[00:00:00] Rita Black: What is my ideal weight? It’s a question so many of us ask, but often it comes with underlying, deeper thoughts and emotions. Is it just a number on the scale or is it tied to something more like our sense of worth or the ever present question many women quietly carry, am I really enough? In this episode, Rona joins me who has released 25 pounds and maintained her progress. But our conversation didn’t start there. A few months ago, Rona found herself wondering if she was truly at her ideal weight. That question opened the door to a much bigger conversation, one about body image, self-acceptance, and how we define success on the journey of weight mastery. So join Rona and I as we dig into the layers beneath the number, and explore what ideal weight really means physically, emotionally, and personally.

[00:01:05] So come on in.

[00:01:14] 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 hour 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.

[00:01:41] 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.

[00:02:07] 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.

[00:02:28] Sound good? Let’s get started.

[00:02:31] Hello? You come on in and don’t be shy. Have a seat. I am recording this just before Memorial Day weekend. This will be dropping next week after the holiday. And right now we are heading into a heat wave here in Los Angeles. I hope it doesn’t last too long. I have the fan going, but it’s rather hot in my office where I’m recording this and oh, I’m just too cheap to turn on the air conditioner.

[00:02:58] I’m probably gonna have to break down into it at some point in the next couple of days, but I’m holding out. So the thing I have to look forward to this Memorial Day weekend, because I will probably be working on something, is my first tomato of the season, which is always super exciting. All these tomatoes have been green because it’s been so cold, but since it’s heated up, I see one of my tomatoes is getting a little red, and it’s so exciting, when you’re excited about your first tomato of the season.

[00:03:32] I don’t know if that’s a good thing or that’s a bad thing, but anyway. I sat down just today with the lovely Rona Fiddler, who at 70 is an accomplished business woman, a mother, a grandmother, an amazing human being and who has released 25 pounds and probably a lot of additional baggage with the shift weight mastery process.

[00:03:58] And we’re diving into her story, but we also dive deeper and we talk about ideal weight and self-worth, and how those two things can be subconsciously intertwined and how this can impact our finding. And remaining at we deem our ideal weight. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

[00:04:18] Now, before we dive in and in, in addition to the heatwave, I have a triple thread summer promotion of my shift 30 day hypnosis based self-study program, 30 day process that has hypnosis, coaching and meditation every day. It also has a extensive preparation process that you can do in your own time so you don’t have to start right away. The self-study program you get access to for quite a long period of time.

[00:04:51] So even if you enroll now, you don’t have to start right away. You can hold on, till after 4th of July or after August. It’s, you can do it in your own timeframe, but why it’s a great time to enroll is the price is discounted. You get an additional program with some amazing hypnosis downloads that get into exercise and portion control, stress management even drinking less while releasing weight.

[00:05:19] And also you will get to partake in either the upcoming fall 2025 live shift, which day one will be September 26th, for those of you who have been asking and or if that doesn’t work for you, the spring 2026. Wow, that feels so weird saying that. But yeah, so you could enroll today, go through the self-study, also enjoy the live and then also the benefit of the discounted price and the additional program.

[00:05:50] So lots and lots for very little. So the link is in the show notes. Go check it out. And now let’s join Rona.

[00:06:02] Rona: Can you hear me okay?

[00:06:04] Rita Black: I can. Hey, Rona! Welcome to the Thin Thinking Podcast. You’re coming through loud and clear. It’s lovely to have you here today. Thank you for coming on and having this conversation with me.

[00:06:15] Rona: Thank you for having me. I am truly honored to be part of the conversation, so thank you.

[00:06:22] Rita Black: Yeah. So everybody knows our background. Rona’s been in my community, but also gonna shift her for a while and we will let her speak about that. But she and I were in a conversation not long ago and and the topic of weight and ideal weight came up and we got into a very fascinating conversation.

[00:06:42] And so we decided why don’t we share this conversation with everybody because I think it’s worth, exploring all of these ideas. But I love Rona to share her own weight struggle story with you all, just as a background for our conversation and also just so she can offer her inspiration of, how she was able to manage to not only release weight, but now you’ve been keeping it off for a couple of months.

[00:07:11] But I’ll shut up and let you talk about your struggle story, Rona .

[00:07:15] Rona: I will say that I think of myself, I was never fat, but I was always solid and sometimes maybe a little more chunky. It was really as I got into the teens when I started feeling heavy or heavier than I should be. I grew up in the sixties and we’re talking the Twiggy like Peggy Lipton, I keep thinking of yes, they were, tall, no hips, no thighs. Having that the space in between your thighs was like a thing like growing up, right? When you.

[00:07:47] Rita Black: I remember that. Like you were supposed to see the sun shine through your thighs or something like that.

[00:07:52] Rona: Like pulling them, like I never, I don’t think I ever will, but that’s a whole other conversation. The sun never got through my thighs, that’s for sure. I always had hips and I was just, and I always weighed more than I looked, but the number was like a big thing. And I tried, I did all of the diets, the all the diets, and it was never, again, a ton of weight that I had to lose, but enough that I always felt bigger than I should be. And I think I, when I found you, I had started meditating on my own during COVID, so I’m not sure if I was just in the right frame of mind, what have you. It came across my feed. I decided to try the the self-study, and then I did the live shift last spring, and it just clicked. Something about it clicked and what I found interesting was like I’ve heard some others, share in some of your calls and what have you. At first, I fought against the writing things down the calorie counting the sounds data tracking diet. And then I realized I’m just going to give it a try.

