Rita Black: Is your healthy plan or health food that you are reaching for really that healthy for you or that slimming? In this episode of Thin Thinking, we explore the different health and weight loss buzzwords of the day, and look at how our brain can be hypnotized into making choices that may are going to help you with weight management or health, but maybe actually creating a bigger challenge than you think. Let’s poke holes in some of the diet and healthy lifestyle buzzwords, so that you can have a more powerful mindset when choosing what is truly healthy for you.

Rita Black: Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn’t start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym? 80% of our weight struggle is mental. That’s right, the key to unlocking long-term weight release and management begins in your mind. Hi there, I’m Rita Black. I’m a clinical hypnotherapist, weight loss expert, best-selling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery Process. And not only have I helped thousands of people over the past 20 years achieve long-term weight mastery, I am also a former weight struggler, carb addict, and binge eater. And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis. Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years. Enter the Thin Thinking Podcast where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I’ll give you the thin thinking tools, skills, and insights to help you develop the mindset you need. Not only to achieve your ideal weight, but to stay there long-term and live your best life. Sound good. Let’s get started.

Rita Black: Hello and welcome friends. And here we are at the last week of March. So, 20 years ago, almost 20 years ago, I was pregnant for the first time about to give birth to my daughter. I had been, she was late. So, you know, around this time I was, for any of you who have been very pregnant, at that stage where you are just ready to have that baby. And I remember this because there’s this place in Los Angeles, it’s actually in the valley, the San Fernando Valley, just over the hill from where we live, this restaurant, I can’t even remember the name of it, but it had this sort of folklore that if you were pregnant and wanted the baby to come to go eat this very specific salad at this restaurant, and it would induce labor. So I got, so, I got so desperate. I made my husband take me to that restaurant and I ate the salad and nothing happened. So there you go. It didn’t, it didn’t work or I didn’t allow it to work for me. But I believed in it. I believed that solid was gonna help me give birth.

Rita Black: So today we are gonna look at, you know, how, you know, folklore and not just folklore there’s, you know, you know, there’s a lot of buzz words out there in the Zeit guys that, you know, they, they describe healthy lifestyles or healthy foods but you know, having worked with people for many, many years in the weight management industry, you know, I know that it, you know, not everything you, can’t, everything take everything at surface value that a lot of times these, you know, diet plans or diet programs or diet foods, or, or healthy even like healthy. I mean, now nowadays diet is like the no-no word, right? You can’t say it. It means, you know, it’s been sort of canceled, you know, and we’re choosing words that are describing more of a healthy lifestyle, but a lot of times, again, people are adapting these lifestyles and aren’t necessarily, how do I wanna say this? It’s not that these lifestyles aren’t healthy, but sometimes we go on a healthy life thinking it’s gonna help us lose weight, but it doesn’t and then that frustrates us even more.

Rita Black: So I kind of wanted to poke holes in some current, terminology that’s out there in the zeitgeist, uh, that you might, you know, find interesting like I just wanna turn the rocks over, so to speak. I’m not putting down any of these ways of eating. I think some of these are very healthy ways of eating, but I’ve had many, many clients come to me suffering because they are eating in a healthy way and not getting the results that they expected to because they thought this particular way of eating was going to help them lose weight.

Rita Black: So, you know, I remember back in the, uh, well, I guess it was the two thousands now, that the low fat lifestyle remember that was the nineties and the early two thousands, for those of you who remember the nineties and the early two thousands, that the low-fat diet, the fat-free diet was all the rage, right. I remember moving to LA, from London and in London, nobody, you know, in England at that time, there was no fat free, anything, no diet, anything. The British really were not into diet foods. And I don’t think they are as much as, you know, we Americans. They all my friends joked, you know, about that with me. But when we came here, there were these things on the market, like fat-free entenmann’s coffee cakes, and donuts, and, you know, all these like amazing baked goods that were “fat-free.” Fat-free salad dressings, and just multiple, multiple items that were fat-free. And I’m sure you remember that. The problem as we learned with fat-free is that they are not necessarily calorie-free or sugar-free. Usually if they take out the fat, then they added more sugar. Spiked everybody’s blood sugar. The blood sugar dropped made us feel hungrier. And guess what we did eat ate more fat free items that were incredibly caloric.

