Rita Black: Ugh! Plateaus, we all seem to dread them. And yet I will be honest. They are a common part of a long term weight journey. The problem is many people hit a plateau and give up when the true key to consistency is to keep going. In today’s episode, we look at how to use Thin Thinking around plateaus so that they can be your friend and teacher and not an enemy. So come on in.

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: Oh boy. Am I crawling across the finish line? My son’s junior year is almost over. His birthday is done. My anniversary number 33 was last week. And as grateful as I am. Oh boy. Like I said, I don’t know if you’ve been following this podcast, but April and May and June and, and there somewhere around here now I can breathe sigh relief. So I am looking forward to going away to my husband’s cousin’s daughter’s wedding. And I know that’s a mouthful. It sounds like a movie, right? It’s his, I’m trying to do a movie voice. My cousin’s husband’s daughter’s wedding. My husband’s cousin’s daughter’s wedding in theaters near you.

Rita Black: No, but I’m really excited, but it also is gonna mean packing, which I hate and traveling on a plane, which I used to love traveling on a plane. I don’t know about you, but the older I’ve gotten the more, the idea of a 12-hour plane ride freaks me out. And so, when we were booking the plane ride, I said to my husband, can we have a layover? I know it sounds crazy right. But I was like, I just wanna not be on a plane for 12 hours straight. I know some people like knock themselves out, but I’m just like the idea of maybe I’m just more of a control freak now than I used to be. And just the idea of I’m not gonna be in control for 12 hours of my physical being. I don’t know, but anyway, I, I help people ironically with their fear of flying. I don’t have a fear, but I just don’t wanna be on a plane for 12 hours.

Rita Black: So anyway, so yeah, I, traveling, packing and then wearing a hat to a wedding because it’s England and you wear hats to weddings. And I, I don’t know the first thing about owning. I mean, I have hats, I have baseball hats, but I don’t have, you know, fancy hats. But I am gonna really look forward to this and look forward to being away. And I love my husband’s relatives are all crazy. And, you know, they all talk like, you know, well, they all talk like they do in, in like near Liverpool, right? Like that Liverpudlian accent. I forget what it’s like now, when I used to live in England, I used to be able to mock on one, oh, Rita, give us a beer, you know, but maybe when I come back, I’ll be able to do a better imitation, but I’m gonna record a few of these episodes ahead of time so that you will continue to have Thin Thinking while I am away at the wedding. And then I will come back and share with you some fun, I am sure, and kooky and zany wedding stories.

Rita Black: But today we’re gonna talk about plateaus and I can hear you groaning from there. Chances are, you might be on one right now and I’m, and probably chances are not finding it so pleasant. So I would like to do a bit of a reframe cognitive reframe and start to look at plateaus, not as a foe, but as a necessary and powerful part of the weight mastery process. So, I, I have a coaching session. I am gonna share with you now. And I it’s, I, I went through this with my monthly mastery community so I hope that you enjoy this training.

Rita Black: Let’s just talk about plateaus and take a deep breath. a collective shift breath, and just, I wanna, I really hope by the end of this, you know, this time that we’re talking about plateaus, that we can have a different relationship with plateaus, that we can start to see plateaus, not as a major bummer, but as something that is a natural part of the weight mastery journey, you know, we’ve been diving in to this idea of the longer term weight mastery journey and, breaking down this mythology of, you know, how when you lose weight, you know, you lose it and then you’re done, and then, you know, the party begins because you’ve reached your ideal weight. But you know, that is really not what a weight mastery journey is. I mean, we’ve lost weight before. Certainly that way I know we’ve done crash diets and things like that, where you can get to, you know, down the scale, but really maintaining and, and, and especially on a long term journey, I know she’s not here, but Shelly who is in our community, as you know, she did a podcast and everything she’s been on, you know, a two and a half year journey, almost three, and has released over a hundred pounds and has been on probably four or five serious plateaus, right? So, any long term journey, now she’s had a significant amount of weight to lose and sometimes, you know, some of you don’t have as much to release as Shelly did, but for the most part that you are going to, it’s going to be a natural part of your weight mastery journey. And, and we really want to as weight masters, not, not fear them or hate them, but to start to create a, a more powerful mindset around them so that we don’t give up.

