Rita Black: Happy New Year, everybody. As the new year begins, many people are ready to lose weight. But did you know of the people who start diets January 1st, only 23% stick with their diet past February. That is not acceptable. You wanna go into this new year focusing not only on releasing weight, but keeping it off. So I have created a three part special New Year’s podcast series called Building Weight Loss Resilience, because most of the time it’s not about knowing what to do to lose weight that trips us up, but it’s the moments where we give up or give in that keeps us from reaching our goals. So we are gonna focus on strengthening that weight release, stick with it muscle with some Thin Thinking resilience training, so this year you can reach your weight goal. So grab that New Year’s confetti and come on in.

New Speaker: 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: Welcome, welcome everyone to New Year’s 2023. Come on in. Happy to be here with you in the new year. Oh, let’s just take a moment and take a deep breath in. Okay, we are here in 2023. You know this, one of the things this year is I really wanna just be in the moment a lot more. I feel like 2022 just went by way too fast. And so I am, you know, I preach mindfulness all the time, but I am going to really double down on mindfulness this year and just take those deep breaths and plant myself firmly in the moment as much as I can. I think that’s really the only way we can slow time down, you know what I mean? So, I hope you had a safe and wonderful holiday and are feeling refreshed and ready for this new year.

Rita Black: You know, I have this joke about Trader Joe’s. You know, because a lot of you here in the United States, we have this store called Trader Joe’s, and it’s a great store because you get great bargains, great fresh food but Trader Joe’s is, well, like many grocery stores, they really know how to market to your impulses and instincts. That’s how they stay in business. So it cracks me up to no end. Every single year, the shelves are laid in with sugary goods during the holidays, the peppermint bark, the, you know, the advent calendars, the with filled with chocolate, the gingerbread house making kids, all those things are just scattered all around the store. And then come January 1st, they disappear into the ether, right? I’m like, where did that gingerbread making house go? And in its place, you know, are the protein powder drinks, the kale, you know, the collagen mixtures, all of that healthy stuff has taken its place.

Rita Black: They, which has, you know, no doubt they took it all away to make way for the sugary treats during the holiday season. So you just gotta love that. And also, I remember when I struggled with weight this time of year, as soon as January 1 came around, it was the list of diets. Like, what diet am I going to hop on? What diet train am I hopping on this year? You know, am I going to Weight Watchers? Am I going to Jenny Craig? Is it Lindora? Is it Atkins? You know? It’s just a natural habit of our mind to go there, right? And it’s a habit. It’s not really even mindful talking about being mindful. Our brain just goes, I feel fat. I gotta lose weight. I gotta go on a diet. And you know, obviously, I way overate during the holidays in the old days, and I just wanted to feel like I was getting myself back out of the chaos of the Christmas goodies and into the New Year feeling focused, feeling, you know, on top of things, right?

Rita Black: But the problem was that I was reacting, not taking true action. You know,?I was reacting to this feeling of chaos. I was reacting to feeling overweight, but nothing ever lasted very long because where I was reacting from wasn’t a place of true change, true desire to make change. My desire was to get out of the pain a lot more than it was to truly change my life, make long-term changes in myself, how I talked to myself, or make changes in my environment, or make changes in what I was doing in my life. It was just more reacting like, I feel fat, I gotta lose weight, let me get, you know, these 20 pounds off asap. And of course, it never stuck because I wasn’t coming from solid ground. It was just Lucy Goosey reaction mode. So one thing I think there is, is an epidemic of people who are really smart and savvy about weight loss. You know?

Rita Black: But they can’t stick with it for the life of them. I’ve actually seen this more and more and more and more over the years as we have more information available to us online. I mean, my God, we can go on YouTube and, you know, power three hours and hours of different diets and trainings and all of this stuff about what to eat, how to exercise, and I think really the pandemic made it, you know, put it into some sort of steroid gear. So I am excited about this series on resilience or stick withitness, because I really do believe that this is what you need more than finding the latest diet. You need to make internal structures of success rather than looking for that quick fix on the internet, you know?

