[00:00:00] Rita Black: What really changed when I finally released the weight for good? In this episode, I am sharing the honest, sometimes raw truth about the internal shifts that helped me stop self-sabotaging, stop hating myself, and finally released the weight that had burdened me for years, and more importantly, how I kept it off for over 30 years.

[00:00:24] And this isn’t about willpower or the perfect diet, it’s about the inside out journey, raw, real, and I hope inspiring. I’ll walk you through the pivotal moments, the tools I leaned on through the tough patches, and what it truly takes, not only to release the weight, but keep it off for the long haul. If you’ve been struggling, if you’ve gained and lost and gained again, if you felt like you were the problem, this episode is for you.

[00:00:54] So let’s get going and dive in.

[00:01:04] 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.

[00:01:31] 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.

[00:01:57] 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.

[00:02:18] Sound good? Let’s get started.

[00:02:21] Hey, hello and welcome. I come on in. Oh my gosh, I am recording this. And so come on in. Just sit down. I’m so happy you’re here. It is the week that we are enrolling the Shift Weight Mastery process, so I get a little crazy and zany during these times. And to be honest and frank with you, I’m gonna dive right into it this week because I’m just like, I am busting, like I’m busting my seams here.

[00:02:53] Just ’cause I am, I have some, I have I was gonna do this other podcast, right? I had it all written out or like my notes. And then I woke up this morning and I was like, no, I don’t wanna say this. I don’t wanna have this conversation yet. I wanna talk about what was different when I lost weight for good, or when I released weight for good .

[00:03:14] Because I’ve been thinking a lot about that. I always, it always, when we enroll the live shift, which we only do twice a year. I because I’m doing master classes and I’m just really getting into it, I get reengaged with my own weight release journey and it, and it just inspires me and it not that I inspire me so much, but I like the whole idea of the weight release journey itself is so fricking inspiring.

[00:03:45] It really, and I know, when you’re not in a good place that’s, hard to imagine. But I wanna convey that to you and I wanna convey to you the difference in trying to lose weight versus really going on a journey of weight. Mastery, right? There’s just these huge distinctions and I thought the best way for me to convey this to you, and even if you’re a student of mine and you’ve released all your weight and you’re maintaining great for you.

[00:04:15] I and I think you’re gonna this as well because I also am talking about the ongoing journey of keeping weight off as well. So this whole journey of not just taking weight off, but keeping it off long term and who you are becoming in order to do that, that just is so thrilling and exciting to me.

[00:04:34] So I hope to convey the same excitement and to instill belief in you that you can do this now. We are enrolling and we only have a few days left. So this is the end of April, 2025. And we, only have a few days left. So if you are interested in enrolling there is a link in the show notes and it’s www.shiftweightmastery.com/spring.

[00:05:02] That’s www.shiftweightmastery.com/spring. Okay we are enrolling, it is a 30 day process. So the live version is 30 days of hypnosis coaching and meditation that, that are all housed on an online portal and in an app. And also come to you via email, whichever way you want to. Get your information.

[00:05:30] The, and those come as a process that I’ll talk to you a little bit about here. But then there’s a preparation time that we go. It’s eight days of preparation before we actually go into the 30 days to get you supercharged and ready and knowing that you can be successful. That meditation, hypnosis, and coaching on a daily basis is really geared to break you out of, your subconscious mind, which is the part of us that is keeping us in this old struggle with beliefs, habits even our identity stuck in this old way of being, thinking, behaving.

[00:06:07] To give, to break you into a whole new world, to give you a whole new identity and to begin giving you the skills on a deep level that are really the skills of long-term success and using hypnosis, meditation, and coaching to do that. That’s the best and easiest way to describe the audio version of this process, which is very much a structured process that offers a lot of success. And then the live part of it is, I am really we, we do workshops we do also coaching on a weekly basis, and those are live Zoom meetings that are very impactful. The workshops we get in one is called Carb Savvy, which is just people enroll in the program just to go through carb savvy because it is just so enlightening with regards to our relationship with sugar and carbs.

[00:07:02] And it really gives you a new paradigm with, being the boss of those things versus you being owned by sugar and carbs. We have amazing kickoff process that is. Actual process that really gets you motivated and ready for success. We also have a consistency workshop wishes at the end for you to go off and continue to carry on the work and to continue into a long-term weight release.

[00:07:27] So that is all going on in the weekly. Meetings. And we get into stuff in the weekly meetings, like night eating and emotional eating. And then I answer your questions and then there’s a Facebook group. And even if you’re not a Facebook person, and you don’t have to do the group, but if you want to, it’s it’s a really magical and awesome place because we have 60 coaches and a lot of these people have been maintaining their weight for a while.

[00:07:52] I’m in there every day. It’s such an empowering place, motivating place. People are so kind and generous. It, and I really believe our coaches are the magic part of this process. I’m sorry. I’m so excited. I’m like moving my mouth away from my little microphone that I have here. So this.

[00:08:10] Just www dot shift weight mastery.com/spring. If you have questions, feel free any of the emails that you get from me. Just hit reply and you’ll get to me. And if I can’t answer the question probably no one else can, but no I might be answering the question. Somebody else on my team might be answering the question, but we are here to answer your questions.