[00:09:02] And when I let myself give it a try, it clicked for me and I found that, the calories in were more than what I needed to, maintain my size, my weight, my energy. Yeah. And that even though I felt I ate healthily with, whole Foods and not a, I ate a lot. A lot. Yeah.

[00:09:26] And the number, and plus, between having kids and going through menopause and getting to a certain age, I’ll be 70 this year. Things slow down, yeah. And I was finding myself at a number and, that was higher than one I had been at for a forever, other than being pregnant with my kids and the clothes I had were, like I was in extra larges and, which for me was big, was very big. And it just didn’t, it just didn’t feel good. I did the shift and I took it slowly. That’s the one thing I would say to, I a half a pound a week was I was not going to starve myself.

[00:10:11] I was not going to feel deprived. I wanted this to last and it literally took me about a year and I’ve lost 25 pounds and I am in, sizes that, that feel really good. And there’s, and I’m comfortably there. It’s not oh, if I might be able to fit into that size eight now it’s like I fit into I’m a size eight, which is like amazing.

[00:10:36] Rita Black: That’s great. That’s amazing. So can I say something about where you are at right now? Like what you just mentioned? ’cause I did wanna touch upon a couple of things because you said you had about 25 pounds to release and that you had gone through menopause and that you were eating healthfully. And the whole idea of like tracking and calories and all of that.

[00:10:56] I think what’s really interesting for somebody like you who is not overweight by 30, 40, 50, 60, 80 pounds, that as you get to that number closer to your, whatever, and we’re gonna be talking about ideal weight, it precision does matter. As you get closer, like when you have a substantial amount of weight to release, you can release weight and, but as and the data part and the menopause part, because women, I think they know their bodies slow down.

[00:11:29] But they don’t know how much. And it varies from woman to woman, but I think just getting that reset and as you were saying, like just eating healthfully sometimes isn’t enough. You’ve got to get the clarity, you’ve got to just get really clear and data tracking or, what people will call calorie counting from the old school, like diet days, right?

[00:11:52] Like the, and it makes you think of like your bean counting and you’re like, scrimping and oh, and the calorie counting. And so rather than being scientists about it, which is how our approaches and using the brain to take us out of emotional mode into more cognitively. Like rational thinking so that we can use our brain.

[00:12:11] So Rona was saying all of this and it, and what clicked for her, my guess is that you got clarity, and you got and when you get clarity, you also get alignment, meaning oh, okay, this is what my body does. I can now I have some choices. And you chose to release a half a pound a week because you started to come at this from a more loving I don’t wanna deprive myself, I wanna thrive down the scale.

[00:12:38] And so I think that was just, I just wanted to pause there and just point out a few distinctions about you and your story and what if somebody’s struggling and they’re, like postmenopausal or they’re in menopause and it’s just don’t shy away from getting clear on things because I think the clarity really helps.

[00:12:55] Rona: Yeah. I remember I had a physical and I was sure that there must have been something wrong with my metabolism, my thyroid, my something because I was eating so healthy and I was putting on weight or I couldn’t lose it. I was sure. And then when all of the tests came back and they were all good, and my doctor said to me basically, you gotta be careful about like how much and what it is, and he said the data collection was really eyeopening for me. That was really eyeopening for me. And then, going from there to the realization that God willing, I’m gonna, live this next year one way or the other so I can take my time and this is gonna be a new way of being. That’s the other thing.

[00:13:42] It’s like I didn’t wanna be on a diet.

[00:13:46] Rita Black: Yeah.

[00:13:47] Rona: Like you have oftentimes said, it’s ’cause the diet, it’s a thing and then it’s over and then you go back. This, it’s I’ve changed how I approach food, how I manage my relationship with food. It’s still an ongoing thing.

[00:14:03] Yeah. And I think we’ll get into some of that with some of the other issues, but I’m much more aware and realizing I don’t need as much, yeah. My body just doesn’t need as much. And so it’s been a journey. It’s been up and down. But overall, like that path was basically exactly that.

[00:14:22] Half a pound a week, it took me one year. I’ve lost, like I said, 25 pounds, maybe even a little bit more over the last couple of months. But I’ve been maintaining it now for, I’d say, for four or five probably five going on six months, and I feel like I can do it this time that this is gonna be lasting.

[00:14:42] Rita Black: Yeah. And do it. Meaning be it because you’re being Yes. Yeah. And did Now, how much physical activity did you add in that your, or did you not, because I know you were physically active beforehand, right?

[00:14:57] Rona: Yeah, I would say that didn’t change a lot . i’ve always been pretty active, although I, again, I’m tracking it, so I just am aware.

[00:15:08] I’m a big walker. I walk a lot and I’ve started adding a little bit of strength training. I think I told you my goal is to do a chin up by the end of this year.

