[00:00:00] In this week’s episode of Thin Thinking, we are exploring the neuroscience behind sentimental holiday cravings, why certain foods can trigger a cycle of wanting more even when we’re no longer enjoying them, and how to avoid getting swept into the dreaded holiday food fog.

[00:00:18] I will give you four practical tools to help you enjoy your favorite holiday traditions without losing your footing.

[00:00:26] Because, my friends, the goal isn’t to give up the foods you love, it’s to keep the holiday magic while staying in the driver’s seat of your weight mastery journey.

[00:00:36] So grab that cinnamon stick and come on in.

[00:00:47] Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn’t start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym?

[00:00:54] 80% of our weight struggle is mental. That’s right.

[00:00:59] The key to unlocking long-term weight release and management begins in your mind.

[00:01:05] Hi there. I’m Rita Black.

[00:01:06] I’m a clinical hypnotherapist, weight loss expert, best-selling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery process.

[00:01:14] 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.

[00:01:27] And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis.

[00:01:34] Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years.

[00:01:40] Enter the Thin Thinking podcast where you, too, will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling.

[00:01:48] 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.

[00:02:01] Sound good? Let’s get started.

[00:02:04] Hello, hello, hello, my thin thinking lovelies.

[00:02:08] Come on in and welcome.

[00:02:11] Can you smell the wonderful scent of pumpkin spice in the air?

[00:02:18] I hope you’re not allergic.

[00:02:20] Here we are.

[00:02:21] As I’m recording this, it’s in the first couple of weeks of November, just about to head into the heart of the holiday season.

[00:02:31] Thank goodness Halloween is behind us.

[00:02:34] Thanksgiving is coming up real soon, and we are already deep, deep, deep in pumpkin spice territory.

[00:02:41] So I have a feeling that if you walked through just about any grocery store or coffee shop right now, you would be greeted by a wonderful wafting cloud of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and pumpkin spice.

[00:02:56] And I bet it isn’t the actual smell.

[00:02:59] It might be the the aroma, the perfume, the whatever, the fragrance that there just was wafting out in the back.

[00:03:10] And I want you to imagine that just for a moment.

[00:03:12] You’re walking into a cozy house on a chilly November afternoon, and the smell of something delicious is coming from the kitchen.

[00:03:21] Maybe it’s pumpkin bread baking in the oven or an apple pie bubbling away with cinnamon and sugar.

[00:03:28] And what happens inside you when you imagine that smell?

[00:03:32] Does your mouth water a little? Does it make you feel warm and cozy?

[00:03:37] And does it bring back the memories of your childhood, your mother in the kitchen, or a holiday gathering with people you love?

[00:03:46] Or does your brain immediately say, “Oh-ho-ho, I want some of that”?

[00:03:51] Well, there’s a very good reason for that, and today we are gonna talk about the fascinating connection between our holiday memories, our brain’s reward system, and those seasonal food cravings that can sometimes sweep us right off our weight mastery path.

[00:04:07] Because one minute we’re enjoying a lovely pumpkin spice something or other, and the next thing you know, we’re in knee-deep in peppermint bark, wondering what happened to our eating intentions somewhere back around Halloween.

[00:04:22] But before we get into our holiday food adventures, I wanna give you a little reminder about something fun we have coming up here really soon.

[00:04:31] V- very, very soon.

[00:04:33] So we are right in the heart of the Thin Thinking Review Challenge.

[00:04:39] So we have been collecting reviews from y’all.

[00:04:42] Thank you very much.

[00:04:44] We have had our listeners and you’re welcome to do this if especially if you’re on Apple, because Apple’s really the only podcast platform that you can leave a review on.

[00:04:55] So we’re just asking you to write a review if you’re an Apple Podcast listener.

[00:05:00] Go on the platform, leave a review for Thin Thinking, take a screenshot of it, and send it to us at www.shiftweightmastery.com.

[00:05:11] I’m sorry. Don’t do that . You leave it to a specific email address, please, or it will never get to us.

[00:05:17] Support@shiftweightmastery.com. Sorry, a little blip there in my brain.

[00:05:24] Not uncommon.

[00:05:26] And we are gonna be doing a drawing.

[00:05:28] So we’ll take your lovely name and email address, we’ll throw it in our proverbial hat of sorts.

[00:05:34] Really, it’s actually a digital spinner, and then we’ll give it a spin, and if your name comes up, you will win one of our fabulous toolkits, hypnosis-based toolkits, which are collections of hypnosis and coaching and meditation for various things.

[00:05:52] We’ve got Emotional Eating Toolkit, Mastering Social Eating Toolkit, perfect for the holidays.

[00:05:58] Our Weight Gain Reset Self Retreat, perfect for after the holidays and the Food Noise Self Retreat, amazing for right in the middle of the holidays, and our GLP-1 toolkit, which is brand, brand new.

[00:06:15] We haven’t even dropped it yet, but you have a chance to win that.