[00:08:34] If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. What I wanna get in with you today. So that’s it.

[00:08:42] Now I wanna kind of preface all of this by saying, like I said, I woke up this morning and I was like, Nope, not gonna do that. I literally took my old podcast that I was gonna record today and threw it away.

[00:08:54] I didn’t throw it away. I’ll probably use it later, but I really wanted, so I scribbled this stuff down I may have to pause a couple of times and look at my notes. ’cause I do have notes. I haven’t written everything out. I just have written these things, which is pretty much how many steps or it’s not steps, it’s just it 15 things that were really different when I released Weight for Good and that were different from me, dieting and everything like that.

[00:09:21] So I’m gonna start by talking about before my life, before I, shifted myself and released 40 pounds and have kept that off now for 30 years. Which, still is whoa. And again, for somebody like myself who works with people every day in this world I forget sometimes about my own journey.

[00:09:42] Obviously I’m doing the things that I need to do to maintain my weight release and I’m gonna get into that as well. But I’ve I’m just so there for other people and I’m and I’ve seen so many success stories and so many people getting incredibly long-term maintenance.

[00:09:59] And, but not just that ’cause this is something I’m gonna get into. It’s just not about weight. It’s about mental freedom and being your best self. And now I’m gonna get all choked up because we’ve had members, who are out in the world doing amazing things with all the energy they’ve gotten from releasing the weight and knowing that they’re done.

[00:10:20] We’ve had, I’m so proud of Julie and Susan who did TEDx talks this year. Shout out to them. They, they are just like the pride I feel for them. And, obviously they’re out in the world doing amazing things. I have members who are training to become leaders out in their fields or people have gotten into health fields.

[00:10:44] They’ve just changed their families and their health of their families. So anyway written books. Mine had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro found the love of their life, like just amazing things from. Transforming themselves. And I, so I just get goosebumps when I talk about it, and I’m just honored to be a part of that.

[00:11:08] And every day I wake up and I’m like, thank you for allowing me to be a part of this. So anyway, when I was struggling, it was painful. I didn’t even wanna be alive, I struggled from the age of eight and my mother was incredibly overweight. She knew everything about nutrition. She was, a nutritionist.

[00:11:29] She was smart woman, but couldn’t, couldn’t manage her weight or herself. I would watch her struggling in the kitchen, emotionally eating after dinner, talking, yelling at herself. And I’m like, oh God, I don’t wanna be like that. And then of course I became like that too. And, it. Like seriously, I forget about this sometimes, but just like the pain of waking up every day saying, I’m not, today is gonna be a good day.

[00:11:59] I’m gonna be good today. Starting out being good, and then coming home and making cooking cookie dough and eating the whole batch. Or having a good week and then going out with my friends on Friday night and drinking two pictures of margaritas and eating nachos and then fajitas and then, do you know what I mean?

[00:12:17] It’s just every day waking up or a lot of days waking up and or going to bed, just going, why? Like looking at the ceiling and going, what is wrong with you? You know what to do. Why aren’t you doing it? You must be dumb. You must be insane. The amount of self abuse that I spew at myself, the amount of just frustration and bafflement, I just remember.

[00:12:42] Huh. Oh my God, this is making me so emotional. But just sitting on the toilet and just saying, I hate you. I hate you. Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I pull myself together? You know what I mean? I hope you aren’t in that as dark of a place I as I was, but honestly, I had stuff going on for me in my life, but this part of my life was just a black hole.

[00:13:07] And the way I just communicated with myself and it was just horrible. I would go into the bookstore, this was back in the day when we had bookstores. Literally with like candy in my pocket or a bagel or a burrito in my hand I’d, you couldn’t eat in bookstores.

[00:13:26] But I, so I’d smuggle it in and go back into the, I remember this ’cause I live in LA and there was a, I don’t even remember the name of the bookstore. It was like Borders books or something, and it was on La Senega. And I would go in there, their diet section was like in the back in the corner.

[00:13:42] And I would go and I would just sit there and read diet books and eat my stuff going, okay I’m going to eat everything until, I start this diet on Monday. I was too cheap to buy the book, or I would buy the book and I would take it home and then I would eat while I was reading it.

[00:14:00] So that was the level of like self-loathing. I thought it was impossible. I couldn’t do it. I was 40 pounds heavier than I was now. I, had I could lose weight. I’d been able to lose weight, but then I would always gain it back. I had literally six different sizes in my closet. And a pair.

[00:14:20] I think everybody’s heard about my magical black pants that I could gain or lose 20 pounds in and whatever. So morning, one morning woke up on the scale. I think a lot of you have heard this story, so I’ll speed through it, but I was just like, I had lost weight, but I was like, so clear. It was like I just couldn’t do it anymore.

[00:14:40] It was like. I became broke. I was the last straw. I felt like an internal implosion in within myself. And it’s nope, this is not, I know I cannot do this. And I just my life flashed before me. And I, I wasn’t that old that I was like, your life is bankrupt. You have no life because, and again, I had a husband, I had friends, but because of this struggle, nothing meant anything.

