Rita Black: If you’ve ever started the year full of hope, only to find yourself back in the same cycle of diets, slipups, and frustration, this episode is for you. When I struggled with weight, I know for me every year, I dreaded January because I know I not only was going to have to be super restrictive to make up for all of my overindulging during the holidays, but I also knew in the back of my mind I was more than likely going to fail. I didn’t really have the faith in myself or the drive to see it all the way through. So in part two of our series of three sessions called Weight Loss Resilience Training, building Mental Strength to Reach Your Goal, we’re diving into the next key to long-term success commitment. Last episode, we explored how building confidence helps you believe in your ability to change. And today, we are taking it a step further because commitment is what keeps you moving forward. When life gets tough, it’s the anchor that helps you stay strong, steady, and resilient, no matter what obstacles come your way. Here’s the truth. Chasing quick fixes and starting over again and again keeps you powerless. But shifting from starting to truly committing to your weight release journey changes everything. It’s a mindset shift that builds resilience, strengthens your focus, and sets you up for success that lasts. So if you’re ready to break the weight cycle and step into the new year with clarity and purpose, come on into this empowering episode of Thin Thinking. Let’s do this.

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, my friends. I hope you are staying healthy and resilient. Today is part two of my three part Resilience Training designed to help you become more resilient in those moments where we typically give up or give in. And instead of giving up or giving in, we’re getting some gumption and sticking with ourselves so that we can begin and continue moving forward towards weight mastery. And to add to all of this goodness, this series is being sponsored by my free masterclass called How to Stop the Start Over Weight Struggle Cycle and Begin Releasing Weight for Good. Now, you’re gonna love this masterclass because I get very specific. Here’s the thing. There are very specific subconscious mental roadblocks that keep us struggling with weight and very specific mind shifts that you can make to break that start over cycle. We’re even gonna do some weight loss hypnosis in this masterclass, this class couples perfectly to the Weight Release Resilience series to get you going into the new year ready to be consistent and persistent with weight loss. So sign up in the show notes if you haven’t yet. What are you waiting for?

Rita Black: Now, in our first episode of the Weight Loss Resilience series, we focused on, there’s such a big mouthful, weight Loss Resilience Series, but in the first episode, we focused on the importance of building confidence, the first of the three resilience building tools, because in those moments when we are tempted or tired and wanna give up on our weight release, it helps to have that inner motivator with that powerful inner roadmap to whisper in your ear, you can do this, keep going. That’s the part of us that believes in us and sees the weight master. We are becoming so clearly that we keep going because we usually have that inner critic that will say, you blew it like you always do. And of course, you know that inner rebel that’s like you can just start over again tomorrow, you’ll be perfect next time, right?

Rita Black: So if you miss the confidence building episode, please go and have a listen later. But now let’s move on to the next resilience builder, commitment. So let me ask you this. Where in your life currently are you resilient? I mean, what parts of your life do you really stick with things even when they are tough? Because I know you probably have a few if you have children, you certainly have to stick with having children. You can’t give them back to the hospital, right? So we have to breathe through those moments as parents and just, they’re very imperfect moments. Many times as parents, right? We don’t know what the hell we’re doing half the time, but we keep going. You know, perfection isn’t an option when you are a parent. Same with work. You know, we all go and work at a job and there’s, you know, often where we feel like we’re not doing it right or, you know, if I do it wrong and we get fired but we keep going.

Rita Black: You know we just do. We don’t pick our purse up on Wednesday. If things go wrong and say, you know, I’ll start again on Monday, hopefully that will be better. Or if we’re in a relationship or even a friendship or a marriage, it being in a relationship, it often doesn’t look perfect, does it? What about school? You know, at school when you’re studying, often that doesn’t look perfect, or when you’re taking care of parents, right? That often is fraught with imperfection or maybe a hobby like gardening or knitting. We make mistakes. Things don’t go well, but we don’t give up. In fact, we dig deeper. I, you know, I can quote, I can tell you about, you know, I recently, I’ve been fantasizing in my garden about getting these new planter boxes or you know, for lettuce there’s this patch of garden that, or patch of backyard in my house that I’m like, oh, these planter boxes will look great there that are, there’s parts of our backyard that we haven’t changed in 30 years and they desperately need changing.