Rita Black: And I remember having, you know, clients come to me just so frustrated with that fat-free diet saying, you know, I literally don’t eat an ounce of fat in any way, shape or form. Why am I gaining weight and not losing weight? And I was like, well, because you know that entenmann’s coffee cake that you ate for breakfast, the entire thing thinking, well, I might as well, you know, it was probably about 1500 calories probably, you know, for a, you know, a woman, medium size woman, probably a good majority of your daily caloric needs for, you know, a weight maintenance and, or, you know, you may have taken yourself over, even with breakfast thinking you were be being healthy, right?

Rita Black: So, the fat-free thing faded, obviously. We are no longer in that fat-free phase. Thank goodness. And you know, people have gotten a lot more health conscious, which I’m really, really happy about. There’s so many amazing products out there. You know, consumer demand require, you know creates, the demand that the companies create better products and everything, but I still have, you know, people who are frustrated with the outcome and results from, you know, certain ways of eating because I mean, at the end of the day, here’s what you wanna think about. You know, there is you and you are powerful. You have a wonderful mind, and that mind is perfectly capable of creating a way of eating that you love, that you have ownership over, that can allow you to live your life at your ideal weight. Okay.

Rita Black: See, the problem is when we think we are being healthy or following a weight loss plan, we give a lot of power over to that thing, right? We are giving, you know, the power is no longer within us. It’s like I’m leaning in on this plan. I’m giving my locus of control – that’s a term that I’ve used on this show before, um, you know, internal locus of control. When you have the internal locus of control, you are taking responsibility and ownership for your actions. When we have an external locus of control, that external thing people plays thing has, we give that the responsibility or we blame that thing, or we’re focusing on that thing, right? So when we’re focusing on a thing outside of us, like a plan or a diet or a regime, or a way of eating. I’m not saying again, some of these things might be perfectly fine, but, um, we’re giving our power over to it. And it’s natural to do that because when we’re in pain and struggling with our weight, we just want an answer. We just wanna structure outside of ourselves that we can lean on, because it can feel very chaotic. When we’re gaining weight, we, we feel, we, you know, we’re like, oh, here’s a structure. Some people have lost weight on it. Let me do this thing, you know, and then we get, we go into it without really thinking about it or applying it like, is this really gonna work for my life? Is this really the most healthy and sound plan for me.

Rita Black: Now, research has shown that most people who have lost weight and kept it off long term, some of them have used a plan or, you know, a diet, so to speak as a way of beginning as a, as a structure or a, a starting point. However, those who were successful in the long term opted and made that plan their own. Right? So, so they, they went from external to internal, and this is very, very important about taking ownership. But again, we understand we wanna get outta pain and often getting outta pain means like, let me find an external solution, you know, put my focus on that thing. And, nd then for a while we feel out of pain because we’ve given our power over to this other thing. And companies, have diet foods and health foods love, love, love to take advantage of this. But we really have got to take the power back and we need to get facts for ourselves. You know, for example, these companies, you know, like whole grain, right? Like how many, how many products have you seen, you know, back in the day when, you know, it went from like, oh, white flour is bad for you so this is a whole grain product, even though if you look at the ingredients, you know, there was hardly anything whole grain. It was like milled grain flour, you know, it was, it was, it was ridiculous. So, you know, and, and it being whole grain doesn’t necessarily mean whole grain, sugary cereal, is still going, you know, spike your blood sugar, you know, probably want you, you know, like not satisfy you, make you hungrier and make you want to eat more. So yeah. Is that whole grain cereal really that great of a choice for you?

Rita Black: You know, and again, we, so, so I want you to know I’m not putting any of these things down, but you just wanna, like when you are making decisions about how you’re eating and feeding yourself, I want you to believe in you. I want you to put your, you know, belief in that you’ve got a powerful brain. You can do this. All the answers are inside you. It’s just a matter of, you know, creating a way of living that allows you to live your life at your ideal weight. So this is why I wanna just go through some of these, these terms and, you know, just give you some other information from my perspective. And what I have found that, you know, when we’re giving our power over these things, often, if we think they’re “healthy”, what we do is we may, eat too much of them. Oh, well, it’s healthy. I can eat as much as I want just like the entenmann’s fat free, you know, coffee cake, or, you know, I have, it gives us this idea like, oh, I have been so healthy and pure, I deserve to eat some more, right. So it, it can, it can backfire on us.