[00:15:12] And I was always thinking about it and I was like, your life is bankrupt and we can’t do it. This, like you have are smart. You have been going at it this particular way forever and ever. And how many more times do you have to do this to get this isn’t the way, and there wasn’t anybody out there saying, Hey, there’s another way.

[00:15:36] That was just the way, the dieting industry gives us just go on a diet or do this plan or do this, methodology. Something outside of us, as something outside of you that’s going to fix you. Okay. So I, I cried on the scale. I didn’t know what to do. I just mourned those, all those years that I’ve been struggling.

[00:16:02] And then this little voice in me just said, you know what? We can do this. We can, but we gotta do it differently. And that’s, when I made a decision and I really think that. And we talk about this in the shift weight mastery process. We call it your turning point where you really make that decision.

[00:16:16] You’re not going back anymore, you’re going forward. And I woke up the next day, and this is where it gets funny, because I was like, okay, I’m not going back, but what the heck do I do now? And that was a real reckoning moment. I was like, okay, I’m really clear. I’m not going back, but what do I do? So decision number one and something that was different was, okay, kid, we’re gonna do this from the inside and not the outside.

[00:16:46] So nothing outside we’re not going on anything. We’re gonna become something. So that was the first decision was not doing, but being. And then what I worked on first was a vision of because I, vision had worked for me in other areas of my life, actually, to be honest with you. I envisioned my husband and I created him in my mind and I said, okay, universe, help me out here.

[00:17:12] And I met my husband the next day. So I and other things other goals and stuff that I had achieved came from a feeling, like creating a vision with a feeling. And they’re like, that’s what I want. That’s what I and having that belief and ’cause you should have seen my dating in life before I met my husband.

[00:17:29] I wasn’t pretty at all. Oh my gosh. And my husband is so different than anybody else I’d ever gone out with. And, I just had to create a new, like a new paradigm for men, A new paradigm for what I wanted, like for, where I wanted to live, what I wanted do. So I sat down and created a vision and this is what I got really clear on, was I was really good at I, when I’m skinny, I’m gonna look like this.

[00:17:59] When I’m thinner, this is what I’m gonna look like. But this wasn’t that. What this was, and this is something we really get into in the shift because we do a lot of vision work in the shift is who is Rita? 40 pounds down the scale? What is she doing? How is she behaving? And what does that feel like to wake up in the morning at your ideal weight, get outta bed.

[00:18:23] Put on some exercise clothes, go out and do it. And not because you have to, because you want to. What would that feel like? What would it feel like to go out with your friends and go to a restaurant and make healthy choices and be okay with that and proud of that and not worry about what they say, and in fact, three to 40 pounds down the scale has friends who are like, yeah, that’s cool. That’s what I do too. Or my friends that were not into that, they’re okay with that because I’ve gotten them to support me. So it became a more holistic view of what I wanted to create and who I had, it was going to be because that Rita was gonna sit through stress but not eat over it.

[00:19:09] Excuse me. And if you guys hear my dog barking in the background, that’s just, Mac. Yeah. So who was I gonna be? And and that was different. It wasn’t about being skinny, it was like, who is this person maintaining their life 40 pounds down the scale? Can you see that distinction? I hope you can.

[00:19:28] So we kind of work on, we definitely work on that in the shift. So the next thing I wanted to like started to think about was I had just quit smoking. With hypnosis. And again, those of you who’ve gone through my masterclass probably know this and who in students of mine and stuff like that. Forgive me, but I just gonna say that the distinction that was really clear for me when I became a non-smoker was I became a non-smoker.

[00:19:55] I did not smoke. And for years I tried to quit smoking by trying not to smoke versus becoming a non-smoker. So I knew and I had done hypnosis and it made it so easy. I was like, okay, we’re engaging the subconscious mind here and our identity lives in the subconscious mind, by the way. So by starting to like, so I was very clear.

[00:20:16] Okay. When I stopped smoking, I created this new world to be a non-smoker and in my mind, and I was like, I need to do the same thing with my weight mastery journey. I’m going to have to create a mastery journey, right? Like not a weight loss journey, it’s gonna be mastering something. And who I needed to be to master that was some, somebody who was a student, a learner to not be good or bad because that’s all I knew was being good and being bad, black and white, good, bad on something or off something.

[00:20:46] Never inside of me, always outside of me. So the mastery piece was like, okay, so apprentices become masters, right? And and I had learned many things, like I had been in the catering business in New York City and I remember starting out as a, as a cater waiter and going and not knowing where the silverware went.

[00:21:07] And I had to learn how to do that. And then I had to learn how I started cooking for people and going into their, these fancy homes in New York and making fancy meals for them. And oh my gosh, I was so scared. But every time I learned something new and I learned how to do Butler service and I knew how to do all these fancy cooking techniques and, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

[00:21:29] And so I was like, it has to be the same for weight management. I don’t know a lot of things yet, but I’m willing to learn because I know how to diet, but I really don’t know how to keep my weight off long term. So there’s a whole world. Out there that I need to learn and learners make mistakes.