Rita Black: I had a student in my Shift Weight Mastery Process recently tell me, you know, oh God, Rita, it is such a relief to finally be in command of my own weight release rather than being overwhelmed and bombarded by all the different diets and ways to lose weight on Instagram, you know? Long-term weight release begins in the mind, not on Instagram, right? We all know this. So this series is being sponsored by my Free Masterclass called How to Stop the Start Over Weight Circle Cycle and Begin Releasing Weight for Good. And it really is a deep dive into the subconscious, really looking at what’s driving that start over tomorrow behavior that becomes habitual, the roadblocks, those mental roadblocks that keep us struggling with weight. And I give you some very specific mind shifts that you can begin to make to break that start over cycle. And we do some weight loss hypnosis as well. So this masterclass is the perfect companion to this resilience series to get you ready in a new way for the new year, getting ready to be consistent with weight release. So sign up. The link is in the show notes and you know, get into that class. There are a number of class times you can choose from. So get in and get going. Okay?

Rita Black: So let’s do part one of our resilience talk. So, resilience is that ability to stick with something even when things are tough or feel weird or you plain just don’t wanna do it. So let’s face it, with weight loss, there are many, many times we get going well with weight loss, but then something happens, right? We have a bad day we travel, we go out to dinner with friends who aren’t on diet, we get bored, we experience a plateau, we lose our job, we get a job, we celebrate, we commiserate, and the list goes on. So we give up, or we get off track and we go back to those old ways of being and eating and gain the weight back. And it’s so frustrating. And of course we get mad at ourselves because we feel like we’re constantly letting ourselves down. We call ourselves weak. We call ourselves undisciplined, we call ourselves hopeless. But that’s not true. You just haven’t built the resilience for those moments when those things happen. The difference between you now and the you at long-term ideal weight isn’t about being perfect or disciplined or finding that perfect diet. It’s about your training, your mind to stay with it, to get back on track fast when these things happen. And they happen a lot in life, there’s a holiday almost every month of the year. We go out to dinner, we travel, these things aren’t gonna stop happening, but we keep making the mistake of thinking we’re gonna somehow be different, better behaved. No, it’s about a skill of building resilience. I’ve maintained my weight, not because I’m perfect, I’ve maintained it for 27 years, going on 28 now, not because I’ve been perfect, but because I have learned to guide myself through those moments or those hours, or even those days differently than when I struggled.

Rita Black: And now you can too. If I did it, you can do it. So there are three ways I see to build resilience. I see we can build resilience with confidence. I see we can build resilience with commitment and with creativity. So today I am going to focus on confidence, and the other two will be covered in the next two episodes. So let’s talk about confidence and why is this such an important piece of resilience, shall we? So when we lack faith in ourselves, it’s easy to give up on ourselves. The way we see ourselves in this area of our life is important. And most people who struggle see themselves as a struggler. We have given ourselves this self-identity of being bad on diets, a failure and a struggler. So the idea we see of ourselves is a negative one. And you can see that anytime you start to lose weight, even though you might consciously hope that you found the right diet, your subconscious view of yourself is that you are going to fail. So when things get tough, we give up. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. So are we gonna change that around and build confidence in three ways.

Rita Black: The first way is self-compassion. So when we struggle with our weight, I believe we develop two very clear inner voices. One is the inner critic and one is the inner rebel. And if you’ve worked with me or been a student of mine, you’re very clear about your inner critic and rebel. The critic is addicted to perfection. And when we get off track, that inner critic will speak to us in a very vicious and condemning way. That critic also, when we go on any sort of diet, does sort of sit back and go, oh yeah, well, we’ll see how long this one lasts, right? And even when we’re dieting or trying to lose weight, that inner critic, when we put something in our mouth that, you know, is off the diet or off that list of foods, or if we’re intermittent fasting and we you know, try to not eat after seven o’clock, but we eat something at eight o’clock, the inner critic’s like, well, you blew it, right?

Rita Black: So that inner critic creates tension within us, creates anxiety in us, creates a lot of feelings of unease. Now, over time, what we did, and this was our subconscious really trying to cope with this painful inner voice and the pain and feelings that this inner voice evoked the inner rebel is formed to kind of protect us from the critic, really, you know, to let off the steam, so to speak, to say, ah, it’s okay, you know you blew it. Well, we’ll start again tomorrow. Or, oh, it’s okay, you know you eat a few of those, we’ll just finish up the bag and then we’ll never buy it again. Or, oh, everybody’s eating tonight, that’s okay. You know, like, you don’t wanna not fit in you, you fit in and we’ll start again tomorrow. Right? So there’s that tension building inner critic that expects perfection.