[00:06:19] And you’ll get to select those, so you’ll get to choose from those five.

[00:06:23] So please, please write us a review, take a screenshot, send it in and we are doing the drawing on our next episode is dropping on the 18th, so we need your entries in by the 17th so that we can do the drawing and announce the three winners.

[00:06:42] There will be three winners, okay?

[00:06:46] So that is that.

[00:06:48] And like I said, so get it in by the 17th, November 17th, 2026.

[00:06:55] All righty. All righty.

[00:06:56] And if you’re listening to this later, please write us a review anyway.

[00:06:59] It helps us get seen and spread the thin thinking goodness around the world.

[00:07:05] So, you can do it anyway.

[00:07:07] Be a good soul and do that.

[00:07:10] Spread the holiday spirit.

[00:07:12] Now, let’s settle down.

[00:07:14] Let’s simmer down and talk about something that I think is absolutely fascinating, and I hope you do, too.

[00:07:21] So have you ever noticed that certain smells can just take you to another time in your life almost instantly?

[00:07:31] Like, you can be walking through a shopping center and just doing your thing, looking around, and then you smell cinnamon, and just like that, you’re not even in that shopping center anymore.

[00:07:43] You’re six years old, you’re in your grandmother’s kitchen, or you’re sitting at your family’s Thanksgiving table surrounded by people you love.

[00:07:53] And sometimes those memories come back with such powerful feeling that it’s almost as though you’re experiencing them again.

[00:08:00] Well, there’s some really interesting neuroscience behind this.

[00:08:05] When we smell something, odor information, I love that, odor information travels through a part of our brain called the olfactory bulb, which has close connections with the brain systems involved in memory and emotion.

[00:08:24] Two especially important areas are the amygdala, which helps process emotional significance, and the hippocampus, which plays a major role in forming and retrieving memories.

[00:08:38] And what’s fascinating is that smell has unusually direct connections with these areas.

[00:08:44] So when you smell those warm holiday spices, your brain isn’t necessarily just identifying cinnamon or nutmeg.

[00:08:51] It may also be retrieving an entire emotional experience associated with those smells.

[00:08:57] The memory, the people, the feelings, and the sense of comfort and celebration can all come flooding back all at once.

[00:09:07] Researchers have even a name for this kind of experience.

[00:09:10] It’s sometimes called Proust phenomena, referring to the way a smell or a flavor can unexpectedly bring back a vivid, autobiographical memory.

[00:09:22] Thank you, Madeleines and Proust.

[00:09:24] Because it helps explain why some holiday cravings can feel so different from ordinary hunger.

[00:09:30] We’re not always just craving a little taste of food.

[00:09:32] Sometimes we’re craving the emotional experience that comes with it.

[00:09:38] And it doesn’t have to just be the holiday season.

[00:09:40] I’m sure you can think of many times during the year where a smell will bring back that sort of emotional experience, and this is why.

[00:09:49] But in the holidays maybe it’s the smell of Christmas cookies that remind you of baking with your mother.

[00:09:55] I know that certainly is a powerful one for me, or a special fudge your grandmother made every December.

[00:10:03] You know what my grandmother made?

[00:10:05] She would make divinity.

[00:10:07] Do you guys remember that stuff?

[00:10:08] It was the, pretty much the white version of fudge. It’s really hard to make.

[00:10:13] I’ve tried to make it in my past life a couple of times, and it just ended up being this sugary, goopy… It’s like nougat, right?

[00:10:21] And in a pan.

[00:10:22] And I loved that stuff as a kid.

[00:10:24] That was my favorite, and that totally takes me back to Grandma Speese with her.

[00:10:30] My grandmother, I had a glamorous grandmother, and I had a very practical grandmother.

[00:10:36] My glamorous grandmother would wear her mink stole, and have jewels and…

[00:10:42] But she made divinity.

[00:10:43] That was her one thing that she would make.

[00:10:45] And my other grandmother did all the other heavy lifting.

[00:10:47] She baked all the other cookies.

[00:10:49] But I just remember Grandma Speese and her divinity.

[00:10:54] Thank you, Grandma.

[00:10:55] But anyway, so you may be thinking about the cinnamon rolls you always had on Christmas morning.

[00:11:01] And over time, these foods just become more than something we eat.

[00:11:05] They become traditions, memories, and little edible symbols of love, family, support, and belonging.

[00:11:13] And I want to make something kind of clear, that there’s nothing wrong with this.

[00:11:19] You know? There’s nothing wrong with this.

[00:11:21] Food is how we celebrate and connect, and so I’m not suggesting that we’re overly concerned about eating or that we lose joy or sharing in these amazing holiday foods and traditions.

[00:11:36] But I do want us to understand what’s happening in our minds, because there’s a difference between consciously enjoying a treasured holiday tradition and being pulled along by a craving without really understanding why it’s so strong.

[00:11:52] And there’s also a really another interesting factor at work during the holidays, which is this idea of scarcity, right?