Rita Black: So what a, a plateau is for those of you who have been living under a rock , I don’t think anyone here has, but it’s an extended period of time where our weight remains the same or within, you know, a range of four or five pounds going up a pound down a pound up two pounds down, you know, two pounds when it goes up. Now, the problem with a plateau obviously is it can be a real killjoy, a real bummer, and absolutely no fun on the scale. Now, why, again, you know, we are weight masters, and we, we look at things differently. But, you know, there’s, we get a little dopamine rush. Let’s face it when we get on the scale and it is down, right?

Rita Black: So getting on the scale, seeing the scale down is addictive, right? That’s that is just a given, it’s just like a little game, you know, little app on your phone, you know, the game, or my husband plays Wordle. I don’t have time for Wordle, but he has time for Wordle. And he and my son both, you know, compete on Wordle every, and you know, like they get there, you know? And so we get on the scale when we’re in weight release mode and we, you know, we see that scales down and our brain’s like Woohoo. And, you know, the confetti goes in our brain and, and, and it, and it’s exciting. And it’s exciting because for many reasons, because you’ve been working hard and, and putting in, you know, with good faith, taking care of yourself, you, you know, and, and we get into this mode right, where we’re, we’re working hard and releasing weight, and we see that, that feedback basically on the scale that yes, you’re doing good and yes, it’s good and you are good because the scale is down. And, and that’s awesome, right? Like I’m not, there’s nothing wrong with that scenario, except for the fact that there are gonna be times where the scale is up, and there’s, you know, for many, many reasons, and not that you’ve gained fat, but there are also gonna be times where the scale is going to be stable.

Rita Black: And we’re gonna get into why, but one of them, ultimately is gonna be cuz you reached your ideal weight. And the interesting thing is, is that, when you get to your ideal weight, I mean, I’ve been on a plateau for 25 years. , you know, but my ideal weight plateau. And so the, and we’re gonna get into this, but you know, we need to kind of change a relationship because ultimately I see a lot of people release weight, get to their ideal weight. And because they’re not getting that dopamine hit from the weight release, their head starts playing games with them and then, and or they wanna keep losing weight because it just, they, they become addicted or they, it it’s just like, they don’t know how to relate to themselves within their weight at, you know, not their weight, actually not doing anything. They don’t know any other way to have a value with their self care and their weight mastery journey other than the scale going down. Right. And, and again, the whole diet and weight loss industry is really focused on weight loss, right? And well, look, you guys are all here to release weight. Let’s be or maintain your weight, but, but, let’s be honest, but you know, we need to kind of start to, to poke holes in that and to start to look at that in order to create a more powerful mindset. So, and they can, , if you’re looking at the PowerPoint, excuse my little misspell, they can make us feel like a failure. Like when we’re on a plateau, they can, it, so, so much of what I find our, or when we hit struggle, points is not the struggle point itself what’s going on, but that we look bad to ourselves, right? That we don’t look good to ourselves when, when something negative or, you know, something is going on that could be perceived as negative.

Rita Black: So being on a plateau can bring back all of our weight, our weight, fears, insecurities about ourselves and weight, right? Like, oh, I knew it. I’m not really a great person with weight because I’m on a plateau and oh, you know, I’m somehow wrong because I’m on a plateau and it means that I’m not good enough. And it means that I’m not working hard enough and I’m not disciplined enough. And I have no willpower and all of those limiting beliefs that we have on a subconscious level flood back. And every day on the scale we get on that, scale’s the same. It can really spark our insecurities about ourselves. Right. So again, it, it, it’s, it’s, we have to start to change our mindset about it because we need to have a powerful mindset around everything on our weight mastery journey.

