Rita Black: Happy Thanksgiving and Black Friday. As we head into the weekend of parties and gatherings and lots and lots of tempting food and drink, most of us hope to make healthy choices and stay on track, right? But as the pumpkin pie bakes and the wine flows and the holiday stress builds, that resolve wears a little thin. Am I right? That is where our thin thinking holiday mantras will come to the rescues. So join me for this episode of Thin Thinking, where I will give you some thin thinking tools for the weekend and some good old healthy holiday mantras to get your mind going in the right place. So grab that Turkey baster and 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, bestselling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery Process. And not only have I helped thousands of people over the past 20 years achieve long-term weight mastery, I am also a former weight struggler, carb addict and binge eater. And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis. Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years. Enter the Thin Thinking Podcast where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I’ll give you the thin thinking tools, skills and insights to help you develop the mindset you need, not only to achieve your ideal weight, but to stay there long term and live your best life.

Rita Black: Hello everyone. And for those of you in the United States, Happy Thanksgiving. I think I’m a little late for Canada, but happy Thanksgiving. Anyway, everyone, I wish you and your family and your friends a safe and connected holiday this year. I think there’s a lot of countries that celebrate some sort of gathering and thanksgiving, but I know we’re all over the place as far as dates. So whenever you’re listening to this, I hope that you and your family are safe and you get together and celebrate each other at least once a year.

Rita Black: So last year, we were away for Thanksgiving, but this year we are home and I am cooking. I love cooking, so I don’t mind, but sometimes it really is nice to take a break and it was awesome to take a break last year. But I love LA at this time of year because everybody leaves and it’s quiet and cozy, and both my kids are gonna be home and my husband. And we’re really looking forward to just chilling out. I mean, to the degree you can when you’re cooking and entertaining. So I am thinking about what I’m gonna make on my menu, and of course I try to keep it pretty healthy. And it’s pretty easy to do for Thanksgiving because there’s amazing foods, squashes, pumpkins, onions, you can make a relatively healthy stuffing. I make a really mean actually mushroom stuffing that is pretty low in carbohydrates and super high in flavor. And it involves like soaking dried mushrooms, like porcini mushrooms, and then cutting up the fresh portobellos and sauteing them down until they’re almost a thick paste. And then I saute separately celery and shallots and zucchini and peppers. And then I put a few crumbled up pieces of gluten-free toast or sourdough bread, and I add broth and I toss in some dried cranberries and a few roasted hazelnut and some sage and a few other spices. And it’s really light, but in reality, it’s a very rich taste and people really like it, except my son who doesn’t like mushrooms.

Rita Black: But something else I love to do, since I’m talking about food, is to make a pumpkin pie without the crust. Now, not so much for Thanksgiving, although I do serve one at Thanksgiving for those who would like to have a crustless who don’t eat flour or gluten, but I like to do this all throughout the winter and take advantage of pumpkin, the pumpkin that you, the canned pumpkin puree that isn’t sweetened or spiced ahead of time. But I will just make a pumpkin pie, but not with heavy cream. I’ll make it with egg whites and almond milk and stevia or some sort of sweetener. Sometimes I’ll nuke a, microwave a sweet potato and blenderized that in with the pumpkin for the sweetness or maybe add a little maple syrup, just a little. You don’t need a lot because a pumpkin has that naturally sweet flavor. But the egg white set, you do it at a low 325 degree oven, and it’s a custard basically. But what is so awesome about it is, you know, you can refrigerate it once it bakes and eat it for breakfast, eat it for a snack because a sixth of it is like a hundred calories. It’s hardly anything, but it’s got protein, it’s got carotenoids, nutrients and it just makes an awesome sec and my kids love it.

Rita Black: So there’s a little idea for you if you didn’t know what to do with that extra pumpkin hanging around your cupboards. It’s such a great idea. So I hope you have some wonderful plans for your holiday as well. I bet you have some family favorites too.

Rita Black: Today I’m veering a little away from the menu though and hoping to give you some guidance for your mind during the coming weekend. So first of all, I’ll do a little coaching and then meditation with some mindful holiday mantras. That’s what’s on the menu for today. But before I dive into that, I want to let you know about the Black Friday Hypnolooza, Hypnopalooza. But before I dive in, I wanted to let you know about the Black Friday Hypnopalooza. 30% off special that is happening right now. So go to the Shift store, go in the show notes, click through to the Shift store, and any order, whatever you order, all the downloads are 30% off and there’s hypnosis for exercise, mindless eating, portion controls, drinking less and much, much more. So check it out.