[00:12:01] A lot of these foods are things we only have at this time of year, or at least that’s what our brain believes.

[00:12:09] The minute something becomes a seasonal treat, our minds can begin telling us, “You better have it now. You better have it now because you won’t be able to get it again till next year.”

[00:12:17] So you can buy that chocolate any day of the week, right?

[00:12:22] But if you put it in a red and green foil wrapper, suddenly your brain thinks you’re looking at this, like, once in a lifetime opportunity.

[00:12:31] Now we have that emotional pull of memory, the delicious anticipation of familiar flavor, and the feeling that we better get some before the season is over, get it all in.

[00:12:44] And that’s so powerful, that combination of things, and it helps really explain why the holiday cravings can just feel so compelling.

[00:12:56] So let’s look at what can happen when all these sentimental cravings start piling up, because one of the biggest challenges during the holidays isn’t necessarily what we eat on Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day, it’s what happens during all those days in between.

[00:13:13] We start in October with a pumpkin spice muffin.

[00:13:17] Delicious, warm, no problem. But that muffin reminds us of how much we love those warm, sweet holiday flavors, so the next time we’re at the coffee shop, we order the pumpkin spice latte.

[00:13:30] And then Halloween comes along, and there’s those little chocolates sitting around the house.

[00:13:36] And now we’re approaching Thanksgiving, and the grocery store is full of pies, cookies, breads, and all those foods we don’t usually buy.

[00:13:46] And maybe we’re doing a little sampling while we’re preparing Thanksgiving dinner.

[00:13:51] Yeah, a little bit of them, a little bit of this, a taste of the pie filling, just to make sure it’s, we gotta make sure it tastes good, right?

[00:14:00] After all, somebody has to do quality control.

[00:14:04] And before we know it, we’re eating more of these little rich, rewarding foods than we normally would.

[00:14:12] And now this is where I wanna bring another fascinating piece of brain science.

[00:14:16] You’ve probably heard the term highly palatable foods.

[00:14:20] We’ve talked about it here on the podcast, or sometimes hyper-palatable foods.

[00:14:26] Yes, those are tongue twisters.

[00:14:28] But what does that mean?

[00:14:29] Well, palatable simply means something tastes really good to us, but researchers use the term hyper-palatable to describe foods that contain certain combinations of ingredients, particularly fat and sugar, fat and salt, or refined carbohydrates and salt, that can make them especially rewarding and easy to continue eating.

[00:14:53] Think of some of our favorite holiday foods: cookies with butter and sugar, rich fudge, sweet pastries, creamy desserts, savory party snacks.

[00:15:05] And of course, this isn’t just about holiday food.

[00:15:08] Pizza, chips, and plenty of everyday foods can fit into this category, and these combinations can be particularly appealing to our brain’s reward system.

[00:15:18] And here’s what is a little more than interesting, at least if you ask me.

[00:15:27] Our brain has somewhat different systems for liking food and wanting food.

[00:15:32] Oh, I love this, ’cause liking is the actual pleasure we experience when we taste something delicious, and wanting is the motivation to get more of it.

[00:15:45] And those two systems don’t always work in perfect harmony.

[00:15:50] The brain’s dopamine pathways are especially involved in that wanting process.

[00:15:56] And if you are a dopamine scholar, you understand this.

[00:16:00] But it’s not simply a chemical that gives us pleasure.

[00:16:04] It plays a major role in motivation and in helping our brains recognize things that seem worth pursuing.

[00:16:11] So when we see, smell, or taste a food that our brain has learned is especially rewarding, those dopamine-related circuits can help increase our desire to eat it.

[00:16:22] One area involved in this reward circuitry is called the nucleus accumbens, and I hope I’m saying that right.

[00:16:30] And research suggests that these wanting circuits can sometimes stay quite active, even when the actual enjoyment of the food has started to decrease.

[00:16:41] And I am sure you totally get that. I certainly do.

[00:16:46] You start out eating something and it tastes really yummy, but then you kind of, well, you’re wanting another bite even though you’re not enjoying it nearly as you did at the beginning, right?

[00:16:57] You open a bag of something delicious, you start eating some holiday candy.

[00:17:01] At first, it tastes, like, so great, and then after a while, you’re barely paying attention to the flavor, and yet your hand keeps going back for more.

[00:17:10] It’s almost as though your brain is saying, “More, please,” while your taste buds are saying, “Eh, we’re, we’re kinda done here,” right?

[00:17:19] So now I wanna introduce another term that I think is especially useful for understanding our individual eating patterns: trigger foods, right?

[00:17:30] And again, if you have been listening to the Thin Thinking podcast, you know about trigger foods, or if you’re a student of mine in the Shift Weight Mastery process.

[00:17:37] We got that down. We got that wired into our brain.

[00:17:40] When I talk about a trigger food, I mean a food that for you personally can set off a strong desire to keep eating once you start.

[00:17:49] For one person, that might be chocolate.