[00:15:18] Rita Black: Yes. I love that. I wanna have that goal too

[00:15:22] Rona: pull up, or I guess a pull up is underhanded and a chin up is overhanded and the underhanded is a little easier, so I’ll go with that one.

[00:15:29] But something about feeling strong and having muscles like that is as much a part of my journey as the releasing the weight to feel. Whole and aligned. And my shift word is actually, is strength. There’s something about strength, some inner strength was resonated with me. So that’s more of my goal in this phase of my life, to try to stray, stay strong and healthy.

[00:15:58] In this last,

[00:16:01] Rita Black: don’t say last.

[00:16:08] I I did, I were you, maybe you weren’t on the call where I was talking about this 105 year old woman on YouTube, and if you guys are listening to this, just go 105 year old interview and it’s just fantastic. This woman is like so full of life, and I know Rona, your mom’s 93 and it, and you’re probably shocked to think, oh gosh, could my mother be on this earth for 12 more years?

[00:16:30] And maybe she could, maybe This woman was pretty healthy, very mentally all there. And she was, and when you said last, and I was like she said something that just was so awesome, which was the guy who was interviewing her is some 20 something year old and he’s interviewing a lot of older people.

[00:16:50] He’s actually a really good interviewer, but he asked her, if you were 50, like when you were 50, when you were 55, if you were like, what would be your advice to a 50-year-old who worked in a bank who wasn’t really happy with their job who wanted to be a singer or a dancer or a, would you tell ’em it’s too late?

[00:17:08] And she was like, why would I say it’s too late? They’ve got their whole life ahead of them. I just love that, yeah. It’s all perspective, it is and a lot of, I think what we’re gonna talk about with weight is perspective and who’s looking at it and who’s saying what, yeah.

[00:17:25] 70, I think that you’re just looking at being strong for your next chapter, which I think is a very good idea.

[00:17:32] Rona: Yes. You talked about the weight. And one of the things, when I lost the 25 pounds and I got to this number and we had our conversation and it was like. What is, am I at my ideal weight?

[00:17:46] I don’t know. Yeah. What is that ideal weight? I know I feel good right now, but if I looked at like the charts, that number still higher than a lot of those charts would show in terms of, for me, for whatever, I don’t know if it’s what I grew up with, but it was like it from five feet on up. It was like a hundred pounds at five feet and then five pounds every –

[00:18:10] Rita Black: Yes. That’s the I chart and that. Yeah. And that is, yeah, an old standard, right? I don’t think so,

[00:18:18] Rona: but that was, that’s certainly one that would play in my head and I’m higher than that. So it was should I be working on getting down even a little lower? So I struggled with that a lot. Yeah. And then it was you who said, just, relax. Like see, stay where you are, see how that feels. And you also talked about getting to a point where it was like, how did you put it? Almost make sure that like you could be where you are and eat comfortably and feel comfort.

[00:18:49] Yeah. And that was real eye-opening to me. Yeah. Coming to that and realizing, wait, yes. I wanna be at a point where I don’t feel like I am again starving or working so hard to get to know that I’m eating comfortably healthfully. I am, like I said, I’m fitting into clothes. I feel good. Like why should I care so much about that number?

[00:19:16] Rita Black: Yeah. And I think that number if is a haunting number and I think probably a lot of our listeners, I. Know those numbers like the a hundred pounds and then five for every inch above that. And the interesting thing is, from birth, until we’re in our twenties, everything our parents, teachers, life experiences get imprinted on our subconscious mind.

[00:19:40] And so I hear that a lot because I work with a lot of women 55 plus. And it’s so interesting to me when somebody is approaching like their ideal, or some number. And I was like where did you get that number from? And for most people, not most people, but I would say half of them, it’s random.

[00:20:02] It’s just oh, it’s just sounded like a good number. It had nothing to do with reality. With the, their BMI or their and again, those external measuring sticks, even BMI, they’re saying, now they’ve adjusted and made an older person’s BMI. Like when I used to back in the very beginning of my, career as hypnotherapist and working with weight management, I would weigh people and when they come in so we could measure their progress. And then I was like, this is stupid. Like why am I, they’ve need, they need to do, if they wanna measure their data, then they do that themselves. So they have ownership.

[00:20:36] I don’t wanna be their mother and I don’t wanna be, and I don’t wanna have any judgment about what their way, but what was interesting, and you and I were talking about this just before we turned on record, was you could be a tiny person and weigh like, it. I could look at you and go, they’re probably weighed this.

[00:20:54] Because when you weigh enough people, you get a pretty good sense of what people weigh. But they would weigh maybe 20 pounds heavier. ’cause they were just dense as a person. They just their bodies were dense, their muscles were dense, but they appeared. To be, optimal or the, they’re, they healthy.

[00:21:10] And then there would be somebody who was, appeared much heavier, but they would weigh less. So all these like external internal indicators and how we’re measuring ourselves and everything. It’s just, so I think a lot of it gets imprinted. And you and I were talking about our mothers, our and how they measured us and how our fathers measured us and our culture measured us.