Rita Black: Now it’s okay. It like, I think acknowledging these feelings and we’re gonna get into this a little bit, like acknowledging our disappointment. That’s fine! Acknowledging, you know, that those beliefs about our weight, you know, our old weight beliefs, you know, is fine. You know, we need to acknowledge and accept that those beliefs exist so that we can start to work with them. The more we resist them, you know, the bigger they get, but we need to, really start to poke holes in them. But we need to, you know, make friends with all of these things that are coming up and really, there’s nothing worse, I understand, you know, like I’m not sitting here saying y’all, you know, it’s, you should be doing it this way. I’m saying, sorry, you guys, my new computer is so sensitive. such, and does something my old computer. I was like, bang, bang, bang, and went do anything.

Rita Black: So, so yeah, it’s worded expectations. Like there is no, no big, bigger killjoy than, you know, seeing that scale go down every week or every day. And then all of a sudden it’s flat line and, and we have a deadline, right? We’re like, I’m gonna release this weight by June. And then, you know, in the middle of March, nothing’s happening. It’s like, crap! I’m not gonna meet my deadline. You know, it’s, it, it can, it, again, it can create, it can bring back all of those anger, fear, all of our negative below-the-line feelings, that we have, feelings, beliefs around weight and, and ultimately they can, we can get bored with the plateau and we can get weary with the plateau and we just can give up. Right. So we really need to, you know, understand and come at this because plateaus are a natural part of weight mastery, and we need to actually take responsibility for our interpretation of them. Right. So, and what I mean by that is on a weight mastery journey. We are 100% responsible for everything, that happens when we take that 100, we, when we have that 100% responsibility attitude, we aren’t a victim of anything, especially the scale.

Rita Black: So we, anything then for us, when we’re taking responsibility is a growing point and a, an opportunity to strengthen ourselves, to become more powerful and, and ultimately, you know, really, truly reaching your ideal weight. It’s gonna be a long plateau and I want you to love it and be ready for it. And plateaus are great practice for, you know, getting there because it makes you focus on things other than just the scale. We need to be friend plateaus and allow them to empower us.

Rita Black: And. So, why do plateaus happen? Well, a lot of you maybe have noticed on your weight mastery journey and in the shift, we talk about this a lot that, you know, in the first few weeks, in the first six weeks, really when we’re releasing weight, it’s, it’s a lot of it is water weight. And so your body is still releasing weight, even though you aren’t seeing that release on the scale, because let’s say you release your, your putting in the work to release a pound that week, you know, 3,500 calories, but you release four pounds in that first week. And three of those pounds is water, weight. And often what happens in a weight release journey is the first three weeks we lose a significant amount of weight. And a lot of diets really actually focus on, you know, lose 20 pounds in two weeks or three weeks. Well, that’s actually physiologically not possible as far as like releasing fat. Yeah. You can lose a crap load of water weight, especially if you start eating right, because when you’re eating poorly, you have a lot of inflammation in your body and your body also stores water molecules with the glycogen molecules in your muscles. So in the first part of a weight loss journey, you are going to see water, weight release. And, and even though I say this again and again, a lot of people forget that and or if you’ve been away, you know, like if you got off track and you’re getting back on track, you are also gonna probably see water release as well. And that can be very exciting, but the problem is, is then you’re gonna pay the scale back because ultimately you are, you know, it, it’s the you’re paying back the scale for that water weight. So you might release six pounds in the first three weeks, but you’ve only released three pounds of fat. Then the next few weeks you might see a plateau for, you know, until your body catches up.

Rita Black: So. And then there is a recalibration process that happens many times along, along a weight mastery journey. If you’ve released a significant amount of weight or, you know, 20 pounds, your body internal temperature. And I think Lisa, cuz she brought this up with, as she found this article, is that your body’s internal core temperature needs to stay at a steady rate. And I, I think correct me if I’m wrong, it’s like 97 degrees. I, I don’t might not be completely accurate about that, but it’s a, it’s a certain amount, it’s a certain temperature you guys can put in chat. I can’t see chat right now, but when your body is like recalibrating that internal thermostat, it might hold onto that the weight release until you, you know, it’s recalibrated and then you’ll start to see a weight release.