Rita Black: And then there’s that inner rebel that wants to come along and shut it all down almost as a coping mechanism, or definitely as a coping mechanism. Or also sometimes we just get impulsive. And the inner rebel part of our brain is that part that sort of overrides the inner critic and wins. So these are really the two voices that drive our struggle, our inner inner communication that continues the weight struggle. So we wanna change the voice, we wanna change the part that we’re listening to, and we wanna change the part we wanna develop now what I would call your inner coach. This is your more compassionate solution seeking inner voice that, so in those moments when we go off track which we will, you know, let’s be clear, we will go off track. We will pop stuff into our mouth, I don’t think that’s the idea isn’t that we’re never gonna do that again. And I think that’s the illusion diets give us, is that we somehow are gonna do that. No. We are gonna put food in our mouth that probably aren’t the best choices. We are gonna get off track, but when we do, we need self-compassion and a planned move forward immediately. Not criticizing, not rebelling, not reminding us we’re a failure. Now, I hear you, you might be saying, Rita, forgiveness. If I forgive myself, I’m just going to eat everything all the time. I need to whip myself into shape. But no, no, no, no, no. My fair, fair friends. My research shows people follow through when forgiving themselves because it reconnects themselves to themselves and it builds belief in themselves, right? So when we forgive ourselves, we want the best for ourselves. We have empathy and compassion for ourselves, but we, and we can learn lessons more readily.

Rita Black: And really, ultimately, long-term permanent weight release isn’t about perfection, but it’s about learning all the little lessons that we need to along the way, but also it connects us to ourselves that we become our own best friend. Now, if you were talking to your own best friend in those moments when they were trying to do their best and they get off track, you would say, oh, it’s okay, you know. You would forgive them. You would say, Hey, forgive yourself. Just keep going. And they would. So you wanna start really building a more powerful connection with yourself in these moments. We do this in the Shift Weight Mastery Process. We actually have a forgiveness exercise where people write down all the things that they’re mad at themselves for regarding their weight, maybe physical ailments due to weight, or things that they haven’t done their life because their weight has kept them from doing them.

Rita Black: Or for instance, like, I’m angry at myself because I’ve dieted for 30 years and I’ve never kept it off. Or I have arthritis and my weight makes it worse, or I haven’t asked for a raise because I feel insecure about my weight. So all these resentments, these what I would call hidden resentments because we carry them around underneath in our subconscious minds. So we have all this resentment underneath there, but we’re just on the surface looking for the next diet. But all of this is brewing underneath, and it takes your power absolutely away from you. So I would like to invite you to take a moment and walk and do write down some resentments that you might have for yourself with regards to weight. So just take a moment and do that. Just let’s take the magical moment, take a nice deep breath in, and just settle, you can even close your eyes if you need to.

Rita Black: And just, I’m here with you. So, you know, you can be brave and allow some of those resentments to come up. Like, think about physically. Are there physical ailments that weight has created for you? And if so, just write those things down and leave and yeah, just write down anything, any physical ailments, diabetes ,you know, arthritis, inflammation, bad hip. Just write those things down. And you can also write in front of it. I am mad that I have arthritis because of weight. I am mad that I have diabetes because of weight. Okay? Getting real gets you present. Pushing it down keeps you in the past, right? Because those, those things own you, even though they aren’t necessarily with you. They own you. You know? There’s this great my husband told me this story about two Buddhist monks who are walking along on a journey. And there was a woman by the river and she was, you know, damsel in distress, I guess. And she was like, I’ve gotta get across the river. I’ve gotta get home to my children. Now, one of the monks said, no, no, you know, Buddhist monks are not allowed to touch women. But the other guy just picked her up and carried her across the river and put her down and off she went. And, you know, the other Buddhist monk kind of looked at him and glowed at him. But, you know, they kept walking. And about three miles later, the glowing Buddhist monk said, you know, you shouldn’t be doing that, you know, you touched a woman and you know, you you, you know, you, you, you, right? And the other Buddhist monk just said, you know, I left that woman at the river and you are still carrying her with you.

Rita Black: And I just love that because it’s so true. You know? It’s just like really getting clear on things, owning them and working through them, you know, carrying them across the river and putting them down rather than submerging them, you know, they still live and they still own you. You know what I mean? So, so let’s get clear. Let’s think of some other ones. Some feelings of where has weight kept you from doing something in your life, like asking for a raise or going out and being social or you know, going on to match.com and finding the love of your life. Where has that weight kept you back? Or what has weight done with your emotional state? You know? Have you been depressed? Have you been anxious? Just write them all down. Now you can do more later, but what I’m gonna have you do is I’m gonna just kind of teach you how to start to forgive yourself. I mean, it’s really basic. It’s, it can be easy and very powerful, and it is really a skill.