[00:21:33] And we grew, you grew up in the sixties. I grew up in, I was born in 64 and I grew up in the sixties and seventies. And both of us, like I remember looking at my classmates and they, their thighs fit into the chairs at school and mine were like hanging over and it’s we were talking about this. Yeah. That space between your legs, like it’s just it between the

[00:21:54] Rona: legs and no matter how thin I get, I don’t, unless I have liposuction or surgery, I don’t think I’m ever gonna have that space in between my thighs ’cause I’m just not built like that.

[00:22:04] But that was another thing that, like you pointed out, that loving yourself down the scale, like recognizing this is my body and my body shape.

[00:22:14] That’s who I am. It’s okay. Yeah.

[00:22:18] Rita Black: That was such a shock to me too, was when I was growing up, I thought. If I lost enough weight, I would like magically have the long legs and the long arms. And, I had this vision, it was so funny ’cause I was listening to the Partridge Family the other day on Spotify.

[00:22:35] I was like, oh my God, the Partridge family is on Spotify. And I had such a crush on David Cassidy and I used to dream that because I didn’t feel good enough in my own skin. I really did. I just loads myself. I had this dream of unzipping myself and as, and the me was the external cover. And then I would step out as this tall blonde, because blonde was so big in the seventies.

[00:22:59] Long haired, skinny woman that David Cassidy couldn’t resist.

[00:23:06] Rona: I’m right there with you because, I I went to college out in California and I ended up. Graduating from a College of Michigan. But I joke that, yeah, like I thought if I stayed there long enough, I would turn into a California girl with bubble long blonde hair and straight and, I have curly dark hair.

[00:23:23] It’s gray now, but, I have, like I said, I’ve always had hips and thighs and I, it’s just, I’m not gonna be, I’m just not gonna be that california, again, I, I always say Peggy Lipton because I, in the, was it the Mod Squad? That was Yeah. The ideal.

[00:23:42] Rita Black: But it was so cool. Yeah,

[00:23:44] Rona: so cool.

[00:23:45] But the other thing too, that we talked about, which I realized that drives me, that is this sense of, okay, forget the number that I’m at, the number that I lost.

[00:23:56] And the sense that’s not enough. Other people can lose more.

[00:24:01] And this sense of, oh, and again, I don’t know if it’s a competitiveness, if it’s a low self-esteem, if it’s where it comes from, but the sense of, oh maybe I shouldn’t try to lose 25.

[00:24:17] Like it might be better to lose 30, yeah. And then I have a little cushion, and then I even look at 30 and think according to the numbers, I could lose 35 pounds and still be at a healthy number. I wouldn’t be like, too thin. So maybe I should really be looking to lose more because other people can, and if they can, I should be able to.

[00:24:42] And I realized I was surprised by how much that.

[00:24:48] Rita Black: Yeah, that voice. I would love to, I wanna talk about two things. So that totally is, the human brain will never be satisfied, until we make the decision, like the, our ego will go, I can do better, I can do more. And that’s why so much of us struggle, because we’ll get to that ideal weight or the weight that we wanted.

[00:25:08] And then as you and I discussed, there’s something more there. There’s I’m not enough. So there’s that underlying sense of is it really your weight or is it that? And a lot of times when we diet, we aren’t loving ourselves down the scale, so we are getting to our ideal weight and we still don’t love ourselves.

[00:25:29] And so we think then I, therefore I need to be thinner because when I’m truly the perfect weight, I will love myself and I will grant myself permission to love myself. But. As we find out. And so many, so that’s why so many people get to that ideal weight, have imposter syndrome, and then they’re like then they start stress eating or they’ll over and then they’re gonna gain the weight back.

[00:25:55] But just going back to, I wanted to address that. I love the fact that you were, taking it slow, half pound a week because again, when we are struggling, we just wanna get the weight off as quickly as possible. But with the shift we’re really focused on no, own yourself as you are.

[00:26:13] So you can, really enjoy and something that, I think you probably know this Rona, but I, when I released my own weight. I released 10 more pounds than I am now. And then, but I realized pretty quickly that wasn’t sustainable. That just wasn’t sustainable. And so it was a little hard to gain some of that weight back, but it was like, I wanna normalize where I feel.

[00:26:36] And so when people ask me about ideal weight, I’m like, I think ideal weight is where you feel like, the size that feels good, but also that you are able to sustain yourself without feeling like you are, starving or deprived that you like, wow, that we have this term creating a life that you that allows you to that you love, that allows you to live at your ideal weight.

[00:27:00] And ideal weight I think is that place. So I think until you own yourself or you still, you start to have that love yourself down the scale. I don’t know that you have that ability because we’re coming from so much self. Hate and all of those voices haunting us because where are those voices coming from?

[00:27:20] Like when you were judging yourself like, oh I gotta do 35 and like one, I think there is an innate sense of competition with women and it that doesn’t need to be there, but it’s just I think we were brought up in this time. I, I don’t think my daughters, and I don’t know if your children have the same measuring stick, but I think our mothers definitely ingrained in us.

[00:27:43] If you manage your weight, you have discipline, you have willpower and you are enough. Like a woman who like, there’s just this kind of unspoken and maybe sometimes spoken out loud. ’cause I have a lot of clients who mothers, locked refrigerators and really restricted them. I.