[00:21:52] I made a lot of mistakes as a caterer. It’s surprising that they kept me on, but, I got masterful and better and better and, so I, the same thing was like, okay, I’m gonna be making mistakes. And in doing so taking on that identity com was so transformative just doing that.

[00:22:12] Just saying, okay, I’m willing to be a learner here. I don’t have to look good from the beginning. Usually when we go on a diet, it’s like we, we get really, we get, get off on being good, it’s ’cause it feels good to be good and so perfect and everything like that. But it works against us ultimately because then we, we make a mistake, beat ourselves up and yada yada.

[00:22:32] We all know that. Okay. So I was becoming a learner. And then and again, we do go through a whole process and the shift for your becoming an apprentice and and willing to learn mistakes. So again, really it’s so interesting how unwilling we are to look bad to ourselves, although we’ll beat ourselves up for it.

[00:22:50] But, it’s it’s always interesting to me, like the biggest stretching piece for people when they start the shift weight mastery process is the first time that they like I always applaud it applaud people when they get off track because they’re like, oh no, I went out last night.

[00:23:04] I was like, good, now we’re learning something. Now you learn from that mistake. But our brain and our ego is so unwilling to look bad to ourselves. And that’s a huge piece of, and that subconscious piece is a huge part of what keeps us in the weight struggle. So being able to stretch through that and being willing to go, oh, okay, I actually didn’t make a mistake.

[00:23:28] I’m actually learning something here, which is good because now I don’t, next time that happens, I’ll be prepared and maybe I won’t make the same mistake again. So we don’t do that when we’re dieting. We just start over again and we lose all those lessons. So that was a big turning point for me.

[00:23:48] And and another thing, and this is again, something that we really work on in the shift and especially in our big workshop, our orientation workshop, which is called the Kickstart, is we really work on peeling back the layers of not believing in ourselves, being resentful towards ourselves, and forgiving ourselves so that we can believe in ourselves before we even begin the journey.

[00:24:11] Does that make sense? I hope so. So we really because in order.

[00:24:20] To like if I looked back at all of my failures and those failures defined me and on a subconscious level, I had zero belief in myself. Anytime I started a diet, I was bringing that zero belief in all the baggage of all the failures with me. So I gave up on myself really quickly, and I see this again and again in people who come to see me or my students.

[00:24:43] What if all your failures were actually stepping stones to success? And we really look at that. We really look at creating, high levels of belief even before you begin the process. And that’s why I think people are, can be so successful is like we’re letting go of so much mental and psychic weight before we even begin the process.

[00:25:05] Excuse me, I’m turning my page of notes here, so you’re gonna hear my paper crunching. Okay. So that’s what I started with was belief, vision, a new identity, knowing that I was on a journey. And that is actually part one of the shift Weight mastery process. Oh, that’s really where you get immersed. And then I started on my journey.

[00:25:26] And I started and was going good, and I wasn’t meaning, I was being good, but I was learning all these things. I was putting new habits in place. I was really more of what I wasn’t doing. I was not beating myself up. I was not starting over tomorrow and I was trying to make the best healthy choices and move my body.

[00:25:45] So those were my beginning things. And I lost about 15 pounds, or I released about 15 pounds, but things were still happening. Just to be clear, it wasn’t a linear line down the scale. I was still binging sometimes, not as much, but I was still binging and I was a big binger and excuse me. I was still stress eating occasionally.

[00:26:08] And I would still go out sometimes and, overeat with friends and or my husband, et cetera. So I wasn’t I wasn’t, again, I don’t want you guys to think I started my journey and everything was smooth and, it was all fantastic. No it’s like you are a human being on a human journey.

[00:26:26] You’re going to bet the hypnosis, the meditations I was doing is really helping me change my behavior. But something that I recognized and it was like, whoa, it, I woke up like I did this morning. It was like, okay, I get it. I’ve gotten this far, but this is probably as far as I’m gonna get.

[00:26:43] And maybe you felt like this too, because. Now there’s this gaping hole of stuff that I don’t know yet. And I was like, what is that stuff? And I realized that I still only knew how to be good on a diet and bad on a diet. I wasn’t being on a diet, but I was like doing my best guessing rather than really building skills.

[00:27:06] And I realized, again, going back to being in the catering business and in the food business, of course, a perfect business for an overeater, right? But what was really clear to me was. I built skills around service, and cooking and being able to go in and interact with people, in their fancy homes and their help and all of that stuff that those, I had to cultivate myself.

[00:27:33] I had to be afraid sometimes ’cause there was a lot of fear that I had to get over in order to do those things. As you have had to do in your life. There are times when you just had to feel the fear and do it anyway. I realized that I didn’t have a, like a set of skills to really cultivate, obviously I was working some weight skills.

[00:27:52] Obviously I was working some mindset skills, but I didn’t really define them. I wasn’t really clear about what I was really working on. So I did, that’s when I really started doing the research into long-term permanent weight loss and looking at behaviors of people, and their studies. And they get into very specific things that people were doing.