[00:17:51] For another person, it’s potato chips.

[00:17:54] And for someone else, it’s ice cream, Christmas cookies, or that salty, crunchy snack mix that somehow disappears every time they walk past the bowl.

[00:18:03] Oh, God, that stuff. It’s like heroin.

[00:18:08] At least to me. See, that would be a trigger food.

[00:18:11] I don’t need a lot of salty, crunchy stuff.

[00:18:13] It’s not my thing. The sweet stuff is.

[00:18:16] But those Chex Mix party thingy-ma-jiggies, dang, I stay away from those.

[00:18:22] So it’s important to understand what your trigger foods may be and that’s the key.

[00:18:27] Like, my trigger foods are not your trigger foods.

[00:18:30] We all have different food trigger foods, ’cause we’re all wired differently.

[00:18:35] A person might be able to eat two squares of chocolate, put the rest away, not think about it, and another person might find that once they start eating chocolate, their desire for it becomes much stronger, and it’s difficult to stop.

[00:18:47] And that’s useful information for you to know about yourself, don’t you think?

[00:18:52] Not that you can label yourself as somebody who has no willpower, but so that you can understand how your own brain responds to certain foods.

[00:19:02] And during the holidays, when you’re surrounded by more of these rewarding foods and their associated sights, smells, and memories, we can find ourselves in a pattern of wanting and eating more frequently.

[00:19:16] So we have two things happening together.

[00:19:19] We have our sentimental cravings, which are rooted in memories and emotions, and we have our brain’s reward system, which may be responding to an increased number of highly palatable foods and food cues.

[00:19:34] And these two things can create quite a holiday eating perfect storm, if you see this coming, right?

[00:19:44] Depending on how they’re going, a holiday eating avalanche.

[00:19:50] So I’m gonna quickly share a story from my own weight struggle journey.

[00:19:55] And I’m sure some of you have heard this story before, but I only say this because it’s so holiday-oriented.

[00:20:01] And this is definitely something my mind hearkens back to.

[00:20:05] When I was in college, I’d worked really hard to lose some weight.

[00:20:09] And I came home and I was, what I would consider in my skinny jeans, many years ago, and I was determined that when I went home for the holidays, I was gonna keep that weight off.

[00:20:24] And I had a plan, I had good intentions.

[00:20:28] I knew my mom’s house was gonna be booby-trapped with all of her delectable and wonderful and delightful things.

[00:20:35] So I was gonna be careful.

[00:20:36] So when I got home, my mother had made her famous lasagna.

[00:20:40] Now, my mother’s lasagna was delightful and delicious, and of course, I wanted to eat some.

[00:20:45] So I sat down and ate it, but here’s the important thing about the story.

[00:20:51] The lasagna itself was not the big problem.

[00:20:55] Eating a serving of my mother’s lasagna didn’t undo everything I had accomplished all semester.

[00:21:01] But what happened in my head afterwards was a real problem, because almost immediately I started thinking, “Oh, God, I blew it.”

[00:21:10] And once that thought took hold, the whole situation changed.

[00:21:14] I began thinking, “Well, if I’ve already blown it,” you know the story, “I might as well have a little dessert.”

[00:21:21] And there comes all of those wonderful things my mother baked for the holidays. I mean, I can’t miss out on those, because tomorrow I’m gonna be good for the rest of the holidays, right?

[00:21:32] But then I’d eat something that wasn’t part of my plan, and then the same thinking would come right back, blown it again, off I go, day after day.

[00:21:41] And then pretty much, guess what?

[00:21:43] I was like, “Eh, I’ll, I’ll just wait till after the holidays.”

[00:21:48] So over that holiday period, I gained more than 25 pounds.

[00:21:52] You gotta really take eating seriously to gain 25 pounds.

[00:21:56] Now that I look back, I can see something so clearly, and hopefully you do too.

[00:22:01] It wasn’t the lasagna that caused the month-long eating spiral.

[00:22:05] It was the belief that eating the lasagna meant I failed, right?

[00:22:09] So it isn’t the food, it’s the thinking about it.

[00:22:13] And that chain reaction, and you eat that piece of pie, few extra cookies, and suddenly our inner critic’s saying, “Well, there you go. You’ve ruined everything. You blew it.”

[00:22:24] And then your inner rebel comes along, wearing a Santa hat, and says, “Oh, who cares? It’s the holidays. Life is short. We’ll deal with this in January.”

[00:22:34] And just like that, a single eating experience becomes permission to drift for the next six weeks.

[00:22:40] And this is what I would love for you, here in November, to recognize.

[00:22:45] A holiday treat is not the problem, it’s the thinking that follows it that becomes the problem.

[00:22:52] Because when we turn that one eating choice into evidence that we’ve failed, we can stop making thoughtful choices altogether, and that’s when we find ourselves in that holiday food fog.

[00:23:04] We’re eating foods because they’re there, because they’re seasonal, because somebody gave them to us, or because we happened to walk past them.