[00:28:02] And or fathers who were like, you gotta lose some weight. Nobody’s gonna love you if you’re not the right weight. Like all that messaging that we get when we’re younger that really imprints deeply. And I think in the seventies, there was that idea of oh, a real woman, manages her weight and she’s thin and she looks this particular way and she dyes her hair well.

[00:28:23] She has perfect hair and blonde hair probably for the most part. And as we grew out of that time, but it still lingers. I think a lot of us, because we were so imprinted from that time.

[00:28:37] Rona: I think so. I agree. And I think part of that, with our generation in particular, you talk about like the messaging we got, it was, I think about that commercial, what is it?

[00:28:48] You can, bring home the bacon and cook it up in a pan. Right up in the pan. Yeah. You could do everything. So it’s like on one hand, growing up with the message, this I feel like I was at this point, and we probably both were straddling two really distinct societal messages.

[00:29:06] On one hand it was the message of the perfect homemaker, the Donna Reed, the, the pearls and the dress and, yeah. I didn’t picture that. And then on the other hand, it was the, bra burning, you can do anything. And that message came very strongly that, you could be anything.

[00:29:27] You could do anything. Which almost made it feel like whatever I did wasn’t enough, ’cause I could be even more. And I think that message just permeates in such a way that, again, it’s oh, back to weight.

[00:29:41] Rita Black: Yes, I could do better.

[00:29:44] Rona: I could be even better. I could be even stronger, even more strict, even more.

[00:29:50] Yeah. Disciplines disciplined. Thank you. Yes. And man, those messages are really strong. Really strong. Yeah. And for me it would come out too, I think in this, and how I ate and what I ate and,

[00:30:07] Rita Black: and beating yourself up if you didn’t eat the right thing

[00:30:09] Rona: and then, and the number, and I know I’m have many friends and we struggle with this, the same kind of thing with that sense of, not being enough somehow. I have friends who were, stayed at home and it wasn’t enough. ’cause they should have been out working.

[00:30:26] And I have, friends who were out working and it wasn’t enough ’cause they worried about the kids. It’s I know that there’s still some of that, but, for me it was a big struggle with, what am I gonna do? And, also expectations depending on, I was always an achiever, maybe an overachiever.

[00:30:43] And so it was, great things. I was destined to do great things. So it was always this sense of, the bar is so high, both in what I do and how I look and how I do, and yeah, point. Even now I feel oh my God, I thought by now I, it’d be figured out, right? Like I could just, I could relax and it’s still there, but it’s, yes, I’m figuring it out a little bit more.

[00:31:10] And that’s where I think that’s self-reflection. The meditation, the. For you, the hypnosis, some of the different Yeah. Re-messaging, re-patterning those things.

[00:31:22] Rita Black: Think the neural pathways, but also our central nervous systems and we get reactionary.

[00:31:28] We get on the scale and there’s that reaction, that visceral reaction that sometimes goes beyond our thinking. It’s just like trigger, like it’s PTSD, you get on the scale and it’s up, and then it tripwires an entire neural like it internal nervous system response that doesn’t feel rational because we can say it’s okay, it’s only two pounds, but it triggers all the old pain, all the old self-abuse, all of it just gets, just, it’s we take a bath in it.

[00:31:59] One thing that I could say, like as a tool for our listeners, in addition to what Rona’s saying, like hypnosis or meditation would be to. Really work on gratitude and not not intellectual gratitude, meaning like having a gratitude list, but meaning I’ve gotten into this ritual and I love it in the morning of just being grateful and feeling that gratitude in my body and holding it for as long as I can.

[00:32:27] So stretching out those moments when you’re like, all is well with my world. They don’t come that often, but when you do, there’s a mental exercise of just like holding onto that feeling and stretching it out, because our brains will always say, it’s not enough and we’re not enough.

[00:32:42] They say, I think I have this client. He’s, he cracks me up so much. He’s not a weight client. He’s a, he came for smoking many years ago and then he quit smoking, but he’s a businessman. He is a very good businessman. He lives in Beverly Hills and he was like, he was lived in like a home that was worth two or $3 million, like a nice home, nice family has everything.

[00:33:08] Not good enough. And I’m not good enough ’cause he has a very low self-esteem, although he’s a very successful guy. And I see him and then he was like, Rita, I wanna buy that. He owns like a Lamborghini. He has to literally sit in his Lamborghini in the morning to get it up, to go to work in the morning.

[00:33:23] ‘Cause he hates his job, but he makes a lot of money and he’s I just bought the $20 million mansion that I’ve been dreaming about for the last five years. And he’s, and he feels really good, right? And then I hear from him six months late, he’s Dr. Black, can you call me shut? And he is he’s I’m so unhappy.

[00:33:42] I’m so stressed out. And I was like what happened to the, and now I have to keep it up and now I have to do all this stuff. And I was like, yeah, that’s our crazy brain, isn’t it? So working, and I really send him off on these like things like, let’s work on the gratitude here and like it, but that feeling in your body, like even working on my body, like loving my thighs, loving my, like when we do the body work and stuff like that, just thinking about, I.

[00:34:13] My body shape is the body shape I am always going to have. And it’s aour process to let go. Oh, I’m never gonna be that, the long legged, long spindly arms, but I’ll be the shape I am and my shape is good enough and I am enough. And, but I feel like, so in the morning, like I’m grateful for things like my health and I just hold that feeling, ’cause it, then it gives me that deeper sense of it’s enough.