[00:28:11] And one of them one of them was really interesting to me because that was tracking and I realized that I hadn’t been tracking or, getting clear on like how much I was eating and what, my. My input and outputs were, I was just, trying to eat better, trying to move my body, and I didn’t really even wa I didn’t wanna track.

[00:28:30] And I had a friend who was like, oh, what just write down your food for a week. You’ll see you’ll probably learn some stuff about it. And I was like, oh, I don’t wanna do that. But I did it. And oh my gosh, I got tracking from a d completely different perspective because like a lot of my students they were like, I don’t wanna track because we so associate it with calorie counting and being a dieter.

[00:28:54] But when I saw it from like a scientific perspective oh, I’m really getting clear on how much I’m taking in, how much I’m burning and what I really need to do in order to release at a rate. That I basically decide I was, became really willing to do that. And it opened my eyes in so many ways.

[00:29:11] And I began releasing weight again. ’cause I got clear. And one of the things I was really clear on is I was eating way more than I thought I was. And I, and the way the human brain works, and this is crazy and I see it all the time in people. ’cause people come to me and they say, I eat really healthfully and I’m more, I’m working out every day.

[00:29:31] Why am I not losing weight? And when they, and for me, because I was eating healthfully, way more healthfully than I used to. And I was, I was working out. But when I really tracked it, I was like, oh, I see I’m being good. I’m still like, really deficit, probably Monday through Friday, but over the weekends I was eating way more.

[00:29:52] But in my brain I would look at Monday and my behavior then, rather than the weekend. And, but the weekend I could eat significantly more and fill in that, that caloric gap. And my exercise, I realized I wasn’t really burning as much as I assumed I was. And this is way before we had Fitbits and trackers and stuff, but sometimes even those things.

[00:30:19] Way overestimate how much you’re burning. So if it’s not, if the scale’s not doing what it’s like oftentimes it just helps to become the scientist and tune into that stuff. So anyway, so I, taking the studies, taking my experiences from my friend, putting them all together, I, created those nine skills of weight mastery that we get into in the shift.

[00:30:40] Like we totally immerse you in the weight skills, which are basically the skills of releasing weight at a rate you decide. The skills of your environment, because a lot of people don’t realize that setting your environment up for success consistently. And by the way, this isn’t just while you’re starting a journey, but it’s consistently, I still set my environment up for success.

[00:31:05] If I don’t guess what I start overeating, and people Poo p those things. Oh yeah, I’ll stock my refrigerator one time and I’ll get rid of the gac. But then the gak comes back and they’re like, why am I not being successful? And it’s you let the gak come back.

[00:31:19] You like it. It’s it. It goes, like our brains will just what’s that term? Everything atrophies. The laws of atrophy is we can be focused for a bit, but then it atrophies and the skills of weight mastery are about staying, not staying vigilant but being aware and making that part of who you are rather than something you’re doing.

[00:31:42] Like when we’re being good, we get all the food out and we bring all the healthy stuff in. But when you’re being a weight master, you have a standard, that crap doesn’t come into my house, and if it does, I don’t wanna see it. FYI, husband of mine, like he, he came for instance, yesterday, he came home and he had all these nuts.

[00:32:05] And I, I have a thing with nuts, like I can eat some nuts and I can have some nuts. But the smokehouse salted almonds. They’re like crack cocaine. And that’s the only salty, crunchy thing. ’cause usually I’m a sweet person and we don’t really, like we have, again, and I’m gonna get into that moment.

[00:32:22] I have healthy food. I have treats and eat stuff and, I don’t, it’s not like I eat chicken and broccoli all the time. I live my life and I enjoy food and I’m a good cook and I know how to entertain. And heck, I was, I was in the food industry for many years, but I have standards and my husband knows.

[00:32:42] I’m like, you know where to put those things? He’s yes, I do dear. And he gets rid of them outta sight, outta mind. And I forget about ’em. I’m not going and looking for them because I’m just like, I don’t open the bag. I don’t eat a bite. I’m like that stuff. No. I can. Have, like I said, unsalted almonds.

[00:33:01] Those are fine, raw almonds, those are great, but not this damn smokehouse salted almonds. They, I will eat the whole bag, so I know that about myself, so I have a standard. Okay, so anyway, nine skills of weight mastery. I’m gonna move on because this is getting along. Okay. So in the shift? Yeah. So we, part one is like preparing mindset journey. Part two is immersion and nine skills of weight mastery. And part three is really called food solutions for a reason. Because it’s at this point in the journey, you start refining your relationship with food. We don’t do that in the beginning.

[00:33:41] We aren’t like, eat this, we eat that. I want you to create a way of eating that you love in order to live your life at your ideal weight. I have a lot of clients and students who are maintaining their ideal weight. If you looked at every one of them in the way they eat and their breakfast, lunch, dinner, or maybe they don’t eat all day and they eat at night or they fast in the morning or whatever, it’s all different.

[00:34:02] Some of them have food allergies, some of them have food conditions like, that they can’t eat gluten or things like that. So we aren’t saying prescribing. But we give guidance, right? We’re saying, here are some best practices, with regards to macronutrients, with regards to, when are the best times, don’t let yourself get too hungry.