[00:23:11] And sometimes we’re not even enjoying half the things we’re eating.

[00:23:15] What I want for you instead is the ability to enjoy the foods that genuinely matter to you, and then get on with your day.

[00:23:25] No guilt, no six-week detour, no having to start your entire weight mastery journey over again in January.

[00:23:31] No, no, no, no, please, please.

[00:23:35] Let’s take a breath and stay conscious and connected to ourselves.

[00:23:40] So I’m gonna give you four tools to help you do that, okay?

[00:23:45] And again, if you’re a student of mine, you may know some of these, but I wanna remind you lovingly, like your mother, the good mother, a good mother, a loving mother.

[00:23:57] And I’m giving you and your inner coach these tools, okay?

[00:24:01] So you can use them together.

[00:24:03] Okay, tool one, I want you to become a holiday flavor detective, okay?

[00:24:10] This tool involves a little curiosity, a little creativity, and absolutely no need to give up delicious food, but I want you to become a flavor detective.

[00:24:19] When you find yourself craving a particular holiday treat, rather than immediately grabbing it or telling yourself you can’t have it, stop for a moment and get curious.

[00:24:27] Like, what am I craving about this food?

[00:24:31] Is it the cinnamon? Is it the creamy texture?

[00:24:34] Is it the warmth? Is it the crunch?

[00:24:36] Is it the combination of sweet and salty?

[00:24:40] Because sometimes we think we’re craving a particular food, when what we’re actually craving is a very specific flavor or sensory experience.

[00:24:49] Let’s say you’re craving pumpkin pie.

[00:24:52] Now pumpkin pie has a lot going on.

[00:24:55] You’ve got the creamy pumpkin filling, the cinnamon and nutmeg, the sweetness, and the pastry crust.

[00:25:02] Now, what if the part you’re really longing for is that creamy, warm pumpkin spice flavor?

[00:25:08] Could you enjoy a pumpkin custard or a pumpkin flan that actually gives you that beautiful holiday flavor without the crust?

[00:25:16] Maybe you could.

[00:25:18] Or let’s say you’re craving apple pie.

[00:25:21] What is it about the apple pie that you love?

[00:25:25] What if it’s that warm apple cinnamon flavor?

[00:25:27] Well, you could slice up an apple, sprinkle a little cinnamon over it, warm it in the microwave for a minute or two, and it will soften up really beautifully, and you put a dollop of Greek yogurt over the top so for that protein.

[00:25:42] And you might find that you get a lot of that wonderful apple pie experience in a way that fits beautifully into your everyday eating, like a snack or as a dessert.

[00:25:53] Now, does it mean you can’t actually have apple pie?

[00:25:57] Well, of course not, and we’re gonna talk about that in a minute.

[00:25:59] But sometimes the thing we’re craving is just much simpler than the entire dessert.

[00:26:04] I use this idea with all sorts of foods.

[00:26:07] If you’re craving pizza, for example, is it really the crust you’re after, or is it that wonderful tomato sauce and melted cheese combination?

[00:26:16] Maybe you could make some roasted broccoli with marinara sauce and Parmesan cheese.

[00:26:22] Now, I’m not gonna sit here and tell you that broccoli is pizza.

[00:26:28] I mean, come on. Yeah, we know better.

[00:26:31] But what if you’re really craving, what you are really craving is the tomato and cheese flavor, and that might be really satisfying.

[00:26:40] I know that is one of my favorite ways to make broccoli.

[00:26:45] And these days, there are more creative options than ever, including higher protein versions of certain treats that can help you enjoy a familiar flavor while staying closer to your eating intentions.

[00:26:59] The point isn’t to turn every holiday food into a health food science experiment, but the point is to understand your cravings well enough that you have options.

[00:27:09] Because when you can id- identify what you really want, you can begin deciding how to best satisfy it.

[00:27:18] And that is what being in the driver’s seat looks like.

[00:27:22] All right, now, tool number two, practice the three-bite rule.

[00:27:27] This is my favorite, and I know if you’re a student of mine, it’s one of your favorite tools, too.

[00:27:32] And it’s called the three-bite rule, and I love this one for holiday foods because sometimes you really do want the real thing.

[00:27:41] You don’t want a substitute.

[00:27:43] You don’t want a healthy version.

[00:27:44] You want your grandmother’s fudge, or you want the Christmas cookie, or you want that one special dessert your family makes every single year.

[00:27:52] Well, cool. Have some.

[00:27:55] But here’s what I want you to try. When you have that special food, slow down and pay close attention to the first three bites, and here’s some really interesting science behind why this is so helpful.

[00:28:07] Researchers have studied a phenomena called sensory specific satiety.

[00:28:14] It’s a rather fancy term for something really quite simple.

[00:28:18] As we continue eating a particular food, the pleasure we get from its taste, smell, texture, begins to decline.

[00:28:26] In fact, studies have found that this change in how pleasant a food seems can happen surprisingly quickly, like our first three bites.