Rita Black: Okay, so let’s focus on our holiday mindset, shall we? I wanna keep the coaching part simple so you can remember over the weekend. So let’s just keep it to the basics, which I think if you covered these basics, I think you’re gonna be just fine. But what I always like to do on these long weekends is really focus on how, as typically what our mind will do is just focus on, hey, we’re, it’s Thanksgiving and just focus on Thanksgiving. And then we get to Black Friday and you know, our mind’s a little more afraid because Thanksgiving was a big day, and then we get to Friday and we’re like a little worn down and we stop thinking about being healthy somewhere in the weekend and we kind of throw up our hands and say, oh, screw it. And it’s not because we’re bad or because we lack willpower, our discipline, but because we really get worn down. There’s just so much stimulation being around people, you know? If you are hosting people or if you’re going to somebody else’s house, all of that is outside of your normal structure of your life. So you are vulnerable even though you might not feel vulnerable. And I want you just to treat it all with some tender loving care.

Rita Black: But so typically as we approach the weekend, we’re really focused forward on that. And what I really think would be very helpful for you, I know this helps me a lot, is not to focus. I mean, of course you’re gonna focus on Thanksgiving, but to have a vision of how you wanna feel Sunday night as you head out into your week after the Thanksgiving weekend. So what this does is it elevates you a bit in your mind because your mind then starts to become focus, starts to problem solve about, like, I wanna finish this weekend feeling light like I made healthy choices, like I moved my body, that I took care of myself, I’m not feeling the weekend with blood sugar crashes, feeling like I drank way too much, you know, 10 pounds heavier because I over-indulge. You want to connect to that. You wanna be Sunday night. Does that make sense? And what you do when you do that, when you think it through ahead of time, it’s called future pacing and vision work. What you’re doing is activating your brain on a different level. You’re getting that imagination to go, oh, what would that feel like then? And then your brain starts to activate above and beyond, like, how do I survive Thanksgiving? It’s like, oh, okay, yeah, we’re not gonna give up. We’re not gonna throw our hands up. We’re gonna make healthier choices. It’s the reticular activation system is gonna get a rid of the stuff that is gonna get in your way and focus on the stuff that is gonna help you. Hopefully that’s the goal, right? So have that vision for Sunday and we’ll work on that when we do our mantras.

Rita Black: And another thing is, what I like to do since it’s such a food oriented weekend, is really to have a non-food focus. And for me it’s always about, I think about the people I’m gonna be with on that weekend, and I think, how can I move our relationship a little further? And I don’t mean like a game of chess, like strategically, I just mean my heart is open to them and I wanna connect with them. I have both my children home, you know, it’s a time where we’re all gonna be hanging out together. It’s easy to kind of go unconscious and, you know, just be together rather than mindfully setting time aside like I do for with my daughter and with my son. And even if it’s just to give them that extra hug or to look them in the eyes and let them know how much I appreciate and love them, I, or my husband, let him know what, you know, an amazing husband he is. I kind of make that my inner goal, right? So that it isn’t just about the food and the celebrations, but it gives it a little soul. At least it does for me.

Rita Black: So take it or leave it. It doesn’t have to to be that kind of a goal. It could be a goal like you wanna exercise a bunch or you wanna really take care of yourself. Maybe you have a project you haven’t worked on and this is a great weekend for that. Or maybe it’s just chilling a hell out, right? Like making sure every day you’re taking a half hour and just sitting and staring at a wall, you know, just because we so rarely are reading an awesome book, but finding that focus that’s gonna enrich you and fill you up other than the food, right? We can enjoy the food, but we want to throw in something that’s going to fill up our soul as well. And so we got our vision, we got that little extra something that’s filling up our soul. And another thing would be to make sure you’re taking self care breaks for yourself. Because if you are somebody who’s taking care of other people, it’s really easy to get caught up in them and to get overwhelmed and then over eat. So really make sure you’re taking at least one self care break a day, especially if you’re over at other people’s homes or if a bunch of people are coming to stay with you, make that appointment to get out in the car and go be by yourself or go into your bedroom, shut the door and lay on the bed and just decompress. I’m telling you, it works a miracle as far as upleveling your willpower, upleveling your enjoyment, and really taking care of yourself.

Rita Black: The other thing I would say is to be flexible and to forgive yourself because chances are you have some healthy plans, but they might get thrown off track, you know. I’ve been doing this for a very long time, helping people with weight management. And one thing I’ve noticed, it’s very interesting, is that Thanksgiving for a lot of people isn’t really too bad because people, like I said, it’s the beginning of the weekend. We have some focus, we have some willpower and Thanksgiving foods, unless you’re eating those, you know, five cheese macaroni and cheese or the onion ring, green beans. But you know, a lot of the Thanksgiving food is relatively healthy.

Rita Black: But Black Friday is the day where people start to kind of unwind, right? They are now eating the Turkey sandwiches with the mayonnaise. Lots of beer comes out, games are watched. Black Friday, people get exhausted from shopping. Let’s go out to dinner. Nachos are ordered, things are asked. Screw being healthy this weekend. Who’s gonna be healthy Thanksgiving weekend? We’ll start again on Monday, right? So we don’t wanna do that. We want to just, if you get off track, go, okay, got off track, forgive yourself, reconnect with yourself and don’t give up. Keep going. Make your next meal a healthy one. You’ll thank me because if you just give up and then start overeating and over-drinking, it’s gonna just take you down that road where you really don’t feel good, you don’t feel good physically, you’re beating yourself up and it is just a crap show, right? So we just wanna stay connected to ourselves, even though it might not look perfect. I really, you know, with weight mastery and training your brain, the one thing you wanna train your brain out of is starting over again tomorrow. All right? So we have that down guys. These are the main things. Have a vision for yourself on Sunday. We’re about to work on that.

Rita Black: Take self care breaks for yourself. Have a focus other than food. Make, oh, and I didn’t mention this, but make appointments for exercise. So right now, I want you to sit down and think about where you’re gonna exercise in each of those days, because a lot of times our intentions are, oh, I’m gonna exercise every day. But really write them in their, like their doctor’s appointment. Like when you are going to work out or go for that walk after Thanksgiving dinner. You’ll thank me for that. That really will be a helpful tool. Hopefully you already have that in place, but if you don’t, yeah, think that through and then be flexible. Forgive yourself in the moment and really think to that Sunday night that you wanna feel good. So forgive yourself and keep going, keep moving towards that vision of yourself and be a little careful on Black Friday. That’s the day that the crapola hits the fan and people tend to throw up their hands. So if you can make it through Black Friday and make sure you maybe set yourself up for success, plan some healthy meals for that day, do things but don’t allow yourself to get over tired, I think you’ll be just fine and have an amazing holiday weekend because I can remember so many holiday weekends, overeating and just, I lose the magic of the holiday because I’m mad at myself. So keep the magic of the holiday by staying connected to yourself and being good to yourself.

Rita Black: All right. So I’m gonna just take you through a visualization and then we’ll go into the mantras. I’ll just say the suggestion or the mantra and then you just repeat it back inside your own mind. Alright. So just go ahead then. We’re just gonna do it nice and easy. Take a nice deep breath in and as you exhale, close your eyes and just take a moment to be here now, to be in your body, to appreciate your body, all the boundaries of your body. Think about all your body does for you, how it moves you through the world, how it allows you to experience the holidays to connect with those you love, to enjoy quiet moments. So just take a moment to be grateful for your body on this weekend of gratitude. All it does for you. I know sometimes we get upset with our body. Maybe our body doesn’t look like we want it to, but just let’s give some lovings to our body. Just give some mindful appreciation. Thank you body.

Rita Black: And now, just tune in to the beating of your heart and the rising and falling of your diaphragm and chest. And allow each and every breath to flow out of you out into the room. Each relaxing breath follows the next relaxing breath. You always have enough air to breathe. Just really giving yourself this time now to create a powerful vision of where you wanna be at the end of Thanksgiving weekend. So just take a moment and think about that Sunday night at the end of Thanksgiving weekend. Think about where you’ll be. Think about what you’ll be doing. Maybe doing something like relaxing or enjoying your family. Just imagine. Or being out on your own. Maybe you’re out for a walk, but imagine how you wanna feel in this body of yours, right? How you wanna feel light and energized like you moved your body every day with walking or with going to the gym or going out and running on the beach or playing touch football that you kept your body moving every day. Maybe you did some stretches, maybe you did some yoga. What are you gonna do? Think about how you are gonna feel at the end of the weekend, having done what you are planning to do in the area of moving your body. How your body always feels so much better, so much more alive when your head, when your mind and body are connected through exercise. So just think about how amazing that’s gonna feel.

Rita Black: Good. And also think about how amazing it’s gonna feel to have fed yourself and nourished yourself and stabilized yourself throughout the entire weekend. So you enjoyed yourself. Maybe you had some things that you might not normally. Few bites of this, a piece of that. But your main throughline through this weekend was nourishing your body with beautiful foods, fruits and vegetables, lean protein or vegetarian protein, whatever proteins you choose. Healthy fats and the meals that you ate, you enjoyed. You slow down and you chew your food slowly and you really were grateful for the food that your body, you gave your body, that we have that ability to feed ourselves, that we’re grateful for this amazing food that we can put in our bodies and that you ate just to enough. Maybe if we look at a scale of zero being starving and 10 being that super thanksgiving stuff full, we maybe stopped at a 5, 6, 7 on that scale just when you’ve had enough. Like you could get up after the meal and go for a walk and feel good or get up and dance, you know. Not a heavy exerting dance, but just something that you can move. Okay? Imagine that.

Rita Black: Imagine now sitting down to a meal over the weekend and taking a breath before you eat and just slowing down, looking at the plate, appreciating what’s on the plate, and slowly eating. And imagine now getting to the end of the meal and look, there’s still food left on your plate and you feel satisfied. You feel full, grateful. You get up from the meal, you feel good and you get on or you look around at the other people at the table. If there’s other people, if you’re on your own, find your, you just connect with yourself or, but if there’s other people looking around being grateful for all those people at your table that you are there with, taking another breath and just thinking about that and then thinking back forward to that Sunday night where you have that through line of healthy food and meals, really feeding yourself healthfully, effectively, and moving your body and giving yourself that, those self care breaks over the weekend.

Rita Black: And now, just, now just bring that whole feeling together. How is that gonna feel? Light, leaner, confident, proud of the actions you took. And take a deep breath in and bring that in as your inner blueprint for the weekend, this Thanksgiving weekend, or any weekend for that matter. And let it go. Good job. Okay, now let’s move forward to the mantras.

Rita Black: So I’m gonna give it to you and then you’ll just repeat it back inside your own mind. I’m looking forward to a healthy holiday weekend. I deserve to make myself and my health a priority. I enjoy giving myself time to rest and renew. I enjoy moving my body lovingly each day with walking or exercise. I pause before I eat and take a breath and slow down. I love eating slowly, savoring every grateful bite. I easily stop eating when I’m 80% full. I enjoy drinking clear, cool water and staying hydrated. If I eat too much or something I didn’t intend, I forgive myself and make the next meal a healthy one. I’m gonna tell you that one again. It’s a little long. If I eat too much or something that I didn’t intend, I forgive myself and make the next meal a healthy one. I am enjoying eating light foods, green, healthy vegetables, fresh fruit, I am less interested in the heavy foods or sugary foods that weigh me down. I am enjoying my light and healthy thanksgiving. I give myself the gift of being grateful. I give myself the gift of staying connected to myself. I give myself the gift of staying on my weight mastery journey even over the holiday.

Rita Black: Okay, now just take a nice deep breath in. See all that goodness in and open your eyes. So just remember forgiveness, forgive, and move on, fun beyond food. Really finding that other soul fill up thing that you’re gonna do. Gratitude. Keep the trigger foods away too. The ones that don’t serve you, you know. Friday, everybody wants to bring the seas candies over and all that crap. Just give it to the homeless, you know what I mean? Just to, if it ain’t there, it ain’t gonna bug you. Meditate and take quiet moments and create, create that mantra. Now, if you liked one of those mantras, you can steal one for me or create a mantra for yourself for the holiday. One that you can just really focus in on. I’m enjoying my light and healthy holiday, you know, something simple that you can kind of do a little self-hypnosis with. Whenever you think somebody brings, your neighbor brings over that box of seas candies, like, I’m enjoying my light and healthy holiday, you know, and then give the seas candies away to, you know, your favorite food shelter.

Rita Black: So just a reminder to keep that vision clear and really enjoy your family. I really am grateful for you and our Thin Thinking community. You bring me so much joy every week. I just love sitting down and connecting with you in this way. I thank you all our friends from all over the world who tune in. Is such a joy. I’m very grateful for you, even though maybe you aren’t celebrating Thanksgiving with us here. I’m very grateful for you and think about all of you out all over the world coming together for this one special purpose, to take better care of ourselves and to love ourselves in this area of our life.I wanted to also let you remind you about the Black Friday special, the Hypnopalooza. So go check that out in the show notes. And get that link to the Shift Shop, and get that special. There’s a 30% off with a coupon code. The code will be in the show notes. All right? So have an amazing, amazing holiday.

Rita Black: 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 and have an amazing, wonderful, and safe holiday weekend. I’ll see you next week.

Rita Black: You wanna dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release, head on over to www shift weight mastery.com. That’s www shift weight mastery.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.