[00:34:37] Like my life is as probably good as it’s gonna get right now. I’m healthy, I am my kids are healthy. Those are the things I’m like, my kids are healthy, my husband’s healthy. I’m healthy. I have a roof over my head. That’s good. What, that’s a good starting point. And feeling that fully has helped me really feel like, wow I’m good.

[00:35:00] This is as good as it’s gonna get. I don’t know. What do you think?

[00:35:04] Rona: No I hear you. I also have found myself doing more and more of that kind of a practice. Absolutely. But like I said before, it still surprises me that at this point in my life Yeah. How much those other things are still there.

[00:35:21] It’s just they haunt us. They do, I have on, I’m looking on my bulletin board a a saying it’s comparison is the thief of joy.

[00:35:29] And it’s, I have to remind myself that because. When I’m not comparing, then I’m much more comfortable. Yes, I have an abundance. I’m good. I have, again, my health, my family, my, roof.

[00:35:46] I have more than a roof, I have, yeah. I really, truly have more than I need. Yeah. But compared to other people that I know that I love, I mean they, they have more,

[00:36:00] Rita Black: Yeah.

[00:36:00] Rona: Stuff. Yeah. And, and I think part of that is the challenge we live in our world and our society especially in, in America it’s all about, building bigger and more and what have you. Yeah.

[00:36:13] Rita Black: And it’s reflected in our feeds because our feeds just feed back our world to us on a, on steroids.

[00:36:21] Rona: Now, like I think for today’s generation, I mean we had some challenges, but now today’s generation with all the social media and all of that whole sense of comparison and feeling like you’re not enough because others are out there doing these great things.

[00:36:35] Or even, again, at this age, I think, yeah, I’m pretty strong and healthy and would fit and, but then I look at, I now get these feeds of these other women who are close in age, who are even fitter or even right stronger, who are showing me that, they’re doing and it’s yeah I’ve tried to cut a lot of that out, but if like it’s all there, you’re just bombarded with it and it becomes more and more critical to, to take the time to do that self-reflection, to be really focused on you.

[00:37:08] I even go back again to the numbers. It’s it talked about how a body can be a different body type. I have literally been in doctor’s offices where nurses where I’ve gotten on a scale and a nurse will go oh, you don’t look like you weigh that much. And it’s oh, great. That’s just what I needed to hear.

[00:37:25] Yeah. But I’m one of those people that’s I’m like, denser. And I used to joke that my kids, like my kids, when they were little, they were solid. Like you’d pick them up, they were dense. I had nieces that I felt like I could pick ’em up and would, could throw ’em across the room. They were just lighter, but at the, it’s the build. Like I haven’t done it, but I’m very curious there are the scales and stuff that do the measure the muscle mass and the things of that sort. I’d be curious how it measures up. Because I do have a sense that, like I said, I do, thankfully for me, I build muscle quickly.

[00:38:03] I have a feeling like I might be more dense or muscular that way in how I’m Right.

[00:38:10] Rita Black: You’re probably more of a, like a mesomorph, which is like the athletic build.

[00:38:15] Rona: And again, I’m never gonna be, I would read I’m, never gonna be five seven, which is what I am. And, 115 pounds or 110, right? Yeah. Like you read, I would read the models, the supermodels, the, growing up that was like, I’d read

[00:38:31] Rita Black: about all of their, how can they be like five foot 12 or five, I’m sorry, five foot? Yeah. Five 12. Five 12 and weigh, 110 pounds. It’s what?

[00:38:42] How can you do that? But no it’s, it is it’s fascinating. And it’s we have a I don’t know, if you got it, it externally when when you were growing up, but I remember really distinctly, I worked in I was a coat check girl in a fan. It wasn’t fancy. It was a steakhouse, a famous steakhouse in New York City called The Old Homestead.

[00:39:06] And I and I was the big girl. And there were all these thin girl I actually worked with Molly Shannon the comedian. And she was a coach, check girl. She was hilarious. She was always hilarious. She would sit there and pull like little mink furs out of the mink coats ’cause people would come in from it was New York City on the west side in the meat packing district.

[00:39:26] And it would, on a Saturday night, it would be from all these the bridge and tunnel crowd they were called, ’cause they’d come in from New Jersey and Queens and Brooklyn and with their mink coats and their Burberry coats. And, people had money and we’d sit and she’d pick all the mink mink out of it.

[00:39:42] So if you go to the homestead don’t check your coat with the coat check girl, but a mink. But the owners had no problem. They were overweight men, these two guys. And they talk like this. They talk, like they were gangstery. And they would say honey, if you would lose a couple of pounds, like if you would lose like 20 pounds, oh, I could get you a boyfriend.

[00:40:05] Like I could get you a boyfriend. Like I didn’t rate, like the, there it is. Yeah, you can’t get a boy. Like you gotta put a little more makeup on and you gotta, and you gotta drop some weight. And then, and they’re seriously telling me this, and they’re standing there, they’re probably 60 pounds overweight each themselves.

[00:40:20] But anyway, no problem. Telling me to lose weight.