Rita Black: So, one of the first words is organic. You know, I have had, and, and again, I’m not not saying this is you, but I’ve had clients who have said, well, I eat all organic. Why am I not losing weight right? Now, those of you may be chuckling that knows that, you know, like an organic apple and a non-organic apple, probably have the same amount of energy, you know, if they were the exact same size and everything, the amount of calories, the amount of, you know, energy in the amount of maybe the amount of nutrients might be a little different in the organic versus the non-organic apple, but, you know, they are going to, you know, really have the same caloric impact on your body. And, you know, if you eat a bag of apples doubt, I, I doubt you would, but if you did, you know, that would be a lot of apples. And just because they were organic, doesn’t mean they’re a free food. I know weight Watchers lets you eat. I think does weight Watchers let you eat all the fruits and vegetables you want and that you doesn’t count for anything. So, you know, maybe in the world of weight Watchers, but in, in the world of, you know, science, it doesn’t fly that way. So, anyway again, nothing against anything, just kind of looking at words.

Rita Black: So organic. So I’m gonna say another thing about organic. So the, the, the now, as you probably have noticed the marketing around things, organic products, you know, everything is organic, you know, to the point that you wanna laugh. Organic toothpaste, organic clothing, you know, organic, you know, if you put organic in front of it, you can charge $5 more for pretty much anything or a lot more. And again, organic is a great idea. I am not dissing organic. I mean, I am so happy to have organic products that I know don’t have the chemicals that, you know, might be harmful that aren’t, you know, harming the environment. So I’m not dissing organic at all. I’m dissing organic, the idea of organic somehow being a diet food or, you know, something that’s gonna help you lose weight. Now, if you are making more wholesome, organic choices over refined foods and fast foods. Yeah, yeah. That, oh, you know, you’re eating a more organic-based diet. Okay, cool. That will probably, you’ll probably get healthier. You’ll probably release weight, but you know, swapping know organic greens for non-organic greens, it isn’t gonna fly.

Rita Black: So I was at my friend’s cabin a few years ago. This was my organic story. And I went to his, you know, like I, I eat a, I eat peanut butter and my peanut butter is like peanuts and salt, you know, and it’s all ground up and it’s good. But it that’s it, you know? But, so I went to his cabin and we were, our family was staying at his cabin and I pulled out a jar of organic peanut butter from his cupboard. And I looked at the label and I just had to laugh so hard because the ingredients were organic peanuts, organic cane sugar, organic palm oil and organic salt. I mean, okay. So, you know, basically a junkie, if it were Jiffy, those are pretty much the same ingredients in a pretty refined peanut butter, other than the fact that each of those ingredients were organic. So, that’s my little organic story, made me laugh.

Rita Black: All right. So another, you know, term is vegetarian. All right. So some of you might be vegetarian and all the power to you. That’s, you know, a very healthy way of eating. A lot of people choose not to harm animals and to, you know, the, obviously the, a lot of our meat products are full of, you know, hormones and things like that. And, you know, people make, definitely make lifestyle choices, but sometimes people do come to me and they’re like, you know, I swapped over to a vegetarian diet and I thought I would lose weight, but I’ve gained weight. And the same with like a vegan diet, like, oh, you know, I thought my friend so skinny and she’s a vegan. I thought that, you know, eating vegan would, you know, help me lose weight.

Rita Black: But you know, the problem with that is, again, you know, those diets are those ways of eating and why I say diet, you guys, I don’t mean like diet, like, you know, diet to lose weight. I mean, diet in Greek means way of eating. So I don’t want you to get all, you know, you know, cuz I know some people’s hair raises on the back of their neck when they hear the word diet. But when I use the word diet, mostly I’m just saying it is a way of eating. So, yeah. Vegetarian, vegan again, awesome choices ways of eating if it works for you, but don’t necessarily choose it, you know, to lose weight. You can choose it because you want to not harm animals and to, you know, again, save the environment. All of that stuff is super cool. But you know, the vegan foods can be very densely caloric and I have seen, and the sometimes if you are eating more carbohydrates because those diets often have more carbohydrate-based because you’re eating more beans, beans are part protein, part carbohydrate. But like lots of rice bread. You know, I had a friend who was a vegetarian once and all he ate was cheese pizza. I mean, you know, and he was not healthy, you know?