Rita Black: I have this skill called instant forgiveness. So when I do something I know that I might resent later, I just instantly forgive myself. So you know, oh, I forgive myself for, you know, eating that serving of pie and mean too, okay? I instantly forgive myself. Now I take action also on that, but I forgive myself so I can connect myself to myself and solve that problem. Okay? So, but let’s look at your list and now I’d like you to look at maybe two or three of those things on your list that you wanna forgive yourself for. And what you can do is just really easy. You can just read that line like, I am mad at myself for dieting for 30 years and never kept it off and read it again. I am mad at myself for dieting for 30 years and never kept it off. And one more time. I’ve mad at myself for dieting for 30 years and never kept it off. Okay? So you just read it over a few times and then you shift it and you say, I forgive myself for having dieted for 30 years and never kept it off. And as you say, I forgive myself for X, Y, Z, at the end of the sentence, take a nice deep breath in and bring that forgiveness into your heart and just hold that and allow that to melt away that resentment. And again, say it again. I am mad at myself or now, and now you’re letting it go. I forgive myself for having dieted for 30 years and haven’t kept it off and feel that forgiveness. And one last time I forgive myself for having dieted for 30 years and never kept it off.

Rita Black: And what you’ll start to notice is you’ll start to notice a feeling of being present with that. A feeling of connection to yourself, a feeling of self-respect. You know? When you hold these things to the light, it begins to melt away the darkness. And you really do begin to have empathy for yourself. You know? If this was, like I said, a friend of yours saying these things to you, would have no problem thinking the best of them holding them our heart in a very special place. But when it comes to ourselves, you know, we push everything down. We put ourselves into a dungeon, and we lock the key, and we don’t let ourselves out. So let’s begin to open up our hearts to ourselves and begin with self-compassion. So good. Now let’s talk about vision, which is the next thing. Often we know what we don’t want.

Rita Black: You know? We don’t wanna be overweight, but we don’t know what we do. And we need to focus our mind on where we wanna go. The stronger the vision of where we are, who we are becoming, the more resilient we have in those moments when we get off track. Because in the past we know we don’t wanna be overweight, but if we don’t have a vision, there’s no vision pulling us forward through those moments. You get what I’m saying? So let’s do a vision, not only a vision of you being slim out at your ideal way, but really creating a vision of the you you are becoming, meaning the you out in your life who is resilient. See yourself in a moment. Not wanting to exercise, but taking that breath and doing it anyway. Seeing the you at your ideal weight, passing by the tempting foods because it’s easy for you because that’s who you are. Becoming, seeing yourself sitting at a meal, taking a few bites and then being done, not continuing to eat past the point of being full. So take a moment and take a breath and just close your eyes. And again, if you can’t see this in your mindm, just see, get a sense of that you out at the end of 2023, a year from now, having made all those healthy choices, having been resilient through all those moments, really get a sense of that you, you are becoming, and seeing yourself not on the bathing, in a bathing suit on the beach. I mean that you can save that vision for some other time, but I want you to see yourself actively out in your life. Being the person you know is going to allow you to keep that weight off, because that is what we are cultivating.

Rita Black: So see yourself out there waking up in the morning and even filling that resistance of, ah, I don’t wanna exercise, but smiling, getting up and putting your workout clothes on anyway, because this is who you are cultivating in your mind, somebody who is resilient in those moments. You know? It’s easy in our mind to go, oh, I’m just gonna get up and work out every day. Well, that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes you have to breathe through that moment and pull that vision of yourself. You know? That pull, that vision has to pull you forward. I am a person who exercises, even when I don’t feel like it, or I am a person who eats three bites of dessert, enjoys it thoroughly. And even though I might want that fourth bite, I know I’m not gonna enjoy it as much. So pushes the plate away.

