brain of feeling of ugh and regret and sugar coma to counterbalance the reward center’s impulsive idea that that big hunk of sugar, flour, and fat are a good idea for your future self. So when you leverage your feeling brain in this way, it will help the impulsive brain calm down and curb its enthusiasm, so to speak, so that the making the healthier decision choice becomes so much easier. So now let’s take that decision to indulge in that chocolate cake a bit further.

Rita Black: Take yourself further into the future to tomorrow and how you will feel in the morning. Oh, why did I eat that cake and all that other stuff. Ugh, not so appealing now. And now let’s time travel back, back to the present moment. Okay, now let’s go into a different and more socialite future. What if you said no thank you to that big hunk of cake? You said it looks amazing, but I’m full. And you pass it right on by. How will you feel leaving the event light and aligned with yourself? How will you feel waking up tomorrow feeling good and light? You can use your future feelings to help you decide what future you want to create. Remember, you’re not a victim, you are a creator. You are social light and you future pace. All right, I hope you headed out into your futures and came back and feel good about the choices you made.

Rita Black: So lastly, I want to share going soft with yourself, huh? What do you mean Rita? Well, just you listen and you’ll find out. All right, so now what happens when the plan goes south, when we eat something or overdrink something, there will probably be a strong urge within you to say, well, I blew it, so what the hell? Yep, what the hell is a thing? In fact, there is a thing called the what the hell effect. And it was first coined by dieting researchers, Janet Pvi and Peter Herman. The what the hell effect describes a cycle of indulgence, regret, and greater indulgence. These researchers noticed that many dieters would feel so bad about any lapse, a piece of pizza, a bite of cake that they felt as if their whole diet was blown. Instead of minimizing the harm by not taking another bite, they would say, well, what the hell?

Rita Black: I already blew my diet. I might as well eat the whole thing and then proceed to eat the whole thing. So you, my social light friend, are not gonna fall into the what the hell effect instead of falling into this trap, which I’m sure you’re very familiar with because it’s very easy to go in with good intentions, eat something you didn’t mean to, and then that part of you feels, oh gosh, now I feel bad. That inner critic gets very loud, you blew it. We don’t feel good about ourselves and we’ll let ourselves off the hook by saying, I will start again tomorrow. I will be good tomorrow. But tonight, then everything is party’s on, right? So what we wanna do instead is what I would call going soft on yourself, and it’s an acronym, SOFT. And I’m gonna walk you through this.

Rita Black: It’s really simple but very powerful. So first s means stop the critic. So typically when we go past what we thought in our brain, like our plans typically when we go past what we plan to do, like the what the hell effect gets kicked in. And that critical voice in our head is, is telling us that we blew it, screaming, you blew it, you blew it. We don’t feel good. So we wanna acknowledge the critic and just say, Hey, got it. That’s your opinion. I blew it. I had one drink too many. I ate the piece of cake. Your world is not lost. We want to prevent further damage. So just thank that critic and tell that critic, Hey, there’s a nice closet over there in the back of my brain. Why don’t you go take a nap? You’ve done a great job and shut the door.

Rita Black: So just start to recognize those critical thoughts that do lead to feelings that ultimately lead to actions you don’t want to take. So thank your critic very much for sharing. And then say, 99, next is the and you wanna own what happened. The more you take responsibility and just ownership of what it was without criticism, but with compassion and just acknowledging I ate that piece of cake, I didn’t mean to, I had three more drinks that I anticipated. It begins to give you self-respect because when we hide it under the carpet like we usually do then there’s always a part of us that knows, hey, yeah, hid that under the carpet and just moved on. And there’s a disconnect from yourself there. So owning it con keeps you connected to yourself. And as long as you aren’t taking yourself into shame and blame about it, but rather just looking at it squarely in the eyes, I there’s a learning moment to be had.

Rita Black: But we’re not quite there to learning yet. We’re just acknowledging, Hey, I drank five beers too many, I ate three pieces of pizza when I only intended on eating one. And it brings you back into your rational mind out of the emotional mind. The third step is to forgive yourself, and there’s more to say about that. Third, you wanna forgive yourself. Now, I am gonna read from the Willpower Instinct, just a quick passage by Kelly McGonigal, surprisingly is forgiveness, not guilt that increases accountability. Researchers have found that taking a self-compassionate point of view on a personal failure makes people more likely to take personal responsibility for the failure than when they take that self-critical point of view. They also are more willing to receive feedback and advice from others and more likely to learn from the experience. One reason forgiveness helps people recover from mistakes is that it takes away the shame and pain of thinking about what happened.

Rita Black: The what the hell effect is an attempt to escape the bad feelings that follow a setback without the guilt and self-criticism, there’s nothing to escape. This means it’s easier to reflect on how the failure happened and less tempting to repeat it. Alright? So even though it may seem silly or crazy to forgive yourself, especially in the middle of the party and after you’ve had a few more drinks or eaten your way through the plate of crackers and cheese by forgiving yourself again, our our purpose is to stay connected and aligned with ourself. Even if we are off track with our goal, now we can reconnect and step four, take our next, next healthy step forward and make a plan. So drink some water eat some protein if you’ve been eating carbs or drinking. So drink water, eat protein, and work this through away from the crowd.

Rita Black: Again, go to an escape hatch and think, okay what is my plan now to work backwards from leaving here tonight? Still feeling connected to myself. I not, I might not feel go feeling light, but I want to leave feeling connected. Maybe I just wanna stabilize myself, drink some water, call it quits as far as eating or drinking. And you know, have a couple more conversations and leave. Maybe what you did didn’t take you too far off track so you can just get back on track and make some adjustments in your mind about your plans and your boundaries and keep moving forward. So I’m gonna repeat this, but you wanna stop the critic s own what happened? O forgive yourself. And then take the next healthy step soft, okay? And like I said, it may help to find an escape hatch.

Rita Black: Go to the bathroom, go for a walk, talk it through with somebody at the party, maybe a supportive friend or text with somebody who isn’t at the party. This is a learning curve. Everything you learn is a win. So if the three pieces of garlic bread caused you to learn something that will help you make better choices in the future, they may be the most slimming pieces of garlic bread that you’ve ever had. So, bless it. Learn the lesson and move on. All right, well I hope you use these tools. Really, I use them all the time. Honest, you know, girl Scouts honor and they’re really helpful for you. I hope they’re helpful for you. And if you wanna dive in and check out what is on offer in that social light hypnosis based toolkit, that’s an online resource center that you can access through an app on your desktop, on your tablet, very user friendly, just click it, opens up your coaching, or you click and it opens up your hypnosis session or your coaching session that you’re gonna listen to in the car on your way to the event.

Rita Black: Just check out all that goodness in the show notes and again, big discounts, check it out. And then there’s a bundle with the emotional eating toolkit, but it’s all in there, so you just check that out. And so now have an amazing week. Thank you for letting me indulge you in the party world my party world, and I really appreciate you and have a great week. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door of the weight struggle, it’s inside you. So keep listening and find it. You will find me here next week. Thanks for listening to The Thin Thinking Podcast.

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