[00:40:25] Rona: Yeah. Yeah. And I get, again, we go back to societal influences and as women it’s constant. I think, and I’m hoping things are slightly changing, I grew up dancing. I don’t consider myself a dancer ’cause but I own a dance studio now.

[00:40:42] And I. There was certainly pressure to look a certain way. And it’s funny ’cause I look back now at pictures and I think, oh my God. Like I wish I could be that shape. But even then there was a pressure to be thinner, than what I was. Of course, yeah. Especially in that environment. I think now I look and see, certainly in the commercial space, there are all shapes and sizes.

[00:41:09] Way more variety in, in shapes and sizes than there was growing up. I think in the in the company and, valet companies or things. It’s a little less but a little, there still is a little bit more variety, a little more meat on some of these dancer’s bones, which I love to see.

[00:41:29] And so I’m hoping you know that some of the messaging, even with some of the. Celebrities and what have you are, there’s a little bit of a broader range, but it almost feels it’s like you’re either one or the other. There’s not like this. Yeah. They either very thin or they’re, a spokesperson for being a bigger big girl.

[00:41:51] Yeah, yeah, so yeah it’s a tough, it’s tough. It’s tough because those messages are all out there constantly bombarding us and, I hope I, gave my daughter different messaging, but, it’s hard. And my granddaughter. But did your mother give you messaging? Did you get messaging from your parents at all?

[00:42:11] I thought a lot about that. I don’t, I have to honestly say I don’t feel like I got so much messaging about my weight. It was more about, just being. What I could accomplish just in general, that there were big expectations on Oh,

[00:42:29] Rita Black: okay. Uhhuh. Yeah.

[00:42:31] Rona: What I could do and what I was going to be that sort of thing.

[00:42:35] Yeah. But my weight not so much. Although I do remember when I was younger, a comment that my father made about, ’cause I had a big bottom and then I was like a half a mile behind myself that I was always, obviously that stuck with me. Yeah. And I must have been pretty young because he actually passed away when I was 13.

[00:43:03] So before that. So I’m sure there was some messaging, but I don’t remember that as strongly as more maybe from the dance environment and then peer pressure as I got, I would say around that 12, 13 and older, that’s when it really yeah. Started to hit for me that I really began to notice that, like I said, I felt I was shaped differently.

[00:43:29] I used to have to go, I more in the Missy departments because, they had pants that fit over my hips versus those teens, that were like

[00:43:39] Rita Black: straight. Oh, I know. Like I, I at thought getting clothes back then at that age, if you had any sort of non-kin body was horrible.

[00:43:51] I remember going yeah, into that. I ended up, that was the age of sewing machines and making your own clothes and I made a lot of my own clothes just ’cause confining.

[00:44:00] Rona: That was not my strength at home Sew. But I did go, I couldn’t shop in the junior departments. I still can’t shop in the junior departments.

[00:44:10] And I remember going with my mom to one of her stores to get clothes and it was like embarrassing. It’s and now the styles, I think spam, you can get Yeah. Youthful stuff in all kinds of,

[00:44:25] Rita Black: yeah. And that’s what I love about certain brands too. Like Athleta, I think that’s how they pronounce themselves.

[00:44:32] But they usually will show a style with a thinner model and then a heavier model. And so you get to see that perspective and I like that. I appreciate that. ’cause I’m probably somewhere in between, I’m not Right. A super skinny model, but yeah, I, it’s like the messaging that’s I think we started this conversation really from that moment where you were like, is this enough?

[00:44:59] Is my weight enough? And I was like is this the right weight? And it was like, maybe we’re in the wrong conversation here. Is this just am I really enough? And ’cause I wanna leave everybody with a sense of like where should we be looking when we talk about our weight? What, I think it’s valid to look to data and to look at markers that might feel right for you if you there.

[00:45:22] And I certainly have a lot of people in my world who have never been at their ideal weight or don’t know what that would look like. And so I feel like instead of looking at some giving yourself some sort of random or insurance chart number really to. Look at where you are and start to look at milestones versus I gotta get to this number, but what would it feel like to release 20 pounds and then let me get there.

[00:45:50] And that can be my vision for the moment. How do I feel? What does this feel like? Okay okay, I feel strong here because, we were having a conversation, the coaches from the spring shift, and it was, it got Ron because I know you weren’t in this conversation, but it was a very it got to this point because a lot of the coaches are at their ideal weight, or they’re, and some of them are near their ideal weight, but they’re not sure.

[00:46:16] And so it, it did become the same conversation of can I be okay at this weight? Can I grant myself permission to just be okay? ’cause I feel good and I eating how I’m eating right now. And it’s this whole thing of could I dare to just be happy at this weight that, maybe other people would deem, why would I wanna be at that?

[00:46:35] Do you know what I mean? And it’s, I really think it’s so much about permission, like branding

[00:46:41] Rona: those permission. Yes. And it’s funny you say, because that was the other thing when we had our initial conversation that, there were a couple things, that was another one. It was like giving me permission to just be okay here was like, wow, I, wow, I never thought of that.