[00:28:37] Sometimes, like I said, very quickly, and I think that’s fascinating because it means the pleasure of eating something doesn’t necessarily stay at the same level from the first bite to the 20th.

[00:28:50] I say, like, within three bites, your mouth experience can go from 90% down to 20%, and not all the time for all foods.

[00:29:00] But you can see that there’s studies behind this, and for many of us, those first few bites can be the most exciting and satisfying part of the experiment.

[00:29:09] So this is how I want you to use it.

[00:29:11] Take that first bite of your favorite holiday dessert and really pay attention.

[00:29:16] Mm. Okay, there it is.

[00:29:19] Just mm, take that moment.

[00:29:22] The flavor you remember, the texture, the ooh, whole experience, and just let your body and brain just take it all in.

[00:29:31] And with the second bite, really notice everything about it.

[00:29:34] Let yourself truly enjoy it.

[00:29:37] And with the third bite, ask yourself something really interesting: Am I enjoying this just as much as I was a moment ago?

[00:29:46] And sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes you’ll notice that the really special part of the experience happened in those first few bites, and now you’re simply continuing to eat because the food is sitting there in front of you.

[00:30:00] Now, this is not a rule that says you’re only allowed three bites of something.

[00:30:04] I’m not here to be the holiday cookie three-bite rule police.

[00:30:09] But this is an awareness tool, and I want to give yourself permission to experience the food fully rather than eating it quickly, almost unconsciously, and then wondering where it went, ’cause raise your hand if that’s happened to you.

[00:30:25] You get to the bottom of the bowl and we’re like, “I didn’t even experience that. I better go fill my bowl again.”

[00:30:32] And remember what we talked about earlier with the dopamine and the brain’s wanting system?

[00:30:36] Well, you can still have the desire to keep eating even when the actual pleasure you’re experiencing has started to diminish, and that is an important distinction.

[00:30:46] Because when you learn to notice the difference between enjoying a food and simply wanting more of it, you begin to develop a whole new level of awareness around your eating, and that awareness gives you choices.

[00:31:00] Maybe you’ll decide that you do want another bite or two, and you enjoy those as well, or maybe you realize you’ve had the experience you wanted and are ready to move on. Either way, you’re making a conscious decision rather than simply letting your brain’s wanting system drive the whole experience.

[00:31:19] And something that I will say, that is quite a tool amongst us shifters is the idea of just putting three bites on your plate or taking three bites of dessert, not taking the whole piece, knowing that smaller amount actually is going to, for the most part, fulfill everything that you needed about that.

[00:31:41] And if you track calories and things, I always just say, “Put 100 calories on of any three bites of anything.”

[00:31:48] And I’m not talking about stuffing your mouth full.

[00:31:52] I’ve had people joke with me, “Oh, yeah, I just shoved an entire piece of pie. That was the first bite.” I was like, “No, no.”

[00:32:01] Okay, let’s move on.

[00:32:03] Tool three: create loving holiday boundaries.

[00:32:06] And again, I know if you’re a shifter, you know about loving boundaries.

[00:32:09] So this is close to my heart because there are some holiday foods I have absolutely no interest in replacing, and one of those foods is my mother’s cream cheese spritz cookies.

[00:32:22] Oh, and you’ve heard me talk about those, okay, if you’re in my world.

[00:32:27] But I just love ’em.

[00:32:28] They just melt in your mouth and, ugh, it just… Everything, mom, memories, mouthfeel. It’s… They got it all for me, and I, you know love the cookie dough, too.

[00:32:41] There, I’ve said it.

[00:32:42] So after all of my years of weight mastery, I know that I don’t need to pretend I suddenly have no interest in these cookies.

[00:32:52] Quite the opposite.

[00:32:53] I love, love, love them.

[00:32:54] But I do create what I call a loving boundary around them, and this is an important tool.

[00:33:02] So a loving boundary is a decision you make ahead of time about how you’re gonna support yourself in a particular situation.

[00:33:11] It isn’t about being strict or punishing yourself.

[00:33:14] It’s about deciding with kindness and intention what will allow you to enjoy something while also taking care of yourself.

[00:33:23] So when it comes to my mother’s spritz cookies I decide how I’m gonna enjoy that tradition.

[00:33:29] I can have some of the dough.

[00:33:32] And then I can have a certain number of cookies that I’ve intentionally chosen to savor, and then I’m done.

[00:33:38] Not because the cookies are bad or because I have been bad.

[00:33:42] I’m done because I’ve had the experience I wanted, and I know that continuing to eat them isn’t gonna make the holiday any more magical.

[00:33:49] In fact, it will probably make me feel worse, and that is the beauty of a loving boundary.

[00:33:54] It allows you to say yes to what really matters to you without turning that yes into an open-ended invitation to eat the whole batch.

[00:34:03] I have another example with cinnamon rolls.

[00:34:05] I love Christmas cinnamon rolls.