Rita Black: So, you have to balance that and really make sure that you’re eating light foods, the definitely the greens and the, the vegetables and fruits that are lighter because if you’re eating only densely caloric foods, even like avocados can be, you know, an avocado is healthy until you’re eating too much of it and then it becomes unhealthy because you gain weight, because you know, they are densely caloric and you know, you eat some awesome, you eat a lot, you know, it’s the same with almonds. You eat a handful of almonds. There’s a, you know, a lot of, I think each almond has like maybe be 10 calories in it, you know? So it, we, we grab a handful of almonds and shove ’em in our mouth and chew ’em in almost mindlessly thinking, oh, well, it’s good for me and it’s healthy, but it ceases being healthy when we’re eating more than our body needs. Right. So, and we’re gaining weight.

Rita Black: So, you know, just be aware that, especially, if you’re vegetarian or vegan and I’m sure you’re consulting with a nutritionist and you’re, you know, all aware of what you need to be putting in your body, but I do see a number of vegans, who, what has happened is that they’re, they’ve gotten sort of carbohydrate dependent like their, their, their brain has kind of gotten into a carbohydrate mode and they aren’t eating enough protein and, and it, it can cause you stimulate your appetite and make you want to eat more. Just some people, not everybody, but, but there are certain people who have a, are more genetically prone towards carbohydrates, especially more refined carbohydrates. And again, I don’t know what kind of way that you’re eating, but you, you wanna make sure you’re getting enough vitamin B12. You wanna make sure that you’re, you know, getting enough protein, you know, in the form of P protein or bean protein or c10 or, or, or a tofu or a what, whatever you are making work for you within your vegan regime, you might even explore other more substantial forms of protein within that because you just might feel better. Some people feel a little off balance on a vegan diet and it isn’t because a vegan diet is unhealthy per se, but if you’re not getting the right amounts of complete proteins, some people just do fill off or they, they, like I said, can get more into carbs and then that can cause some problems with weight management.

Rita Black: You know, and then to that extent, eating clean, like, you know, we can eat clean and a lot of people go, oh, well, I’m gonna lose weight. Now I’m going to eat clean. But again, you can eat clean and you can eat way more than your body needs. And eating clean is great, but, you know, and eating clean for those of you who don’t know is just like, you’re eating pretty much wholesome foods. Whole foods that aren’t refined, you know, lean vegetable, lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, whole things, whole grains, you know, all of those things, but it really, can for a lot of people be misleading in their brains. They’re like I’m eating clean, you know, so I’m cool. Like I’m fine, but they’re just eating too much.

Rita Black: And the same with, with keto, I know there’s this whole ketogenic, you know, you get into ketosis and it doesn’t matter how much you’re eating and you’re, you’re doing ketones and all of that stuff. But unless you’re really, really, really following a ketogenic diet to a T, meaning you are in a state of ketosis and there was this article I read where this person who was a nutritionist, said, most people are not in ketosis who think they’re following a ketogenic diet. It’s just, you know, they’re taking out a whole food group, you know, carbohydrates, but then they’re eating massive amounts of, of meat and cheese and bacon and avocado. And again, all of these things are very densely caloric. So unless there you are in true ketosis, which is not incredibly sustainable, according to this new nutritionist who is like most people would gag if they were really eating a true ketogenic diet, because it does require eating a lot of fat. Then, you know, you know, beware, beware of, you know, making sure, you know, some people see a lot of weight loss up front. But then they plot at toe. And that can be frustrating. And sometimes that’s because the ketogenic diet does like really get a lot of the water out of your body. So, you might see a lot of water, weight loss up front and fat loss too, but I’m just saying that just you know, I, this is all not, I’m not dissing ketogenics, I, or sorry, the ketogenic diet I’m not, and all of these things are fine if you’re approaching it, you know, as I’m taking ownership of this and making it my own and using it for my body and what my body needs and for my weight release.