[00:34:21] But for me, just so you know, my evolution, and I have three points about this, is I really recognized, and this is what was different for me this time as I was releasing weight, was there were certain foods I had to surrender to. Like I was, I got it. During my journey of weight mastery, there were many times I overate smokehouse almonds or gummies or, candy corn, which you know a lot of, and, or, just like crap food that I thought, oh I’m healthier now. I can probably eat some of that. Eat it. Eat the whole thing. Nope. Guess I can’t eat that. So I had to get I had to be an excuse my French, some of you who are sensitive.

[00:35:01] I had to be the bitch of my trigger foods. Enough times to go. Got it. Those foods do not work for me at all. Just for alcoholics. Alcohol at all doesn’t work. But I learned that it’s not about all or nothing. It’s not about like chicken and broccoli or pizza and ice cream. It is about.

[00:35:21] Defining the foods that don’t work for you, because we all have genetic and emotional triggers to certain foods that just are not gonna change. The neural pathways have been created, the genetic sensitivity is there and it’s not gonna work for us. So defining those for me was an evolution. It was a trial and error.

[00:35:37] I figured those out and I pretty much know those now. Now there are times when other foods become a problem for me. And still, 30 years in I, I’ve had to go, oh, okay, that’s not working for me anymore. Let me, so I get the power of food. But I think until you really start shifting and really start loving yourself down the scale, which is, another.

[00:36:00] Thing that we are really clear that we’re doing. We’re not just losing weight, but we are accepting ourselves as we are, as we begin the journey at the weight we are right now. ’cause we aren’t running down the scale. This is a, an evolution journey where you are evolving a way of being and eating that works for you so that you can maintain your ideal weight.

[00:36:21] So that’s that takes a level of self-respect, self-love self-advocacy and I’ll get into that in a little more in a minute, but clear thing was for me, if that makes, if, that makes me, if that food takes my brain prisoner and then I’m thinking about that food is not gonna be a part of my life and because.

[00:36:40] This is not just a weight journey, this is a mental freedom journey. And you get really clear on that once you start defining this, these things. So the mental freedom part was like, if that’s gonna take my freedom away, I’m, I don’t care. It’s not worth it. It’s just like smokers. They smoke one cigarette and they’re like, why did I do that?

[00:36:58] And now they’re hooked for the next five months. I don’t need it. So there are a lot of other foods I can eat and I can enjoy. And so I wasn’t coming at this from a victim like, oh, I can’t eat it ever again. I had to mourn them. I had to go, okay, that’s sad. Candy corn isn’t gonna be a part of my life.

[00:37:17] Gummies aren’t gonna be a part, but other things can be a part of my life. Pizza can be a part of my life. Cake and frosting. Probably not a part of my life all the time, but I created a magical boundary around it. So there, that, that was another thing that I developed was I developed a way of eating that I loved that included treats and splurges, but also had standards like standard amount of protein that I eat a day that allows me to feel stabilized and nurtured and keeps my body, especially my aging body healthy.

[00:37:48] I’m keeping my carbohydrates to a certain level that didn’t hook my carb zombie so that then I’m thinking about food all the time. I don’t have food noise and I’m not taking a medication. I don’t have food noise because I healed my blood sugar insulin and my body over time adjusted.

[00:38:05] And so I don’t get hungry. I don’t think about food all the time, and many again of my students have evolved into the same way. Because once you get clear on what works and doesn’t work for you, you can have a mental freedom as well. It is an evolutionary process. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it does take really creating and cultivating that powerful inner coach within you that gets clear, who’s the scientist and the nurturer, and says, I believe in you, we can do this, and we’re gonna figure it out.

[00:38:34] That doesn’t come from dieting, that comes from cultivating yourself and all of you have an inner coach within you in the areas of your life that work for you. But none of us have it in the areas that don’t work. Like we have a critic and a rebel, very loud, but we don’t have that inner coach.

[00:38:51] Again, I might be a little all over the place. I hope I’m being clear with you though. I’m reading a little bit from my notes, but then I’m like, I’m going into my little thing. So really in part three of the shift, we really work on that food piece and in cultivating a way of eating that is gonna work for you now.

[00:39:10] So I then I, continued on my journey and I hit my goal weight and that was amazing. But, and again, I’m not downplaying hitting my goal weight. And there were kids, there were definitely plateaus along the way. And again, something that was really different for me with plateaus was I didn’t take them personally.

[00:39:28] I got curious. Like plateaus usually are an indicator of something’s going on. Either your body is adjusting and you have no control over that, and you just have to surrender to it. Or maybe your tracking is off. Maybe maybe something has been happening. Your life, like extra stress and maybe your cortisol levels are up and it’s just like a, an adjustment time for your body.

[00:39:50] There are many reasons and plateaus can go on for months. They can go on for one or two months, but they break. But being able to show up for yourself in those times and just stay curious. Keep motivating yourself and not just looking at the scale because this isn’t a scale only journey.

[00:40:05] This it, we do use the scale as an indicator of are we reaching our goals? Are, is inputs and outputs, working for us. But scale sometimes doesn’t always reflect what’s always going on internally. So focusing on the other aspects of the journey and showing up for ourselves and staying curious and.