[00:34:07] I love the smell of them baking, the warm cinnamon.

[00:34:11] I like making them from scratch.

[00:34:14] I have made healthier versions for my family, and those were delicious, too.

[00:34:19] But anyway, we have a cinnamon roll tradition, the frosting, the whole thing.

[00:34:25] Over the years, I’ve also learned something about myself.

[00:34:28] If I eat an entire big cinnamon roll, one of the traditional ones with a lot of sugar and flour especially, I don’t feel good afterwards.

[00:34:38] It’s just too much sugar and flour for me.

[00:34:42] So now I may have half, and I enjoy that half.

[00:34:46] I don’t spend the rest of the morning feeling deprived because I didn’t eat the whole thing.

[00:34:51] I feel satisfied because I’ve had the flavor and the tradition I was looking forward to, while also honoring how I wanna feel afterward, especially Christmas Day.

[00:35:02] That’s really important.

[00:35:04] When we’re stuck in the weight struggle cycle, a boundary can feel like something being taken away from us. I get that.

[00:35:11] But when we’re approaching our eating as weight masters, a boundary is something we create ourselves to support ourselves.

[00:35:20] So it’s not punishment, it’s a loving agreement with ourselves.

[00:35:25] And here’s the little question I want you to ask when you’re thinking about your own holiday traditions: Which foods are truly special to me, and which foods am I just eating simply because they’re available?

[00:35:39] Because those are two very different categories.

[00:35:43] Maybe your mother’s Christmas cookies are deeply special to you, but the store-bought cookies sitting in a plastic container in the office break room, maybe not so much.

[00:35:53] And yet sometimes we eat both with equal enthusiasm simply because they’re holiday cookies.

[00:36:01] So you don’t have to give every cookie an equal opportunity.

[00:36:05] Pick the special ones. Enjoy them.

[00:36:08] Create a loving boundary around them, and let the rest go.

[00:36:12] Because the goal isn’t to have a holiday season without delicious food, it’s to enjoy the delicious food without having it take over the entire holiday season.

[00:36:22] Now, our fourth tool is one of the most valuable skills you can develop in your weight mastery journey, not just during the holidays, but throughout the entire year.

[00:36:30] Be a scientist, not a critic I want you to become fascinated by your own eating experience.

[00:36:39] Let’s say you go to a holiday party and you eat more sweets than you intended.

[00:36:45] Now, your old weight struggler thinking might come on in and say, “Why did I do that? I have no willpower,” blah, blah, blah. “I know I’ve ruined everything.”

[00:36:54] We know that little tape running in our head.

[00:36:57] And of course, that kind of thinking doesn’t generally lead us to make better choices, does it now?

[00:37:02] It tends to make us feel discouraged and wanna give up, and I certainly know where that thinking took me with my mother’s lasagna.

[00:37:10] But what if you approached the experience like a scientist?

[00:37:14] Instead of criticizing yourself, you could ask some useful questions.

[00:37:19] What was I actually craving? Did the food taste as good as I expected?

[00:37:24] Did I enjoy all of it or did I stop noticing it after a while?

[00:37:29] How did I feel afterwards?

[00:37:32] And what might I want to do differently next time?

[00:37:36] Those questions help us learn rather than simply repeating the same old weight struggle patterns.

[00:37:43] And I wanna share a story about one of our shift coaches who released about 75 pounds and has maintained her weight mastery for years.

[00:37:51] She told me about an Easter when she came across discounted Easter candy.

[00:37:57] Remember, the half-price Easter candy special in the bins the day after Easter?

[00:38:04] Well, the holiday’s over and we don’t wanna lose money if we don’t buy this, so she bought the candy and ended up eating quite a bit of it, and afterwards she felt physically awful.

[00:38:16] Now, what I love about this story is what happened next.

[00:38:19] She didn’t turn the experience into evidence that she was a failure.

[00:38:23] Instead, she noticed how she felt.

[00:38:26] She connected the experience of eating all that candy with the unpleasant physical aftermath, and she told me that since then she hasn’t had the same craving for Easter candy.

[00:38:38] Isn’t that interesting?

[00:38:39] She learned something, and she really didn’t even just learn something intellectually, she learned it physically.

[00:38:45] Like, she had a different physical reaction to it, and that learning changed her relationship with that food.

[00:38:53] Now, I’m not gonna suggest that you have to overeat something until you feel sick in order to stop craving it.

[00:38:59] Don’t do that, please.

[00:39:01] The lesson here is that our experiences can teach us something valuable when we’re willing to pay attention.

[00:39:08] Because sometimes we have a beautiful memory of a particular food, but our actual experience of eating it today doesn’t live up to that memory.

[00:39:18] Maybe that seasonal treat you’ve been thinking about for weeks doesn’t taste nearly as wonderful as you remembered.

[00:39:24] I certainly can think of many instances when that’s true for me.

[00:39:29] Maybe it tastes great for the first few bites, and then it’s just, eh, okay.