Rita Black: You know, again like intermitent fasting perfectly fine. I fast, you know, I, I go long periods without food, you know, for health and, and, you know, it makes it pretty easy to manage your weight. However, I have seen many people, say, I’m intermittent fasting, but in that eight hour window that I’m allowing myself to eat, I can eat a lot of foods. So again, if you’re eating more than your body needs, irregardless of if it’s fasting or keto, you know, if it’s keto or vegetarian, it’s not, you know, gonna work for you. And I don’t want you to be disappointed because you’re like, oh, vegan didn’t work for me. And this didn’t work for me. It’s no, you, you are perfect within yourself. But you know, these things are, are ways of eating. They’re structures, but they’re not necessarily going to create weight loss unless you use it and you knowledgeably use it in that way.

Rita Black: Assibles, you know, I’m just gonna, those probably belong in this next list that I’m gonna go through with you. So I’ll move those over there. But like juicing, even like juicing, a lot of people would like to juice. And I, again, I think that juicing can work for a lot of people. I’ve seen people cure themselves of stuff with juicing, you know, I’m not, but again, if you’re drinking, like, especially, a, you know, a juice with like a lot of fruit juice in the morning that is gonna spike your blood sugar, and that might cause you to eat more later in the day. But yeah, I mean, I don’t, the juicing thing for a lot of people is very helpful, you know, again, cleansing and all, all of that stuff, but just, you know, be aware it’s not necessarily, I remember Jamba juice. I think it’s still around and people would go and buy these big, old things of Jamba juice, which are like a thousand calories some of those drinks, you know. Over like a half or, or more than half of some people’s daily bodily needs to, you know, man maintain their weight, you know, in, in one juice. And that was a snack, you know, so buy or beware, you know. Think those things through in, they have a look at them from like, really, is this really the sugar free craze, right, right now everything’s sugar, free sugar free, you know, but they still, if you look, the sugar free cookie is pretty much the same amount of calories as the, the sugar full cookie, you know. And, and you see on most of the, as products, it says, this is not a low calorie food. So the fact that it is absent of sugar might be helpful if it’s not spiking your sugar and making you hungrier you know. And I eat some sugar food products and I enjoy them and, and they don’t spike my sugar or make me want to eat more like, you know, something with sugar in it, because, you know, I have a sugar addiction background. But you know, it’s not less calories. So it just, and, and the same with gluten free, they’re, everything’s gluten free. And I think for a while, I don’t think so much anymore, but, you know, everyone’s like, I’m eating gluten free. Why am I getting wait? You know, I ate a gluten free muffin. It’s, you know, if sometimes gluten free can, because it’s made with rice flour or different types of flour that are actually higher, more highly refined than weight flour, they, if you eat something, it can make you hungrier.

Rita Black: So, now I wanna go through, so I hope, I hope I didn’t, I, I, I didn’t certainly mean to offend anybody, but I just wanted to kind of go through some of these terms of the day to just kind of look at them from other angles. And now I wanna go through, some foods that again, are what I see can become a challenge for people thinking they’re healthy, but then, you know, backfiring for them. So the first one is frozen yogurt. Frozen yogurt. Who here likes frozen yogurt? Well, I can tell you that over the years I’ve had multiple, multiple, multiple, so many clients. I, I could write a book on frozen yogurt. Not to say, again, it’s not delicious. I like frozen yogurt, but that frozen yogurt can be addictive food for some people. They can really, because of the sugar in the way it hits the brain, you know, people get into real habits with frozen yogurt. There’s not so as many frozen yogurt places around as there used to be. So maybe that is sort of fading, but I just wanted to put my plug in for frozen yogurt, buy or beware of frozen yogurt. And again, you can go and enjoy a cup of frozen yogurt, but thinking like, oh, it’s only 80 calories, but then you go and add all the crap on top, from the, the little goody, you know, buffet, adding stuff to it, or, syrups on top. And, or even if you’re eating a plain, you know, getting one of those big, old honk in dishes, you know, then it adds up and then it, for a lot of people is a gateway food to more snacking.