Rita Black: So I said, let’s get these planter boxes in and we will everything up, you know, we’ll have a backyard we can be proud of. So we get these planter boxes. Finally, you know, we save up a little, we get them we, we put them, my husband builds ’em. We stain them. They’re there and they look pretty good. They look great. And we plant some seeds in the planter boxes, and the seeds grow, but they’re not thriving, right? The seeds are still pretty small because they’re not getting enough sun. Now, I had looked at the sun to a certain degree, I was like, oh, it will grow there. No, it’s not growing there. So I can tell right now I’m that this is not gonna work out but I, you know, I, so I’m learning a lesson about the micro climates of my garden.

Rita Black: So, you know, I’m not giving up on the planter boxes, but I might need to make adjustments and move the planter boxes maybe to a different part of the backyard where they get a little more sun. So, but in the meantime, I am learning to really watch the sunlight and where it falls at all the different hours of the day. You know, and from the pain of it not working out with my plantar boxes, I was forced to really learn this lesson that is really gonna serve me anyway. I’d already started observing the sun to a certain degree, but I’ve learned that there’s winter, sun, summer, sun, different times because of the time changes. So, and, and as a gardener, you have to actually really start to be aware of these things if you are going to be not kill things or, you know, have your garden thrive.

Rita Black: So every, you know, I’m always brought to my knees by gardening. I, you know, I’d love to be great at it. I’m not, but I’m, you know, slowly working towards that. So, and you know, there was was a time I would just plant a plant. It would die, and I would plant the same plant in the same place the next year thinking, well, maybe this year it’s gonna be better, but, you know, it died too. So with diets, I feel like we’re keeping on planning the same plant in the bad soil, in the bad climate over and over again. Now, with, with building confidence like we worked on in the first part we have the right soil, right? We have a belief in ourself, and in those moments or days or weeks that don’t look so good on our weight release journey, we, we start, we are believing in ourself.

Rita Black: We have that inner coach that voice of the inner coach. So we don’t give up because it’s in those moments, days, weeks, that we usually give up. That is the problem with getting consistent weight loss, not the diet. And not us either, but our weight struggle, beliefs and habits let us down. We believe we’re a failure. So we give up and start over. And we have developed the habit of doing so. So now it’s automatic in the moment. It feels easier. I mean, you know, let’s face it, it’s easier to give up because that’s what we are used to doing, and there’s a tension to give up. We’ve gotten in the habit and the dopamine center in our brain creates a tension that’s like, you should do that. You should give up, you should give up, you should give up. You should start over tomorrow.

Rita Black: You should start over tomorrow. There’s a tension that builds up that comes from the expectation in the brain that you’re gonna give up and it should happen. But instead of, you know, giving in you know, it’s easy to give up and, but unfortunately, after a few minutes of easy, we have a lifetime of hard, right? Thinking about it all the time, feeling bad about ourselves, feeling bad in our body, and beating ourselves up, right? So ultimately, giving up, giving in and having it be easy for those few minutes is replaced immediately by being hard, being in the struggle, feeling bad about ourselves. So confidence gives us the new belief to stick with ourselves and know that we can solve the problem.

Rita Black: Now, today, we’re focusing on commitment, which is like the sunshine. So the, the confidence is the soil. And commitment is the sunshine in the garden. It illuminates the path forward into continued weight mastery, because when we struggle, we see only darkness. The mistake we see, only the mistake we see, the only option we have is to start over, find that diet outside of us. What’s gonna work next? The diet’s gonna be the magic that’s finally gonna be the answer. We’re always looking outside of ourselves. And you know, as you do that, we could spend years, decades, even a lifetime doing this because the answer isn’t going to be outside of you. The answer is inside of you, and you must develop it. But until you stop looking on the outside, you’re gonna keep looking on the outside of you for a really long time. So let’s stop doing that and move inside. So we committed in the last episode to your believing in yourself and building that first piece of resilience, confidence.

Rita Black: And now we’re gonna focus on committing to the path of your developing yourself as a weight master. So first of all, the fact that you might not feel resilient or the fact that I’m talking about resilience is it’s not your fault that you’re not resilient. It really is the weird diet industry because it promotes this idea, this easy one and done do this thing on the outside of you, get it right, you get the prize. But it’s kind of like, you know, when you go to a state fair or a county fair, and they’ve got that like duck game, you know, where you have the shotgun and you’re shooting the ducks and you get one every once in a while, you pay a lot of money, but you get one once every while and you, and you get that prize after spending all your money and you’re like, what the hell do I do with this big panda bear?