Rita Black: So see yourself out near life, maybe in those situations where in the past you let yourself, you know, down or you, you know, got off track. See yourself in a social situation with your friends and see yourself making the healthier choice. Seeing yourself pushing the plate away when you’ve had enough is seeing yourself in those moments maybe when you ate something you didn’t intend to. And instead of giving up, you just keep going and eat the healthy meal. Make the next meal a healthy one, right? So just see yourself being the person that you are, becoming that resilient person who keeps going no matter what. And see how that is reflected in you being at your ideal weight. Alright? You got an image of that. You see that you, and this is something you can always come back to all again and again, I want you to practice this vision.

Rita Black: So this isn’t just a one and done. This is something that you are now, we’re bringing this to life so that you can cultivate this because this is the image of you that is pulling you forward. Like so in those moments when you wanna give up, it’s like, no, would the person who is me at my ideal weight give up in this moment? Absolutely not. That person is gonna keep going. So cultivate that vision that is gonna keep pulling you forward in those moments. Okay?

Rita Black: Now the third thing, let’s change the journey. So we’ve done vision, we’ve done self-compassion, and now let’s, what we’re gonna do is reframe this idea of the journey that you are on. So again, when we don’t believe in ourselves, we are on a struggle journey hoping or trying, and we carry with us all of the weight loss failures of the past. Think of all the weight loss attempts that you’ve been on. That is a big heavy load, my friend. That’s a big heavy load that we carry with us into any future attempt. So let’s reframe those failures right now. You know, most people who have taken weight off and kept it off long term gained and lost over 250 pounds over the course of their life. So they didn’t give up just because they’re, they, you, they could look at their past and say, wow, you know, I’ve gained and lost 250 pounds over the course of my life. I guess that means I can’t do it. No, they just kept going and that last time was the time for them. So you either allow the failures to say you are a hopeless loser or you can allow your past weight release attempts to be valuable. Lessons that were stepping stones to your long term success.

Rita Black: So, you know, when I was struggling with my weight, you know, as you know, I struggled up and down the scale 40 pounds for 20 years, over 20 years. And when I was finally successful, you know, like all and all of those failures, you know, I’d been in Weight Watchers a number of times. I’d gone on a lot of gimmicky diets. I had done even paid a weight trainer, hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands. I don’t wanna think about that. And I had gained weight during that time. I had a weight trainer you know, and so I could look at to all of those failures and say, Ugh, what a loser. You’re never gonna be successful. But you know, that last time I said, you know what? I have learned stuff from every single thing that I’ve done. I, and a lot of it has, I have learned what not to do. You know? And those were very, very valuable lessons. So I started to, you know, imagine myself being successful and imagine that all those things that I’ve learned on all those diets along the way were part of my success story. In fact, in my mind, I used to do this funny little thing. I used to imagine I was being interviewed and say, and saying, oh yes, you know, I learned from Weight Watchers, I learned from having a personal trainer. Those things were all a part of my success story. Can you see how quickly you can turn things around in your mind when you shift the focus off of you, the shifting the focus off of you being bad and horrible and awful into you being a powerful person, courageous person, on a long-term permanent weight release journey. So let’s review.

Rita Black: So we’ve covered the three parts of part one, which our weight resilience part one is really about having confidence. So confidence comes from self-compassion, having a very powerful vision, knowing where you’re going, cultivating that idea of who you’re becoming and really looking at this journey that you are on already as your success journey. So now I’d like to do some mantras with you. Just in, what I mean by that is I’m going to give you a sentence or a suggestion, and all you need to do is repeat it powerfully inside your own mind and just allow these to sort of sync in and become a part of you. All right, let’s begin. I am building weight release resilience. I forgive myself for struggling with weight. I am moving in the direction of believing in my ability to release weight consistently. I am creating my vision of that slimmer long-term weight release master. My vision is full of resilient moments that allow me to practice staying on track. My past failures are now building blocks to success. I am increasing my confidence so that I can be consistent. I look forward to making this new year a year of weight release mastery. Great. So now take a nice deep breath in and open your eyes and get ready to get on with an amazing day.

Rita Black: So we learned today that confidence and belief in yourself is a big factor of resilience. That is a huge part of long-term success with taking weight off and keeping it off. Now the next step is taking the confidence and giving it power with commitment. So we will be discussing that next time on the show, which will be dropping in just a couple of days. So between now and then, don’t forget to check out my free masterclass called How to Stop the Start of Our Weight Struggle Cycle and Begin Releasing Weight for Good. You’re gonna love this masterclass. I know it’s gonna have you looking and experiencing weight loss from a whole new place. 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. Or 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.