Rita Black: Nut butters. I kind of covered this when I talked about almonds, but nut butters can be very addictive for people. So even we might be eating a half a jar of almond butter and thinking, well, almonds are healthy, but again, if it’s a trigger food for you, you probably shouldn’t have it in your house. Some people can mnage this stuff and some people, it just is a, you know, a trigger food.

Rita Black: The things like halo, top ice cream, again, kind of like frozen yogurt, not that bad. I mean, you know, they’re very low calories. So they might be fine for you, but again, you know, it’s, you really just have to kind of start to look at these things, like, can I manage the portions? And when I eat it, does it make me hungrier or when I eat it, like as a snack, does it, does it lead me to, you know, wanting to snack more? You know, does eat like I’ll have frozen yogurt, then I will have popcorn and then I will have, you know, crackers or whatever. It’s like we often eat in a pattern. So you know, start to ask yourself these healthy foods, you know, is, are they addictive for you? Are you eating too much of them?

Rita Black: Popcorn is a big one, the microwave popcorn, you know. Only a hundred calories, but then we eat four of them, you know, over the course of the night. So is that really serving you? Salads? Okay. So salads, if you’ve heard me rant and rave about salad, it’s like salads at a restaurant. You know, most restaurants I go to, I get so pissed off with their salad selection, because if you remove the lettuce from these salads, you know, most of them all have the candid nuts with the big chunks of blue cheese. And if you took away the measly greens, you know, with the dressing, it’s a really caloric dish, you know, more caloric than probably the pasta dish you wanted to eat, or the chicken pacada, you know, like, I just laugh when I look at some salad menus and I’m like, really, are you kidding me? Even Caesar salad that, you know, it’s got all the Crotons and all those things. And, so, you know, we think we’re being really virtuous, ordering a salad too. And the problem with that is we’re like, well, I ate that salad. I can order dessert. But the problem is we probably ate way more calories, like, like I said, with the salad, maybe not, but I just, again, look at that menu, look at what’s on there. And, you know, I’m always asking for stuff on the side, you know, can I get those candy nuts on the side, or just leave them off and leave off that other stuff and put more healthier stuff on. I’ll look at other stuff on the menu and go put that on there instead, and, you know, leave that other thing be, and they’ll do it. But, yeah. Be aware of salads. You know, there’s a lot of healthy salads out there, but you know, when you’re eating out, just, just kind of be aware of that.

Rita Black: Veggie crisps, right? Like, you know, there’s that potato chip section. And then the veggie Crisps seem like the healthier choice, but, you know, they’re. I don’t even know what’s in those things because I just, I don’t, so I’m, you know, maybe they, they’re loaded, but you know. They are, you eat them and your body goes through the same process it does when it’s eating potato chip or, or something like, you know, crunchy and salty, it’s going to want more. And those veggie crisps are the same amount of calories as, you know, potato chips. They’re, you know, so there’s really not much difference really in them. God, the, you know, food industry, they sit in board rooms and think these things up, you know. They’re just like, well, people don’t like the idea of potato chips, so how can we make something that seems healthy, but it’s still got sugar, fat, salt, you know, they’re like, how about veggie crisps? Good idea. You get the raise, you know, like, it puts my hair on end. If you could see it right now, it’s just standing right on end.

Rita Black: Protein bars. Okay. Again, you know, can we talk protein bars? There’s some really good ones, but a lot of those things have a lot of, you know, they’re caloric and you eat one and you’re like, Hmm, well that didn’t really satisfy my appetite, but I just ate 250 calories and it tasted kind like a candy bar and I kind of want more, you know, like, so you, you really got to ask your self, you know, look at the protein, really make sure that there’s enough protein. Like, I, I will look at a protein bar and say, you know, if it doesn’t have 15 grams of protein or more, I’m not even interested in it. You know, I look at some of these protein bars have seven grams of protein. They’re mostly, you know, nuts and chocolate and all these things. And I’m like, no, I really wanna eat something that’s got protein. That’s going to satisfy me and take me to the next meal, not eat it, then want the next one, which is like I said, what a lot of them do.

Rita Black: So, so really, start to notice, like when you’re eating some of these things, how do you feel a half hour later? Like, did it really satisfy you or did eating it actually make you feel hungrier or more? I need something more, right? Because these are the foods then you wanna start to shift your relationship with. You know, you wanna start to go, you know what, that food is not serving me. Let me find a food that really stabilizes me that I love that tastes good in my mouth. That’s, you know, a healthy choice, but that doesn’t leave me wanting more or, or looking for more.

Rita Black: A side bowls. Okay. Yeah. Like a side bowls, they’re a bunch of fruit. I think there’s some healthy, definitely healthy components to it, but again, it can spike your blood sugar and make you feel hungrier later. So just be careful with, you know, those things that seem healthy. And again, you know, these are the questions that you wanna be asking yourself when you were thinking, you know, oh, you threw the foods that you consider healthy. Is it, can I manage the portions of this? Do I have to eat more than one? You know, like a skinny cow ice cream bar is great. It’s a portion control. It’s, you know, certain amount of calories. It’s tasty, but do you want on a second one or, you know, does it satisfy you at the end of the meal and are you done? Or, you know, like these are the things that you wanna start to tune into your body, tune into yourself and really just get present to them. Like, is this really, the best choice for me? Or does it make me hungrier or definitely a lot out of these “health foods” eating on an empty stomach, really leave you wanting more, not satisfying you.

Rita Black: Is it a gateway food? Like with the popcorn, if I eat one, then do I wanna eat more popcorns or do I wanna eat something else after it satisfy? If I get eat the salty crunchy, then do I need something sweet? Then I do. I need something salty, crunchy again. How much value am I getting from the, you know, my, the calories, like, you know, if you’re eating something, that’s a significant amount of calories, you want it to do something for you. You want it to stabilize you. You, you want it to take you to your next meal. You don’t want to eat, you know, a, a fat free donut, you know, for 300 calories and be starving in 15 minutes. That wasn’t a good investment of, you know, your energy for the day, right? You wanna get the best bang for your buck from what you’re eating, both enjoying it, but also knowing that it’s gonna stabilize, nourish you.

Rita Black: And then another question you could ask yourself, is there a less healthy item? Is there a less healthy item that would satisfy me more maybe for fewer calories? Like, cuz sometimes if you eat the real McCoy and I’m not saying go out and eat a bunch of junk, but if you’re eating the real McCoy, you know, sometimes it satisfies you, it doesn’t make you wanna eat more. And you’re like, oh, that was yummy. Now I’m gonna get on with my day and you don’t feel like you need to eat more and you don’t feel so virtuous that you feel like you could eat five more because the virtue factor is really big. And you know, again, health food and diet food industry, really bank roll on that. You know, I remember many times going to vegetarian restaurants and going, oh, this is healthy. So I’m going to, I, and, and I would end up eating so much more than if I thought, oh, this isn’t the healthiest choice. Maybe I, I wanna, you know, go easy on this. So crazy.

Rita Black: All right. So I hope our little discussion. I hope my little rant through the world of healthy foods and, was, you know, I thought, I hope it was thought provoking for you. And I hope it was, you know, just, I know you and I know you’re smart and I know you have, you know, like know so much about these things, you know, but I just wanted to have this one-to-one conversation with you just like looking at these things and, and, you know, just, it’s always helpful to have those little question marks in the back of our mind, you know, especially when we’re, you, you know, a multibillion dollar industry is, you know, doing its best to hypnotize us and market to us thinking that, you know, we’re idiots and that, you know, we can fall for the next ploy, AKA antemann’s fat free coffee cake.

Rita Black: All right. So, this week, I wanna remind you, marks the second to last week of our Write a Thin Thinking Podcast Review and Prize Drawing. And all you have to do is take a picture of the Thin Thinking review that you write, um, on the platform that you listen to us on and send it to rita@shiftweightmastery.com. And if you can’t remember that, just grab it from the show notes below, and then you will be put into the prize drawing, which is gonna be on March 31st. So get that review in. There are gonna be three runner up prizes of a hundred dollars worth of downloads from the Shift Weight Mastery Hypnosis Download Store and a grand prize winner who will win a free place in our upcoming live online Shift Weight Mastery Process that is gonna be led by me and that’s coming up soon. It’s just in a month, a month away. So this is an awesome prize worth several hundred dollars. So go get those reviews rolling in. Okay. Everyone have an amazing week. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door of the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it. I’ll see you next week.

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