[00:40:24] Continuing to lead ourselves through those tough times. That is where you really build those skills. Haven’t you noticed when things are successful for you? We don’t really learn a lot, but when things are not going well, that is when we learn. So if you look at plateaus as huge learning platforms for you and your Weight mastery journey, and you actually are mastering more at those times from an internal perspective than you are when you’re just like, oh look, the scale’s down another couple of pounds.

[00:40:53] How much did you learn that day? But when you get on the scale and it’s the same, and you have to self guide yourself through those moments of disappointment, getting off the scale, thinking about what? And what am I doing? What am I not doing? And not beating yourself up about it, but just getting really curious and discovering things.

[00:41:10] That is when you learn the biggest lessons. Okay. The consistency piece. So I, so I so plateaus good times, bad times nine months later, I had released those 40 pounds and, and then I, and kids, the butterfly and the unicorn did not show up. The day I reached my ideal weight, I was really busy that day and it was oh shit, I’m at, oh, excuse me for saying that, but I was, I’m at my ideal weight.

[00:41:40] Cool. And then and then I got off and I went and lived my life. ’cause my life had gotten full because I was being my best self. I was out there. Who I had become was evolving, like I was out there living my life. I wasn’t, it wasn’t just about the number on the scale, but, so over the years, and so now I wanna talk to you about like just some.

[00:42:03] Mental things is so more like the 30 years of maintaining my weight. Okay. And again, I’m not gonna get into logistics as much as I’m gonna get into mental shifts, and I hope this is helpful for you. I hope you’re getting something from this. And this is something like part four, the Shift Weight mastery process is about consistency and going out there and believing in yourself and knowing you can continue the journey.

[00:42:28] Okay? And these are some things that I learned along the way. There are gonna be stressful times and busy times and, weight a. Loss does take focus, weight release journey does take some focus, especially upfront. But then we hit busy times, stressful times, emotional times. And instead of things falling out the windows, like I don’t have time to take care of myself.

[00:42:50] ’cause all of these things take precedence. What we, what I learned to do in those times was to have, and I talk about this in my membership all the time, we focus on three top skills that are what I would call the pillar skills. That then all the other skills fall beneath. So it’s not like I have to think about my nine skills and building them and being consistent.

[00:43:12] It’s okay, you know what? Life is busy. Like life is really busy right now ’cause I’m launching the shift and I’m enrolling people and I’m, and I’m and we’re going into the shift and it’s gonna be really busy time for me. And that’s why I only do it twice a year. I. Because I give 110%, but I still exercise every day.

[00:43:31] But my exercise looks different than, my usual structured exercise. I might only, go out for a walk if I have time, like I might but I exercise and I move my body and that’s like a no. What is that? Oh my gosh, whatever. No, I wanna say no brainer, but it’s not a no brainer.

[00:43:48] It’s just no exception to the rule. Okay. Second thing is what I am mindful about not overeating, carbs, all, like eating crappy food that is allowing my carbs to get too high, because again, if they do, then the food noise comes back. And number three is I connect with myself with meditation or I do self-hypnosis every morning.

[00:44:09] Or meditation or something I connect with myself. So those are really three important things that I keep top of mind, and then that allows all the other skills to fall underneath. I hope that makes sense. This from parenting or your job, it’s like when your job gets really super crazy busy or your life gets busy and you go to work and you’re like, still like dealing with other things from your life.

[00:44:32] You’re like, the things that you can do to get, keep your job. To keep your job, but you might need a little more help. You know the things to do, but you’re not doing everything that your job requires all the time. Or the same thing with parenting. There’s times when I’m parenting and I’m like.

[00:44:50] I just have to keep my kids safe and mentally sound, but I don’t have to do all those extra things, right? There are just times where you just know the bare minimum, but the minimum is gonna keep things going. I don’t give up all together. That’s what we usually do when we struggle with weight.

[00:45:07] Weight mastery is an adulting experience. Usually what happens is when we struggle with weight, we get emotionally trapped at that age where we started struggling. And so we’re a kid un unless you started like in menopause or something like that. So we have to grow ourselves up and that’s why having an inner coach, which is nurturing.

[00:45:26] Believes in, you can talk you through those struggle points where the kid in you is just tantruming. That really becomes an important part. I know I had to do a lot of adulting in my weight mastery journey. I’m watching my kids. I joke to my husband now because we’re doing a lot of adulting things like being in our sixties and I just turned 60 this year for those of you who don’t know me, and my husband’s a little.

[00:45:47] He actually, it’s his birthday today and he turned 64. But we’re doing all these, what I say, we’re going through our second adulting phase, but like our legal paperwork and making sure like that if we both died today, our kids had, a clear. Trajectory that we’re like cleaning everything out of our house so they don’t have to clean the crap out of our house.

[00:46:07] Stuff like that’s adulting because it’s stuff you don’t wanna do, but you’re doing it anyway and it feels good to do it. Okay. Another thing I arri I realized, and then was different was I realized I am never gonna arrive. Like we all always think okay, I’m gonna get here and then I’m gonna be done and it’s gonna be this fixed point.