[00:39:33] Or maybe you discover that you genuinely love it, and having a small intentional portion is exactly what makes the tradition meaningful.

[00:39:43] Either way, you’ve learned something about yourself, and every time you do that, you’re strengthening your ability to make choices based on your present experience rather than simply reacting to an old pattern.

[00:39:55] One of the things I always remind our shift members is that this journey is an apprenticeship.

[00:40:02] You’re learning the skills of weight mastery.

[00:40:05] And an apprentice doesn’t become a master by never making a mistake.

[00:40:09] An apprentice becomes a master by paying attention, practicing, learning, and continuing.

[00:40:16] So if you find yourself having a little holiday eating adventure that didn’t go exactly as planned, please don’t waste the opportunity by turning it into a character judgment.

[00:40:28] Be curious, learn from it, and keep going.

[00:40:33] Now, before we wrap up today, I wanna return to something we talked about at the beginning of this episode, and that is the sentimental part of a sentimental holiday cravings.

[00:40:44] Because sometimes I think the thing we’re really longing for isn’t the food at all, it’s the feeling we associate with it.

[00:40:52] Maybe it’s the feeling of being a little kid at Christmas when everything seemed magical, as there wasn’t quite so much responsibility sitting on our shoulders.

[00:41:02] Or maybe it’s the comfort of your mother’s kitchen.

[00:41:05] Maybe it’s the memory of a loved one who’s no longer here, or the feeling of being together with your family when everyone was younger and life seemed a little simpler.

[00:41:16] And sometimes we reach for a familiar holiday food because we’re trying to reach for one of those feelings, and I think it’s so important to recognize that with tenderness rather than judgment.

[00:41:28] Because there’s something really lovely about the way food can connect us to our memories.

[00:41:34] But here’s what I want you to remember: the food is not the entire memory.

[00:41:39] The cookie is not the love, the cinnamon roll is not Christmas morning, and pumpkin pie is not Thanksgiving.

[00:41:47] Those foods may be wonderful little pieces of the experience, but the real magic is so much bigger.

[00:41:54] It’s the people, it’s the conversations, it’s the traditions, it’s the feeling of being connected to something that matters to you.

[00:42:04] And when food cravings begin to take over the season, we can actually become less present for those things.

[00:42:12] We’re thinking about what we’re gonna eat next, what we shouldn’t have eaten, or how much we’ve eaten, or what diet we’re gonna start in January, and I don’t want that for you.

[00:42:22] I want you to be able to sit at your holiday table and truly enjoy the people around you.

[00:42:29] I want you to savor the foods you love without feeling like every special occasion has to turn into an all or nothing eating event.

[00:42:37] And I want you to experience the holidays with a sense of freedom, confidence, and trust in yourself.

[00:42:44] And that’s what weight mastery is all about.

[00:42:47] It’s not about never eating a Christmas cookie again, it’s about being able to eat a Christmas cookie without having the cookie take over your Christmas.

[00:42:57] So friends, as we head into this wonderful holiday season, I wanna leave you with a little invitation.

[00:43:05] The next time you find yourself craving a seasonal treat, take a moment to get curious.

[00:43:11] Ask yourself what you’re really craving.

[00:43:14] Is it the flavor, the texture, the memory, the feeling of comfort or celebration?

[00:43:21] Then see whether you can use one of those tools we’ve talked about today.

[00:43:26] Maybe you’ll become a flavor detective and discover a delicious alternative.

[00:43:31] Maybe you’ll savor the first three bites of a favorite holiday dessert and realize it’s all you really wanted.

[00:43:38] Maybe you’ll create a loving boundary around a special family tradition so that you can enjoy it without drifting into mindless eating.

[00:43:48] Or maybe you’ll simply pay attention to how something makes you feel and allow that experience to teach you something.

[00:43:56] And if things don’t go quite as planned, well, welcome to being human.

[00:44:01] You’re not starting over, you’re learning.

[00:44:04] And remember, the goal isn’t to have a perfect holiday eating season, the goal is to continue building a way of living and eating that you love, one choice at a time, that supports you at your healthy, ideal weight.

[00:44:18] And that’s how we move from struggling with our weight to mastering it.

[00:44:23] So here’s to an amazing holiday season filled with wonderful smells, beautiful memories, delicious food, meaningful connections, and maybe even a little pumpkin spice.

[00:44:36] Have a wonderful week, and remember that the key, and probably the only key, to unlocking the door of the weight struggle is inside you.

[00:44:44] So keep listening and find it.

[00:44:47] I will see you here next week for our drawing for the reviews.

[00:44:51] So please, please enter your reviews.

[00:44:55] The directions are in the show notes, and I will look forward to seeing you then.

[00:45:00] Do you wanna dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release?

[00:45:04] Head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com.

[00:45:11] That’s www.shiftweightmastery.com, where you will find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release, tips, strategies, and more.

[00:45:24] 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.