Rita Black: You know, you, you get it. You want it, you’re attached to it, but then, you know, what the hell do you do with the big panda bear? So a lot of times people get to their ideal weight, they go on the diet, you know, they shoot the right duck, they get the prize, they get to their ideal weight, but then they don’t know how to sustain it. They don’t even know what to do with it. Sometimes they’re freaked out because they feel vulnerable, and people are saying, Hey, you lost all this weight, and it freaks them out. And it’s kind of almost even imposter syndrome, right? So we start gaining it back. And so we really, really, really gotta look at the fact that weight mastery is in a quick fix, and it isn’t about the prize. You know, it’s a journey, and it starts with a commitment to building yourself from the inside out so that when you reach your ideal weight, you have developed yourself and your life into this person who can sustain it over time.

Rita Black: So when I was struggling with my weight up and down the scale of 40 pounds over and over again, weight, losing weight, gain the weight, lose the weight, gain the weight, you know, and then I finally got on my journey, I shifted, and I got on my journey to release that weight for the last time I got, I got it. You know, like, I was like, oh, okay. It was kind of like a flash of lightning that my short-term, you know, my short-term thinking, like lose the, you know, go on a diet, lose the weight, go on the diet, lose the weight that coming from pain, right?

Rita Black: We’re, we’re in pain. I gotta lose the weight, go on the diet, lose the weight, then ugh, you know, lose a few pounds, gain it back. I mean, how many times, I mean, I don’t know about you, but I would lose some weight, and then I’d be like, I’d lose some weight, and I’d be like, well, time for pancakes. You know, I’d reward myself because I’d lost a few pounds. So when I really got it, when that flash of lightning came through my mind, I I got it. I was like, oh, okay. The person, the me here at 40 pounds above the scale, and the person who is me maintaining my ideal weight, 40 pounds down the scale, has, has done some stuff, right? Like learned has shifted. Like they aren’t, I’m not the same, you know, I am the same me, but I am thinking differently.

Rita Black: I am behaving differently, and that is a journey. I’m behaving differently in the way I eat. I am making different food choices, not out of depriving myself on some crazy diet, but I’ve created a way of eating that I enjoy that is sustainable, that allows me to live at my ideal weight. Now, I don’t know how to do that today. I don’t have that way of eating, but I’m, you know, in my mind I was like, I get it. I’m gonna be learning how to do that for myself, right? So that’s a learning journey. I also had relationships in my life that really didn’t it, it wasn’t that the relationship was wrong, but there were people in my life who weren’t supporting me in being my ideal weight. I realized I, I, you know, some of those relationships were gonna change, like, you know, some of my friends that were, you know, eat buddies that maybe those relationships got toned down and maybe I got some different friends who supported me.

Rita Black: I got my husband to support me like I had to. That was, but that was a journey that wasn’t like overnight. I, I had to cultivate that, right? I realized the me at my ideal weight behaved differently in social situations. Not, you know, I was the same, me going there and talking and laughing and being with my friends, but the choices I was making, how I prepared myself to go into those situations was going to change. And I was gonna have to learn how to support that. I didn’t have all the answers, but I knew, ah, yes, that person has learned how to do those things. That person has learned how to be bored with the food and how to like, get out of boredom. That person has learned how to sustain herself through a plateau and keep going until the scale starts moving again. That person has learned how to exercise consistently and not felt like it’s a chore, but a part of who they are. So I got it. Like, this was a learning journey. This was a commitment I was making to be that person, to cultivate that person. It wasn’t committing to being good on a diet. Does that make sense?

Rita Black: So here are some things that I committed to, including staying the course. One, I committed to being a learner, a learner, and not a perfectionist on this journey because I understood finally, oh, I’m gonna learn some things and there’s nothing wrong with me that I have to learn some things, but I definitely have some things to learn if I am gonna cultivate myself into that person that allows myself to stay at my ideal weight. I also had to commit to moments of making mistakes that I knew I was gonna make mistakes along the way, and I needed to be okay with that. I needed to be okay with not being perfect. I needed to be okay with knowing I was gonna go off track. Now that to somebody who is perfectionistic oriented is a, it can be a scary thought. So I had to also commit to being with feelings of feeling weird and feeling you know, because a lot of times when we go off track, you know, and we wanna start over again because that feels normal, sticking with it feels weird and uncomfortable it does.

Rita Black: So sometimes I’m gonna let you know that ahead of time, just so you don’t think you’re the only one that’s feeling weird. You should expect to feel weird, and that’s okay. You know, it’s sitting through those moments of weirdness that allow you to actually make progress and learning from them. You know, I committed to acknowledging what worked for me and what didn’t, and solving things that didn’t work for me. I committed to staying curious and not critical during plateaus, boredom, stress. You know, staying curious is a huge part of weight mastery. I committed to understanding the critic and rebel were just voices. I didn’t have to listen to them or believe what they said. I chose who I listened to. I tuned into www you know, no, no that’s, that’s internet. I, I mean w inner coach w inner coach instead of w inner critic or we, I hope that came across.