[00:46:59] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:01] Rita Black: There was, we’re looking for permission from everyone and everything around us. And the idea of granting ourselves our own permission for whatever, not even just weight, but am I rich enough? Am I

[00:47:14] Rona: yeah. Thin enough?

[00:47:15] Rita Black: Am I, good enough, I accomplished enough.

[00:47:17] Rona: Am I smart enough? Am I yeah.

[00:47:20] Rita Black: Am I a good enough mother? Am I a good enough business person? Like all of that. It’s maybe who am I measuring myself against?

[00:47:27] And it really is it just asking yourself. So for everybody out there, just to start to look at that and to ask question.

[00:47:35] I, I was watching this other, or listening to another podcast with the Diary of A CEO, Steven Bartlett, who’s again, another great interviewer, and he was interviewing this guy, and I don’t even know this guy’s name, but he was talking about working with billionaires, and he said, most billionaires I know are very unhappy people, like most of them have compared and tried to get better and tried to make more money and everything, but they’re still very unhappy.

[00:47:58] He said, my grandmother lived on social security and that was it. She had no money. She, but she was the happiest person he ever knew because she loved her garden. She, she loved her life. She had friends, she did her thing and he said there’s wealth, like when we think of wealth and we think of like wealth of mental health or wealth of, the health, and now there’s that saying your health is your greatest asset, especially about the age of 60.

[00:48:30] And and you and I’ve started like thinking about that with all this compare and despair and thinking about what’s enough and when my brain wants to go there, I’m like. How wealthy you are already in this area of your life. Let’s look at what you’ve got and then let’s see, do we really need more?

[00:48:47] Do we really need this? ‘Cause our brain will just drive us crazy. So I think granting ourselves permission to set boundaries and say, yeah, that’s enough. This is good for here. And I think what I said to some of those coaches, I was like, try it out. Just try out being at that weight for a while and see how you feel.

[00:49:06] Like why not? And I think that’s where you and I ended our conversation. I was like, just try out being at this ideal weight and see how ideal it is.

[00:49:15] Rona: Yeah. That was exactly, and I think I shared when I let go of all of this angst over, is this the ideal weight? Should it be more? And I just let myself gave myself permission.

[00:49:27] I actually released a few more pounds, it was just, I wasn’t so crazy.

[00:49:31] Rita Black: Yeah. It’s so fun.

[00:49:33] Rona: It was. Yeah. And like I said, thinking about it now, I have to admit, there are still moments that I think, oh, a couple more. What? And then there’s, no I’m very, I like this is, this works.

[00:49:46] Like I eat Yeah. Plenty. I am fit into clothes. I’m not having trouble fitting into clothes. And I like, yeah I’m looking good. It’s okay. I can stay right here.

[00:50:00] Rita Black: Yeah. And I think the longer you’re there and the longer you own it, then those things start to, they do start to fall away, like all the questioning around that. And you do start to expand out into other areas. I know you’re very expanded out into other areas of your life, but I just mean because we get so trapped in this weight world that. Holds a lot of thoughts and keeps us in a lot of thought spirals that own us versus us owning them.

[00:50:32] And I think becoming aware of them and then starting to name them and then starting to talk back to them, then you start to have some power over it and then you you are the owner of that conversation and it’s not the owner of the conversation anymore. And I think that’s the point we’re getting to, where we can say, okay, yeah, there’s that part of my brain that’s coming from the lack and not enough thank you.

[00:50:58] Part of my brain that does that. I’m gonna give myself permission to be happy where I am today. ’cause it feels pretty good.

[00:51:05] Rona: i think That’s beautiful and something for all of us to take away. Yeah. It’s, yeah. Giving ourselves permission to be okay with where we are, who we are.

[00:51:18] Rita Black: Yeah. At whatever place we are right now.

[00:51:22] Yeah. And realizing that is an ongoing conversation, but at least to get to that point and to be able to be grateful and to own that and then to know that this brain of ours is always gonna say oh look, there’s another 70 woman, a 70-year-old woman who’s fitter, richer, whatever. It’s good for her.

[00:51:45] That’s her thing, bringing yourself back to yourself. So that’s a great point for us, I think to finish up. Just to say, yeah, let’s be, let’s give ourselves permission to be good in our own skin today. Because, also you don’t know how much, more you get. So let’s enjoy and amen.

[00:52:05] And enjoy being where we are. And we are enough.

[00:52:10] Alright, Rona, thank you for this conversation. This was very cool. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:52:16] Oh, wow. I hope you got as much outta that conversation as I did. And I just wanna thank you, Rona, for just saying yes to me. ’cause I said, Rona, let’s take this and make it public.

[00:52:29] ‘Cause we had such a great conversation initially, and I said, would you be up for it? And she said, sure. So thank you Rona, for being generous and vulnerable and joining me in that conversation, which I found really helpful. And don’t forget, our summer triple threat promo isn’t here for good.

[00:52:50] So it’s going away soon. So visit the show notes and check it out and have a great week. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door of the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it. I will see you here back again. Next week. Thanks for listening to the Thin Thinking Podcast.

[00:53:16] Did that episode go by way too fast for you? If so, and 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.

[00:53:44] And be sure to check the show notes to learn more about my book from Fact and thinking, unlock your mind for permanent weight loss and to learn how to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode.