Rita Black: When we think of people who are creative, we often think of painters, writers, actors, architects, Picasso, Emily Bronte, Tony Morrison, Adele, Lady Gaga, and people who make something out of nothing. But what about weight management as an art form? Well, it is. And today, in our last segment of the three-part series called Building Weight Loss Resilience, we are gonna look at how to ignite our inner weight artist to get creative and therefore build the resilience we need to stay on our long-term journey of weight mastery, achieve our ideal weight, and stay there long-term. So grab those crayons 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, 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 achieved 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: Welcome friends. And how are you doing here? We are just in the beginning of the middle of January in our brand new year. Now it’s not feeling so new gotten used to writing 2023 on things or typing 2023 on things. But listen, I wanted to thank you guys those of you, well everyone, but thank you guys who have been writing in and telling me how much you’ve been enjoying Building Weight Loss Resilience, the series that we’ve been doing. I’m really glad you’re getting something from it. I also wanted to thank our Thin Thinking Community for being such an amazing source of inspiration. We will be coming up on our two-year anniversary. Can you believe that? And just little over a month, it will be two years that we started this podcast. And I cannot believe the wonderful worldwide community of people who are saying no to the old useless ideas of dieting and embracing a new way forward of using our powerful minds in a new way, the way of Thin Thinking.

Rita Black: So today we are exploring the third and final part of the Building Weight Loss Resistance series. So you know, and in addition to the series, I absolutely invite you to take advantage of the free masterclass, How To Stop the Start Over Weight Struggle Cycle and Begin Releasing Weight for Good. Then the link is in the show notes. It’s a great masterclass and it’s a perfect companion to this series because it really gets into the subconscious roadblocks that might be keeping you struggling, even though you know everything that you need to do in order to lose weight. It’s really those roadblocks that keep us in that, what I call that frustrating weight struggle cycle and really break through and give you, I give you tactical things that you can do to shift your mind. So the focus now moves you forward towards weight mastery.

Rita Black: And today we are gonna look at how creativity helps us build weight resilience. So to start off, I wanna just remind you how resilience is so important for long-term weight mastery. The main problem I see and I see in this weight loss epidemic that we have, or the weight, you know, the weight struggle epidemic that we have, I call it the start-over struggle epidemic, is that we are really vulnerable in those moments when we just give up or give in. We just start over and we get in habit of that, we give up and we give up again, and we give up again, and we give up again. And not because we’re bad or dumb or are lacking, but because our minds have limiting beliefs about us and our ability to lose weight. And because we are in the habit of giving up, so instead of giving up or giving in, we are getting gumption, yes, right? Gumption, resilience, spirited, resourcefulness that gives us sustained power to move through those moments and continue to build confidence and stay committed to be creative and develop ourselves into the person we are becoming, someone who has created a life that allows you to live your life at your ideal weight.

Rita Black: And notice how I said created and not deprived, not being perfect, but you got creative. So building resilience in those moments when in the past we give up requires three things. One, confidence. Now, if you missed episode one, we get into confidence, we do a deep dive. But you know, really ultimately, the bottom line on confidence is when we struggle with our weight, we don’t believe in ourselves. So it’s easy to give up on ourselves in that moment. We don’t believe we’ve got what it takes. And so we give, ah, you blew it. Well start over again. Maybe you’ll be perfect the next time, right? So getting that confidence, being there for ourselves in the moment, believing in ourselves in that moment, makes all the difference in the world. The second thing is commitment. You know, we’re not committed to just getting the weight off as quickly as possible. We’re committed to a journey of weight mastery, really cultivating ourselves into the person who can maintain their weight at their ideal weight. That is a journey. That’s many, many lessons and learnings and aha moments, and it requires a different focus, a different idea of who we are. And it requires us to build those bridges in our life over those gaps that have existed in the past, those gaps where we fall in the crack and fall off track. So there are many, many times that in our journey we need to construct these paths across gaps of knowledge and belief because we maybe haven’t stuck with ourselves after a binge eating episode that we just, you know, started over again the next day.

Rita Black: So starting to build those bridges forward, learn the lessons so that we aren’t always falling into the same trap again, so that we have our confidence, that we have commitment, and now we need some creativity to solve the struggle points that are a natural part of the weight journey. So as you’ve been continuing on, and maybe you’ve been listening to me long enough, you know that I believe that a weight mastery journey is a hero’s journey. There are many, many parts to the journey and the diet industry doesn’t tell you that the diet industry will have you believe. You go on a diet and you, there’s a linear line of losing weight, okay? You go on the diet, you’re good on the diet, you lose the weight, you get to your ideal weight, and then you somehow live happily ever after.

Rita Black: And it’s not, you know? It’s about you and it’s about you being good, and it’s about you behaving and being deprived and being strong and sucking it up. It’s not about a transformational evolution of who you are based on self-love, commitment and building yourself up from the inside out, you know? When you watch a movie, the Hero’s Journey is in every single movie. It’s a, the hero’s journey is a construct created by Joseph Campbell, who’s an anthropologist, who studied many, many world cultures. And he saw that each of these cultures had storytelling. The stories interestingly followed similar trajectories, which was of a journey of transformation. Whereas the hero is even somewhat in the beginning of the story, reluctant, right? They don’t necessarily wanna go on this journey but it becomes apparent that in order to be transformed, whether it’s the hero or the hero having to save somebody or save the village or save [inaudible] you, they have to go on this journey and make a commitment to the journey, you know?

Rita Black: And whether it’s the hero leaving his town and going off into the world to fight dragons or to get the girl or get the boy, if you know, like it’s somehow the hero needs to do something and be evolve into. Evolve themselves in order to ultimately be successful, be transformed, and then come back to the village as transformed or finish the story as transformed, right? So very much you can see that our weight journey is somewhat similar. We’re usually a little reluctant to go on the journey. Why me? Why do I have to do this in the first place? It’s not fair, right? But eventually we’re like, you know what, you know, I’m in pain. This is painful. And where I wanna, I have a better vision for myself. I see a place I wanna go, who I wanna be. I don’t wanna be stuck in struggling my whole life. I don’t wanna have this horrible relationship with myself. I don’t wanna be thinking about food in the way that I am thinking about food as an obsession. Did I eat that? Am I gonna get fat? All of that stuff. I don’t want this anymore. I want something better for myself. So we make that decision and we begin a journey.

Rita Black: Now in the movies, the hero doesn’t just go, okay, I’ve made my decision. I’m going on my journey, and oh, there’s a dragon. I’m gonna slay it now, and I’ma slay it. Okay, I’m done. No. The, you know, Hollywood, you pay money for the popcorn, you pay money for the movie because the hero has obstacles thrown on him. And we like watching the hero overcome the obstacles, learn from those lessons, get creative in those moments. You know? How the hero always has to get creative in order to overcome certain obstacles, creative and courageous, right? And so do we. When we go on our weight mastery journey, it ain’t just a linear line down the scale as a scale of courage, you know? There’s many moments in our weight journey. We have to be courageous. We have to be sit with fear. We have to sit with being feeling weird or outta place or saying something to somebody that like, Hey, I love you, but please don’t bring me those bagels anymore. That takes courage to say that to somebody. And it takes love and compassion, self-compassion and it also takes creativity to think your way through out of those struggle points, right? We don’t look at weight loss as a hero’s journey. We look at ourselves as the problem, not the hero.

Rita Black: We don’t see it as a journey, but a set of problems that we have. And these are things I call struggle points, but you might just see them as faults and deficiencies that are you and your life. Things like, I’m a sugar addict, I get bored, I give up if I stop losing weight, when I go on vacation I always blow my diet, my family doesn’t support me, I eat to fill the void and numb feelings. These are what I call struggle points. Now, the way I see them is kind of like the obstacles that the, that hero encounters on their journey and opportunity for adventure on your way to transformation. So think of some of your struggle points. I can’t cook. I hate exercise. I get bored. My family and friends sabotage me. Portion control. Eating at night. Can’t control sugar and carbs, and we allow these things to own us.

Rita Black: Therefore, any diet we go on, any weight loss plan, we usually fall victim not to the plan, but to your struggle point, then we give up and we start over. And as we’re learning, weight mastery isn’t about being perfect, but transforming your struggle points into solution steps that take you closer and closer to your long-term weight, masterful self. So in order to get there, we need to change our relationship with our struggle points and not see them as barriers, but as adventures. We also need to take responsibility a hundred percent for our transformation. Heroes aren’t a victim of other people or their environments. Heroes are driven from within, and external factors don’t hold them back. There is a psychological term called internal locus of control, and then there’s external locus of control. Usually when we’re a victim, we allow our environments, the people in our environments, the food in our environments, we allow the ex-stuff outside of us. Time, you know, resources to say, Hey, it’s hard to lose weight. You can’t do it. My husband brings home bagels every, you know, Saturday. My daughter needs to have her potato chips out on the counter. That’s where she likes them. My work workplace is full of candy and stuff, right? That’s all external.

Rita Black: Internal, when people have truly taken weight off and kept it off, they were driven from within. And I know you know this because when you’ve been focused and driven for something, it doesn’t matter what’s happening on the outside. Your brain is able to focus through and over any of those external things that might be distracting you, that might be challenges or obstacles in the road, you’re like, Uhuh, I’m moving over that because that thing that I want is more important to me. Is bigger than this little thing here. So that’s why we really want to, you know, get creative and start, you know, we have worked on your confidence, we have worked on your commitment, so you are now operating from an internal locus of control.

Rita Black: So now let’s put that into use. Take responsibility, and then be fearless in seeing what isn’t there, you know? We have to, as weight masters really not take things at surface level, go, oh, I can’t do that because my husband brings home bagels every Saturday. We have to get creative and think of something out of nothing. Like, what would we love our Saturdays to look like? That would be healthy. Oh, well, maybe my husband and I can make a healthy breakfast together. You know? So we’re starting to ask ourselves, get curious and create in our mind first what we would like to have and start to take the steps to implement that change. But we can’t just be a victim of whatever that struggle point is. So here is a quote about creativity.

Rita Black: A pile of rocks ceases to be a pile of rocks when somebody contemplates that with the idea of a cathedral. I’ll say that again. A pile of rocks ceases to be a pile of rocks when somebody contemplates that pile of rocks with the idea of a cathedral. Not cool. So true. So our weight struggle points can transform into solution steps that create our weight mastery. So how do we begin to get creative, shift ourselves from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset? See our challenges not as barriers, but as bridges to adventure. One, we gotta welcome our challenges one at a time. You don’t see them all. Don’t look at all of your challenges right now. Don’t look at all of your struggle points right now, but choose them one at a time and look at them as a challenge that you’re turning into an adventure.

Rita Black: And pick a challenge that might be the easiest to start with, for you to solve and get a win. Now, see that challenge as an adventure. And for instance, you have to kind of change that challenge into an adventure in your mind. You have to change the way you talk about that challenge in your mind. So instead of I hate exercise, you might start saying, I’m moving in the direction of enjoying physical activity. Now that’s an adventure, right? Moving in the direction opens up your mind. I love saying moving in the direction of. Think like a child, have an open mind, right? Don’t shut things down. Children, if you ever watch them, they say yes to everything. Yes. And I had a client, her name was Wanda, and she hated exercise. She loathed going to the gym. And we had her think about her childhood, and she remembered how much she loved roller skating.

Rita Black: And so to bring you to the next step you got to ease yourself into it. So what Wanda did was she got roller skates and she went to the roller rink, the local roller rink, and she would just go around a few times. That was, she would call that exercise just going around the rink a couple of times, calling it exercise. And she really got into it. And then she started going every day, and then she started going for longer periods of time, and she got really fit. And she now is teaching kids to roller skate. So here’s somebody who turned the whole idea of exercise around into an adventure. You’ve gotta be willing to make mistakes and not get it right. You know? Brene Brown says there is no innovation in creativity without failure. Period. See? Wanda didn’t get skating right away. She tried walking, she tried swimming, but she was willing to keep trying and thinking and not giving up, right? So what are some things that you are shutting herself down on before you even start? Let’s open up that mind and start getting creative. Start think, getting curious and start seeing opportunities and not give up right away. Keep going.

Rita Black: And lastly, like, how do we find the solutions if they don’t come right away? Well, you see yourself as an inventor. Edison tried 2,774 times to you know, create the light bulb when he was creating the light bulb. And, you know, on the 2775th time he was successful, right? Could you imagine? 2,774 times? So here’s some ways to help figure things out. Start with a brain dump. Present the problem to yourself and just write all the solutions that come to mind without editing them. And don’t be afraid. Be silly. Then walk on it. Walking is a great way to get subconscious problem solving going because a lot of times we’re trying to think of the solution consciously and absolutely most of our solutions come from the subconscious. You know? One of the things that I do, and this helps me a lot when I’m trying to solve a problem, is I will go on a walk.

Rita Black: I will give myself the problem I’m trying to solve. I will ask it as a question like, how do I find more time to exercise? And then I kind of let it go when I go for my walk. And what happens is my brain starts to go to work for on it for me. And those answers start coming to the surface, but you kind of, kind of throw it out there first before they’ll come back. Or before the idea. But the idea may need to percolate a little. Ask your friends and family members for ideas. In our membership, we help each other a lot. Come with up with ideas, throw ideas that we’re working on. Because usually a lot of people have the same challenges as you. The other idea is to find a mentor, somebody who has been on the road ahead of you.

Rita Black: And they might also, you know, like how Yoda was Luke Skywalker’s mentor, right? We all need a little Yoda in our back pocket for weight management as well. So find mentors in your life. Maybe you have a friend who’s gotten healthy, maybe, you know, listen to this podcast. I’d like to think of myself as a helper or a mentor. You know? Find people who are committed to you and have a little more you know, what I call are a little further down the road than you. Journal. Journaling is a great way. I can’t tell you how many journals I have for my Weight Mastery journey of just journaling what’s going on ,problem solving, you know? Ugh, why is this happening to me? Getting curious about it, writing it out, getting some solutions by committing to be creative and turn our perceived struggles into solutions. We are building those steps forward into our weight mastery future building that resilient you with confidence in yourself, commitment to your path and creativity to continue forward to your ideal weight.

Rita Black: So now let’s finish with some repetition mantra, shall we? Okay, I’m gonna say it and you say it back powerfully inside your own mind. I am a creative problem solver. I use my mind to move forward on my journey. I am resilient and I do not give up on myself. I believe in myself and my ability to release weight consistently. I believe in the path that I am on. I am excited to move into the new year with renewed faith and resilience. I am on my journey towards long-term permanent weight mastery. Excellent.

Rita Black: So I hope you have enjoyed the series. What did we learn for resilience? We need confidence. We need commitment, and we need creativity. If you haven’t listened to the first two episodes, please go back and listen to them and also catch my masterclass. The link is in the show notes. How To Stop the Start Over Tomorrow Weight Struggle Cycle and Begin Releasing Weight for Good. I would love to take a deeper dive with you there, and we’ll also do some weight loss hypnosis. So it’s, the link is in the show notes. It’s a great companion along with these other episodes that are gonna get you where you need to go for 2023. Alright, well, this has been so fun and so I’ve loved putting this series together. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I hope this served you, served you, and gave you some inspiration and motivation and a clear path forward into this powerful new year for you. 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.

Rita Black: Do 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.