Rita Black: I hope that joke landed a little bit, if you could call it a joke. But I also committed in the moments when things wrong, I had a relationship with that vision that I was becoming, you know, I’m going from here this moment to where I was going, me and my ideal weight, and I was building a bridge in my mind. You know, in those moments, I want you to think of your building bridges, like from an old behavior into a new behavior and, and forward into that. You, you are becoming I call that building a bridge or crossing the bridge. You know, you’re crossing over that bridge of an old behavior into a new one. I was committing to the me I was becoming. I had a relationship with that person that I saw in my vision that I was already becoming. And they talked me, you know, on the bridge, you know, that that person that I call, that my inner coach you know, was there as a coach, as a cheerleader, helping me cross the bridge.

Rita Black: I committed to the path itself. I had a relationship and respect for the path itself. I had a respect for making mistakes. And they, because the mistakes built me up in the moment, you know, like I said, it feels weird, but I also knew that I could cross that bridge and get on the other side of weird to something new and powerful that I could keep building and keep going forward with. So that bridge forward is the commitment that is your commitment. So you are committing to building bridges and moving forward to that vision. We’re gonna work on that vision in a moment. So how do we do that in the moment? Well, you’re gonna have your vision, and in that moment that feels awkward, that feels like you wanna start over. You think of that bridge forward into that. You, you are becoming that vision, right? You think of that, you at your ideal weight, coaching you through the moment being on the bridge. Hey, look, I know you ate that thing, but that doesn’t matter. Who we are is somebody who keeps on going and makes our next meal a healthy meal.

Rita Black: Acknowledge the moment on the path and sit with the feeling. Forgive yourself, of course. So in that moment that you have those feelings starting to come up, oh my God, I did this thing, it wasn’t perfect, I’m off. I bet I was bad. Forgive yourself. We worked on this in episode one. So go back to that the episode one of the series and go through that forgiveness piece. Forgive yourself and remind yourself, I’m a learner. I’m a learner here. I am not a perfectionist. And respect yourself for staying on the path, for crossing that bridge and learning a lesson. If you stay present in the moment, if you’re self-compassionate, there is a lesson to be learned. And all of these lessons add up into your becoming your, the person that can sustain your ideal weight and get curious, get super curious. What did you learn?

Rita Black: Get curious about what are the next steps forward? There are always steps forward. You might not always be confident about the steps forward. You might not always have the right answer. You might go, I don’t know what I should do next. Guess, take a guess. You know, because you’ll make it, you’ll make the right decisions most of the time. Some of the times you don’t, but you can self-correct. But cross the bridge and own the moment. And like I said, it’s gonna feel weird and strange at first, but it becomes a part of who you are. You know, many of the people in my membership have been on long journeys through challenges and triumphs. I think of Shelly who has released and kept off over 110 pounds for a number of years now. She had a vision. She started slow you know, building, you know, from 15 minutes of exercise a day.

Rita Black: She exercises now an hour a day easily, you know, that’s a part of who she is now, but she’s had to go through multiple plateaus, boredom. She recently moved and changed jobs and is building her dream home. But you know, that’s all had challenges with it. But she’s just kept going, kept crossing bridges, doing things that worked for her, crossing more bridges, feeling that she was doing it very imperfectly sometimes. But she owns that weight release. She has that confidence that weight isn’t coming back because she has built those bridges from the inside out. You know, we dig for gold, we dig you know, when you’re going for gold, you dig a deep hole, right? But when we die, it, we have shallow little abandoned holes all over the field. I don’t know if you know that Darby story, it’s kind of a famous story.

Rita Black: But for those of you who don’t know it, it’s from think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I mean, he didn’t make up the story. This is a true story. There was this guy r Darby, but he tells it in the, the book, think and Grow Rich. So here’s the story. This guy came from back east to the west to mine for gold, and I believe that he bought a plot of land and just began mining on it. And he even brought this machine, this special machine that was very expensive to build. And he kept mining for gold. He had some small successes, but you know, mining all over. And, and then, you know, at a certain point, he just gave up, you know, he was like, okay, this isn’t for me. I give up. And he sold the machine.

Rita Black: He sold the land to this guy. I don’t know who the guy was, but he just sold it to the guy for like, nothing. He was just like, I’m done here. I’m going back east and sell insurance. And the guy it it, the moral of the story is that that RU Darby’s machine was like three feet away from this, this vein of gold that made this guy, you know, a multi multimillionaire, right? And the moral of the story is we, you know, give up sometimes just before we strike gold. And I feel that that’s so true for so many people. They start building these amazing skills, but then they, they just don’t stick with that vision or they don’t get that they’re just building another bridge forward. And that the journey itself is the power, right? The journey who you are becoming is the power. It’s not just about the weight. It’s who you are cultivating from the inside out. And so, you know, I want to start to really think about that. As we create a vision of you at your ideal weight. Let’s like really build that confidence by starting to create that you, you are becoming, and have that you in your future, in your mind, be that part of you that is also pulling you forward in those moments crossing the bridge.

Rita Black: So take a moment and just take a nice deep breath in and close your eyes. And again, for those of you who don’t see everything vividly in your mind, that’s okay. Do the best you can and try to feel it. If you can’t see it, just try to feel it and see yourself. Feel yourself doing something in your life that lets you know you’re at your ideal weight. Maybe you’re walking along a beach, maybe you’re hiking, maybe you’re doing something fun, like dancing, wearing something that you feel good in. And you got there not from being perfect, but from learning many lessons about yourself being your ideal weight over time. You are unique and your weight journey is unique and you are creating it. So how does that ideal weight you set themselves up for success for the day? Just think about that for a moment. How does that ideal weight, just to get a sense of that, you don’t have to have specifics, but just get a sense that that ideal you is probably setting yourself up for success in some way for the day. And you know, even once you reach your maintenance weight, you continue to set yourself up for success.

Rita Black: How does that ideal weight you set yourself up for success for the week? How does that ideal weight you set themselves up for success with their environment and keep setting themselves themselves up for success? How many times did you release weight, get your ideal weight, and then your environment started to sabotage you? You started bringing in the old foods. People started saying, oh, well you’re skinny now, you can eat this. And not to say you can’t eat you know, junk food and stuff at your ideal weight. I’m not saying that, but I’m just saying on a consistent level, a lot of times people just go back to their old weight of eating rather than really respecting the fact that they’re cultivating a way of eating that’s gonna allow them to live at their ideal weight. That’s probably gonna shift and need to be sustained. And this is something for you that you can commit to and begin to cultivate. My guess is that the healthy ideal weight you has healthy options to reach for. How does this happen? Do you go shopping? Does somebody else bring it in for you? Do you have people supporting you? How does that ideal weight, you set themselves up for exercise being a repeatable and seamless part of their lives?

Rita Black: How does that ideal weight you behave in social situations? Just observe them. Now. Take a moment and think of yourself in an a social situation at your ideal weight and seeing yourself making the choices that align with maintaining your weight, that weight you committed to making this happen and evolving into that person that you can be both sociable and slim. You can be both sociable and slim, but you are cultivating that. And you did this not because you had to, but because you wanted to see yourself out on your journey of weight mastery crossing the bridge of plateaus. See yourself now crossing the bridge of boredom. See yourself now crossing that, seeing. See yourself now crossing that bridge of other people tempting you. And with every bridge you cross, you grow stronger and stronger, slimmer and slimmer. And now see the slim and healthy you doing something that you have been dreaming of doing, but haven’t because of your weight. That ideal you confidently doing this and being this, not because you were perfect, but because you believed in yourself. Not because you were perfect, but because you believed in yourself and committed to yourself and crossed all those bridges.

Rita Black: Now take a moment and repeat after me. You can keep your eyes closed. I am committing to my weight release journey. I’m committing to staying on my path. I am excited about the lessons I will learn. I am open to becoming the me that sticks with myself even in the tough moments. I look forward to crossing one bridge at a time. I know I can stay the path. I know I can master my weight and develop myself. I am already evolving into that me who maintains my ideal weight. Good. Now take a deep breath in and bring all of this inside of you as your internal blueprint. Let it go. Well done now, my friend. We have the confidence, we have the commitment to the path, and in the next episode, we are gonna get into the last step of building resilience, which is creativity. So stay tuned and just remember to visit the show notes and sign up for my free masterclass and get those mind shifts that you need to make this big leap into the new year. You can do this. This can be your year, but you can’t hope, you can’t try. As you are learning, you have to take action. So take that first step and sign up and I’ll look forward to seeing you in class. So have an amazing week and remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door the way struggle is inside you. Keep listening and find it. I will see you in episode three. And if you haven’t heard episode one yet, go listen now and I will see you in episode three.

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.