Lisa: That, that bodies don’t they like to stay within certain parameters and weight is one of the things that your body might not might want to resist changing.

Rita Black: Yes.

Lisa: And so it wasn’t so much that it it’s linked to temperature, but it’s kind of the same as the way your body regulates your temperature by sweating or dilating your blood vessels when you get too warm or, or shivering when you’re cold that it’s doing something kind of like that yeah. With, with your weight

Rita Black: Mm-hmm . Yeah. So thank you Lisa, for sharing that. So that, that definitely the body is gonna go through phases where it’s recalibrating and it might, it might be a while. So it, it, two weeks, three weeks, it could be even a month. You know, I’ve had many clients, students who, you know, diligently, stayed on track, didn’t see anything on the scale for a month, six weeks, two months. And then they saw a significant weight release at the end of that time. But it just, it, it, the body is sometimes gonna do things that we can’t feel in control of, but that we can, you know, that is one of those, those things that we can at least be aware of that and injury, if we are injured, anywhere in our body, our body is amazing. It will send water to the injury to keep it lubricated, you know, it’s part of the healing process. So we might be retaining water.

Rita Black: And the same thing with, if you start working out, you might see a plateau or even weight gain on the scale because when you’re starting to use your muscles again, your muscles, who is I talking about with this, about they get, you know, my, my husband has a term for it as swole, I guess this is a guy term. It’s like, yeah, you look really swole, dude. That you go to the, you go to the gym and you work out your muscles and then, you know, all the water goes to your, your, you know, biceps and, and you look swole because, you know, you’ve been working out your muscles. So, when people are kind of shocked, they’re like, what the hell I’ve been working out with a trainer and I’ve gained three and a half pounds on the scale. Like what’s, you know, or, or you just might see because you’ve created a new regime in your life where you are using your body more. Your body is probably gonna consistently hold onto a little more water weight now, a and that’s good news because you are ultimately going to be working out using your, you know, muscles burn more than fat. So they’re more active, but also, you’re gonna be releasing weight ultimately more, more consistently if you’ve been engaging in exercise, but in the beginning of that, you, you know, I’ll go away. I won’t work out, you know, maybe on vacation or I’ll just walk and I’ll come back and I’ll have released weight. And I know that that, but as soon as I start working out that weight comes back and that’s part of my normal, consistent maintenance weight. So just bearing that in mind, that if you are changing a routine, that that might be a part of a plateau.

Rita Black: Also as we get older and I put a little unhappy face there, on the PowerPoint, because the plateau also might be that your metabolism has declined over the course of the last few months, you know, probably not significantly, but a few hundred calories a day. You know, again, I’ve noticed because I’ve been in touch with my own metabolism, with, you know, my Medi check machine over the 20 years that I’ve been using. It they’ll be, there’ll be drops in metabolism. It won’t be like, you know, gradual, it will just be like all of a sudden it goes down a hundred or 200 calories. It, it doesn’t happen often. I will be honest with you. But it happens, you know, and usually it’s around, you know, somewhere in the mid, mid forties, I noticed something, you know, in my early fifties now that I’m, you know, 57, I definitely noticed it went down a bit this year and I had to make adjustments.

Rita Black: So, and also, and this is one of the biggest reasons that I see, plateaus is inaccurate data, meaning that, when we start a weight release journey, a, a lot of times, you know, we’re engaged with our inner scientists, we’re releasing weight, we’re accurate, you know, we’re measuring things, we’re aware of everything that’s going on. And then, as time goes on, because you know, a long term weight mastery journey takes time, right? Six months a year, maybe for some people two years, three years, right. There’s, you’re gonna go through times where you’re really busy, you and, or you lose focus and that’s okay. I want you to know like that that’s not a problem, but chances are, you are not being as accurate as your, with your data, as you may think you are. And, and again, in my own weight release journey, that happened many, many times where I was like, what’s going on, I’m eating so healthy and I’m working out and I’m not releasing weight. And then when I looked really at the numbers and I got very specific, I saw, oh, yeah, that, you know, what I thought was, you know, three ounces of chicken. I, I was eyeball in it. It was six ounces of chicken, or I was, or I stopped tracking. And I was just like, assuming, eh, well, that’s about 1200 calories or 1500 calories today. And no, it wasn’t. And as with women, especially if we’re off just a few hundred calories a day at you’re going to not be releasing weight, you know, it, because of those, just like that little, I mean, is it fair? No, is it but it’s, but it just is.

Rita Black: So, and a lot of these people are, are, are exercise devices, like, you know, I have so many clients and students, so everybody might have a different tracker for their exercise and their steps. Some of them are inaccurate, you know, and if you go online and look at the data, you know, up to 30% inaccurate, so you may be saying I’m burning, you know, 500 calories in that exercise class, or I’m, you know, walking 10,000 steps a day, but that might not be accurate.

Rita Black: And, and so, and then also, I mean, I, I know I’ve talked about this here, but the packaging, even on packages in the grocery store can be inaccurate by law up to 25%. So if you think you’re, you’re, you know, the package says that serving is 120 calories. It might actually be a hundred and I don’t know, my math is bad, but you know, 150 calories, right? And again, you might think, well, that’s not very much, but what if you’re eating, consuming a lot of packaged foods and, and forget about it, if it’s that, like, that is like, corporate packaging. But if you’ve got people and, and Lisa, Lilly, and hungry girl, in the beginning days, I don’t know if she’s doing this anymore, but it was fascinating because she would take, you know, mom and pop operations who are doing their own sort of labeling, like this diet scone is only 200 calories. She would get that scone and put it in a lab and have it tested. And often those types of things that aren’t corporate packaging, but more, local packaging, or I don’t know what to call it, but you know, where, where it’s probably not been going through like a, you know, like definitely a government overseer, like checking these things. They can be way off because she would say that 200 calorie stone was like 400 calories.

Rita Black: And there was actually a, a client of mine online who was not, she was at a plateau and she had been eating these online, I forget the name of the company, I won’t say it, but it was like a dessert, like zero sugar dessert company. And she was ordering them. They were very expensive online, and they were like little desserts, like cakes and, and cookies. I mean, it looked like a dream come true. And then, and then, you know, maybe three weeks later, some article came out about this particular company, how completely off they were and their reporting and, and labeling. And I think that company went out of business because, you know, everybody.

Rita Black: So, so you gotta kind of check that out to, you gotta look at the food that you’re eating and, you know, ask yourself like, is this accurate? And now of course, we can feel like, oh my God, well, then I’m not in control of this at all, but, I’m gonna talk about how we can start to look at this from and get more accurate for ourselves. We might have inaccurate expectations, and, or you might be on a medication that might be causing you to retain water. Some medications, you know, I don’t know that at again about weight gain itself, but it may be raising your insulin levels and, and messing with what the scale is saying. And then there just might be a subconscious resistant behavior that we’re not aware of, you know, that, or, or that we’re not that we need to tend to, like, we, we stay, you know, we we’re, we’re good or we are not good we’re, but we’re, we’re within our range. And then we’re night eating, but our brain isn’t like reporting that to us. You know, it’s kind of like, I call under the radar eating or under the radar calories where, you know, we’re, we’re consciously going. Yeah. I don’t think I ate that much, but kind of under the radar, we’re actually adding more oil or, you know, like, sautéing stuff with more oil than we thought we were, or not being completely, not, I don’t wanna use the word honest, but clear about really, truly how many, how much energy is going in our body and how much we’re using. I hope this makes sense. You guys.

Rita Black: So what can plateaus give us? So let’s start to shift at our relationship with plateaus. Okay. So we can start to have insight and, and a, plateau’s always, always, always an opportunity for insight about ourselves, about our body, about our weight mastery journey. We, like I said, need to take a hundred percent responsibility so that we can frame how we see these plateaus as an opportunity, and a plateau can be. And I think this is one of the most important things. It’s a mental pause, because again, if we’re, we get into that addiction mode of the dopamine hits from getting on the scale and it being down, then the whole focus starts to become about the scale and it being down the scale and it being down. And, which, you know, again, I’m not saying that that that’s very human and, and how human, but the problem with that is, is then it becomes about that and not about a more holistic journey down the scale where we’re taking care of ourselves and tuning into ourselves and, and really looking at this as a, a journey of believing in ourselves, self care, loving ourself, no matter what.

Rita Black: And, and often a plateau’s an opportunity for the preparation for your next journey. It’s kind of like, you know, how swimmers tread water, you know, you’re, you’re kind of treading water and, and allowing your mindset to settle in because you’ve been making so many changes. And I, I really believe a plateau gives you time to acknowledge yourself for what you’ve learned so far. Right? Like it really forces you to kind of, instead of like, keep going, keep going, keep going. You’re like, wait a minute, say, okay, nothing’s happening on the scale, but let me just pause here and look at like, what I’ve learned, how far I’ve come acknowledge myself, you know, and then think about what is this next leg of the journey about, because any of you guys in, in our group, you know, many of you have been at this, you know, either maintaining weight for over a year or so, or your getting to your maintenance weight or your ideal weight, or you’re, you know, on a plateau or you’re releasing weight, you know, that there are so many phases to a weight mastery journey.

Rita Black: So a plateau actually gives you a chance to pause and prepare for what’s next, because it’s a philosophical journey. It’s not just about the scale. It’s about who you are and who you are, is changing from the inside out. And, you know, the me 40 pounds above the scale and the me at my ideal weight, that was not just about the scale. That was about me changing my, myself and my attitudes, not just about even me or food. It was about my life. And it allowed, you know, plateaus allowed me to look at my life and go, okay, this is so I’ve released 10 pounds. How’s my life different. And, and now I have an opportunity to say what the next 10 pounds is about for me, not just about weight, but like, what do I need to change? Like, do I need to change my relationship with the people in my life so that they can support me more? Do I need to change how my house is set up? And my kitchen is set up so that, you know, I’m keeping the right foods out of my kitchen and the right foods in my kitchen at, at even looking at finances and, and what stress that causes and, you know, and plateaus might even come from a lot of stress because stress, creates cortisol and that it messes with our insulin. And, you know, when our insulin is kind of being messed about, we might not see a lot of change on the scale. So, you know, and, and plateaus can train us, really train us that it’s not just about the weight, but about that transformation.

Rita Black: So, when we’re in a plateau, this is my offering to you guys, is that we really wanna focus on acceptance versus resistance because it’s a human nature to go, no, is this happening to me? You know, and it’s not fair and it’s, I deserve better than this. I’m working so hard. It’s not fair. And I’m not saying you need to be holy and be like, all, oh, I’m so glad I’m in a plateau. It’s so helpful. I mean, of course you’re gonna be like, this sucks , you know, but, but accept it, like, yep, okay, I’m here, but I’m not gonna be a victim of this. Right. You know, but can you stomp your feet and have a tantrum? Absolutely. You know, go for it. In fact, have a big old tantrum, have a cry, have a, it’s not fair. And, and then take a breath and be like, okay, so I’m here. Let me accept where I am, settle and figure out what, you know, and start to look at it and start to look at what it might be about.

Rita Black: But if we stay in that stuck, like it’s not fair, I’m a victim of this. You’re, you know, it’s or a horror like, oh my God, this is, I can’t believe this is happening. Like I said, there is when we get into a plateau, it is a time where we become vulnerable because a lot of our subconscious beliefs about weight, our beliefs about ourselves come to the fore and we become, you know, it it’s a lot easier to think, oh, it was going so well. And now it’s not. And all my belief that, you know, this was different and I was different. It was all baloney. It was not true. I’ve not learned anything about my, you know, like it’s easy to get into that negative mindset and, and turn all of that energy in on yourself in a negative way. It’s a hate day for your inner critic and your inner rebel. And you’ve gotta be really careful about that. So, you know, listen to what the critic has to say, you know, and thank it. Thank you very much for that. And now I’m gonna turn on my coach, and really believe that like really practice, you know, I, I know our theme this month has been patience and persistence and, and the patient part of us is like, okay, do I love what’s going on? Maybe not, but maybe this is an opportunity for me. What can I learn here? What can I learn? Because the moment we bring in our inner coach and our coach is all about learning, right?

Rita Black: Our coach is all about reinforcing. Our coach is all about problem solving, strategizing the moment we start to turn on that part of our brain. We’re not in negative emotions anymore, we’re we actually, I haven’t, you noticed the moment you bring in your inner coach, the mood changes and, and we become more accepting. And we start to, use a different part of our brain. And therefore we use a different energy, and our, our brain loves to solve problems. We love puzzles. So when we start to focus on this as a puzzle, as something that we’re learning about ourselves, the energy in the room changes the energy in our weight mastery room. And we, we take back our power, and it is not about you. There’s nothing wrong with you that you’re in a plateau plateaus happen. And there’s such an opportunity for insight and learning about yourself. And, and again, as I go through this, at the end, for those of you who are coming in, we’re going to, for those of you on a plateau, we’re gonna gonna get a chance for you to talk. And we’re gonna walk through this, but I just wanna, I just wanna get through, this conversation, about like, there is nothing wrong with you. And, and plateaus are just a part of the weight mastery journey and the, you know, many, many phases of a powerful journey.

Rita Black: So here are some ways that we can start to master, a plateau. We can really use it as a, an opportunity to build a relationship with our inner coach, like a deeper relationship with our inner coach. And, and don’t get up. I, I mean, like, look, you can, I’m not saying don’t get mad. You’re gonna get mad, you know, and you’re going to be upset, but don’t stay there. You know what I mean? Like, don’t stay in that victim mode. We, we, you know, we, we, like I said, when, when we take a hundred percent responsibility for whatever is going on, we take back our power and staying in victim mode. It just, it does not serve you at all. It’s not who you are. You’re a powerful warrior of weight mastery. And I want you guys to remember that.

Rita Black: So get curious. Curiosity is the best asset you have in a plateau and focus on the non-weight release aspects of your journey at this time. And, and like I said, plateau is really an opportunity to pause and reinforce with yourself, all the growth that has happened so far to look at what may be working and not working in your environment and in the relationships around you. Because sometimes, you know, a lot of times when people start to struggle, somebody’s been bringing in food into the environment that wasn’t there before, or it, and it may even be you , it’s not just like somebody else, but, you know, start to look at your environment, look at how, how are things different than when they were, when you were releasing weight, they might be the, exactly the same, but they might not be look at you and your behaviors and the way you are assessing things, you might not be tracking the way you were. You might not be measuring the way you were. You might be. you might have, also released enough weight that your, and you know, some of you I know are on, using tracking devices that adapt and you’re reporting your weight to your device, and it lowers your, it changes your calorie budget for weight release automatically. But if you haven’t been, then, you know, if you’ve released 20 pounds, 30 pounds, you might have to adjust that. You might need to adjust that. And, and see if there’s a habit or a belief getting in the way, you know, some sort of opportunity for change for yourself many, many times, again, in my weight mastery journey, or even, you know, like even in maintenance, if I gained a few pounds, you know, I have to kind of, you know, settle, love myself unconditionally, you know, the time to look at problems and your challenges is not when this inner critic is like sitting there going you’re, you know, you’re a loser, you’re, it’s not happening for you.

Rita Black: The time to, to look at what’s going on, that maybe things could change is with your inner coach. So never go looking for problems or challenges with your inner critic, please. Bad idea, look with your inner coach, say, okay, let’s, let’s do in a little assessment. What, what could, what could be the things here? And, and for me, whenever I hit a plateau, I had a hierarchy of questions. I was like, okay, am I tracking correctly? Am I, measurements are, you know, and usually I start there because usually it was always there, but if it wasn’t, then it might be a pattern of behavior that I had gotten into that I didn’t think was a challenge, but that it was a challenge. And I was subconsciously you just like unaware of that.

Rita Black: All right. So also keep accurate data. So if you were kind of like, oh, well, I’m not gonna track for a while. Fine. Great. But now get back to it, get like, be super bring in the scientist. You know, let’s bring in the panel of scientists, you know, with their little white jackets, our inner scientists with the white jacket and get super data oriented. Why? Again, for, you know, those of you who are questioning this is because when we get scientific, when we look at facts, not cognitive distortion, you know, I’m not eating anything and I’m exercising my ass off and I’m not releasing weight. That is cognitive distortion. We need numbers, you know, it’s like, we need to look at what the specifics are. And again, all the stuff around it, because it helps calm our brain down because when our brain is in frantic overwhelm stress mode, our, our creativity, which is really, really needed here, you know, plateaus are really an opportunity to get creative and to use your problem solving brain. Our problem solving brain is not turned on when we’re panicking and, um, upset. Our problem solving brain is far, far away. So we really wanna get into cognitive, correct thinking, and often just looking at the facts, whatever those facts are for you is gonna be your number one, like step one, let’s just get clear.

Rita Black: And being more, more aware where there are inaccuracies, could it be that your exercise equipment that could be 30% off, whether it’s you’re at the gym and you’re on a treadmill, or, you know, those of us going back, my gym is open, but I’ve had paused my membership for, you know, two years, two and a half years. I’m going back. You know, I’ll be going back in April. I think we’ll see. But, and looking forward to it, but, you know, I, I know that gym equipment there, like if I get on the elliptical or any of those, machines, even the, the spin bike or whatever, I know they’re off, they aren’t, that’s not the accurate number. I usually allow. I take about 25% off any, a piece of equipment. And even the Fitbit, the garment, I think it’s called, the, the most accurate piece of exercise, like data I get, like I’ve ever gotten was from my polar heart rate monitor, but you know, the ones that are on your wrist, I know they’ve gotten better. They’ve gotten a lot better, but they can still be an accurate to a degree. So, you know, it, it use them, but realize that that might not be the truth.

Rita Black: And so you might need to readjust how you are looking at that so that you can get to a truth, and way you can do it is test, like, take your calories lower, you know, a hundred calories per day. Or maybe if it’s, you know, maybe if you are, you’ve started eating more starches and carbs, which again, starches and carbs, aren’t evil, but they might be creating when you’re eating them really does matter. And, if you’re eating like naked carbs on an empty stomach, um, that might be causing, you know, Glu, insulin spikes that might be messing with, you know, just, the numbers on the scale too. Or, uh, you know, exercise a little more, you know, take it up just a notch for a week. Like, I’m just saying, do test, test and tweak. You know, I, you know, in business I have to test and tweak a lot of things when things aren’t going well, cuz I don’t always have the answer. So testing, testing stuff for a week, like test taking your calories a hundred calories lower for that week, just be willing, you know, like find the willingness to do that and just test it, because it could be that there’s just some inaccuracies in the data that you’re getting that just require try that for a week and if it works okay, good. So, well maybe you’ve learned something and maybe can make some adjustments or exercise a little more and just see if there is an adjustment that happens. Sometimes I see people take their carbohydrate levels just way down for a few days and that kickstart something for them. And it, it probably is some sort of like, insulin reset in their body that just allows their body to release some weight. And, and then they’ll just start to see the scale go down again.

Rita Black: Those are some things that are just like hacks that are, you know, some ways to maybe get some information, make some adjustments without again, to, to really you, again, I’m coming back all the time to a hundred percent responsibility for you that, that don’t please, please don’t go into the victim mode. It’s so easy to do around plateaued.

Rita Black: All right, everybody have an amazing week and 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 and I will see you next week.

Rita Black: Thanks for listening to the thin thinking 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.