[00:46:25] No, it’s an ever evolving relationship with yourself and I’m just gonna tell you it’s the most amazing thing. Excuse me. I would not, like everybody, I want you to focus on, I know how painful it is and I know how frustrating, struggling with your weight, but the journey that you go on to master your weight is a journey of really.

[00:46:52] Creating, like I said, like you get to create yourself in your life in a way that works for you. And that transformation is so worth it, like the pain I was in and, but it gave birth. I feel sorry for my friends who never struggled with their weight, to be honest with you. And I know that’s a really might sound like a callous thing to say, my friends, who didn’t struggle with their weight, maybe they weren’t in that pain, that they had to really go through a transformation to get to the other side.

[00:47:30] They’ve had crosses to bear in other areas of their life. We all have, some sort of journey we need to be on and go through. But for me, I’m grateful for my struggle because it gave birth to. A journey with myself and a relationship with myself that, every day I wake up and I’m like, oh wow, thank you.

[00:47:51] I’m just so grateful to be free from that mindset and to have the skills that I had to develop to really show up and be my best self in my life, for my kids, for my husband, for you guys. I’m so grateful for that. And I don’t take it for granted. I am really blessed. Okay. So to you need to get good at living in the gray there.

[00:48:16] This is not a black and white journey. This is a gray journey and that’s one of the hardest things for people to get. I said, you gotta live in the gray. And for that, you need an inner coach and you need clarity. You need to be a scientist. And that’s why people are like, I was like no, not about perfection.

[00:48:34] Go make mistakes. Go get used to that weird feeling that you aren’t being good. And when you get used to it and you start learning, you start recognizing, you start changing. Being in the gray, that’s when mastery comes. So get used to being in the gray. And I think I’ve already said this, but I’m, this is a point I wanted to make clear is this journey isn’t as much about weight as it is about mental freedom and self-advocacy and growing yourself up.

[00:49:06] So the weight part of it has been awesome. I will not lie. It feels good to wear clothes to, have clothes that fit when I go to the closet, it feels good to go to the doctor and, be at the same weight and not have that be an issue. It feels good not to be on prescription drugs at all.

[00:49:26] It feels good to feel good, although I’ve been sick for six weeks, but now I’m better. I haven’t felt so good, but for the most part I really am healthy and I feel really good. And so all of that part. Nice. None of it compares to the mental piece and the freedom and the confidence. That really is the gold.

[00:49:50] Last point the weight mastery journey. The difference for me that I didn’t see when I started, but I wanna convey to you, is really an opportunity to be your best. You to overcome the self-hatred, disrespect, you really need to become a leader of yourself first. And what I find for a lot of our members.

[00:50:17] Is then they go out in the world and start being leaders there. Too many of them are leaders when they come in I have a lot of amazing people in our world. Everybody’s amazing, but I just mean, people who are leaders in their field, in their work or are amazing human beings, give a lot of themselves in other ways.

[00:50:34] And are I just look at them and I go, wow, what a, an amazing human being. But in this area of your life to be a leader. And we have, like I said, 60 coaches in this shift who are leaders. I’m so proud of them. Many of them at are at their ideal weight and are maintaining, and and many of them are still on their journey but they have become leaders and so I invite you to join us.

[00:51:00] So I hope this has been helpful. I hope the differences the 30 day weight mastery process is those four parts that I walked us through. Starting the journey, having that vision, immersing you in the nine skills of weight mastery, really creating food, a way of eating that you love getting you ready to go out and be consistent out in the world.

[00:51:20] Those are the four parts that we use. Hypnosis, meditation, and coaching. It takes about half hour a day, at 10 minutes in the morning with the morning meditation coaching 15 minutes a day. You can listen to it in your car, on your walk throughout your life. And then, out throughout your day.

[00:51:36] Oh, at any time. And then usually a 20, maybe a 30 minute hypnosis session, and sometimes they’re only 10 minutes, but in the evening or the late afternoon or whenever you choose so it can fit into your life. Believe me, I know a lot of you are doom scrolling right now and spending time maybe listening to the news or, we waste our time, a lot of it.

[00:51:55] And to invest 30 minutes in yourself for 30 minute, at 30, 30 minutes a day, I don’t think is asking a lot to transform your life. If you have questions let me know. Www.shiftweightmasteryslash.com/free, sorry, spring, sorry, www.shiftweightmastery.com/spring. And join me, oh my gosh.

[00:52:23] We have. Such an amazing time. It can be fun, it can be frustrating, but you will not leave the same person a after these 30 days and in a good way, I promise you. Okay. So thanks for listening and being here today. Again, let me know if you have questions. I hope you didn’t mind my impromptu podcast.

[00:52:46] I’m almost at an hour here I’m gonna shut up and I’m gonna say, remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door, the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it. I will be here next week with another episode. Have an amazing week. Come and join us for the spring 2025 Shift Weight Mastery process.

[00:53:07] Have a great week.

[00:53:15] 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.

[00:53:43] 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.

[00:54:08] 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.

[00:54:29] Sound good? Let’s get started. I.