[00:00:00] Rita Black: Eating something to calm ourselves down has become a national pastime. So much I think that the packaging on our favorite, salty, crunchy foods, our soft baked foods, could stop being called snack food and instead be called emotion food potato chips, not Prozac. In this week’s thin thinking episode, I’m going to teach you a simple hack, if used consistently would help you check in with your stress, your emotions, and boredom, and allow you to tune into your true needs and tune out of the need to reach for food. So close the cupboard and come on in to this week’s episode of The Thin Thinking Podcast.

[00:00:50] 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.

[00:02:04] Hello? Hello. And come on in. Have a seat, and maybe you might need to turn up the air conditioning. It’s getting warm, isn’t it? Here in the middle of June, or for those of you down under, you can turn up the heat. Just go on. Just go over to the thermostat and turn it up. I promise I won’t complain.

[00:02:28] My dad I don’t know about you guys, I grew up in the seventies just talking about the thermostat and do you remember those of you in my age range? When it was, I believe President Carter said, we should all keep our thermostats at 69 degrees in the middle of the winter.

[00:02:48] My dad was one of those people who listened and stuck by the rules. So our house was freezing in the winter. Oh my gosh. It was just so cold. It was so cold that every morning I would come downstairs with my clothes and I’m in my pajamas. I bring my clothes for school and we had one heater vent in the dining room that, I would go and sneak and turn the thermostat up to 71 or 72, really hot, right?

[00:03:17] And it would turn on the vent. And I would quickly like just sit by the heater event and get dressed. I wonder if anybody else had a father like mine or a mother who kept that rule of that 69 degrees. I just thinking about it, it just makes me feel cold even though it’s warm.

[00:03:38] So I am excited about this summer and I hope you are. We have coming up on our Thin Thinking podcast, some exciting guests, and we’re gonna dive this summer into a topic. I think a lot of you might be interested in, which is binge eating and managing binge eating. More importantly, using our minds to master binge eating. So that is coming up probably around somewhere in July. But I’m doing some research now and I. It’s very interesting and I’m thrilled to dive into that with you. So here’s my suggestion. Hit subscribe on that podcast that you listen to make sure you do not miss any of the thin thinking love coming your way this summer.

[00:04:25] The other thing I wanted to tell you about, I’m just gonna tell you a quick, funny story and then we’re gonna dive into our stress eating hack today. Do you guys know the creamy machine? Some of you I didn’t know anything about this. So we’re, we just finished up the spring 2025 shift weight mastery process, the live version, and oh my gosh, it was so amazing.

[00:04:49] And people just got such great, just shifts in their mind and results and. The thing I love the most about the Shift Weight mastery process, what we do it live is the coaches. We had over 50 coaches and these coaches, a lot of them are at their ideal weight now. But they’re all just generous, cool, and amazing people.

[00:05:11] During the, for those of you who are in the group or. In my membership, I always encourage people to coach because it’s a great I feel like you get to a certain point in your Weight Mastery journey and you, the next role is being a leader and helping others. And I think you get as much or more than for yourself helping them.

[00:05:32] You get to see how far you’ve come, but you also get to solidify teaching. You learn, right? I think there’s some quote around that, but. Here’s the thing. So I had this group of amazing people, the coaches from the live shift, and we were having our final coaches meeting and a few meetings earlier. Coach Julie had mentioned this, creamy machine. And I was like she was like I have to tell you guys, I’ve been making this creamy with protein powder and lemon yogurt and sugar for yogurt, et cetera, et cetera. And it’s 300 calories for the entire pint, and it’s 40 grams of protein and and it tastes like soft serve ice cream.

[00:06:12] And I was like, what the heck? And those of you who know Creamy you know what I’m talking about. But I had no idea and neither did a number of the coaches, and we were all like, we’re gonna go buy one. So I get off the meeting. A couple of meetings ago, and I go and I tell my husband is one of those guys.

[00:06:32] He’s what is that? Okay. I’m ordering it now on Amazon. He’s, I don’t buy anything. And he’s the, he and Amazon have a, simpatico relationship. And anyway, so our creamy arrives and and it is everything that Coach Julie said, and more, it, we made protein powders.

[00:06:49] So like I, my husband and I are both above the age of 60 and having enough protein to, and, to retain muscle mass. And we both, lift weights and not tons of weight, but, I’m trying to retain muscle and so we’re like protein for dessert. That is always amazing. And so having a little scoop of basically it’s like a soft serve, but, and it tastes like chocolate ice cream.

[00:07:14] We made a chocolate, so we made it with chocolate protein powder and sugar free chocolate pudding. You freeze it, it gets rock hard, and then you put it in this creamy machine and it goes and it finishes. And then you have this pint of, literally, it’s like soft serve ice cream. So you take a scoop, it’s low carb, a high protein, really yummy.

[00:07:38] And you probably think I’m an affiliate or I own stock in the company. I don’t I There you will find no link. In the show notes for a creamy, I’m just telling you this because I was so blown away by this and I think there’s a creamy revolution ’cause we all got together, the coaches like a couple of meetings later.

[00:07:56] You should have listened to us. We were all like, what recipe do you have? What recipe? I’m doing this, I’m doing that. It was hilarious. So here’s the topper of the story though, because it’s a bunch of grown women pretty much like going Yes. And this is so amazing and it’s like a Tupperware party or something.

[00:08:15] And I. And so this last Sunday, we went over to our dear friend’s house and we always offer to bring something healthy. And so we brought a salad and then and then my husband was like, let’s bring the creamy machine.

[00:08:31] And so we, I was like, really? You think we should? He’s yes, they’ll love it. So we literally took the creamy machine with us to our friend’s house and we had pre-made some something and so it was rock hard. And then we made the creamy for dessert and our friends loved it. They were got like, oh my gosh, this is the most amazing thing.

[00:08:51] So moving on. Did you know that the snack food industry is an $82 billion? That’s a B billion dollar a year industry here in the United States alone. Think of how rich I would be today if instead of eating all those snack foods, I spent that money on investing in those companies that made it instead.

[00:09:19] Okay. So I was thinking about this week’s episode on preventing Stress and Comfort Eating, and I did a poll of the members in my monthly mastery group and I said, Hey guys, what are some of the, your favorite stress eating foods that you used to eat or reach for all the time and. Here are some of their answers.

[00:09:43] It wasn’t actually specific foods, but it was more that you’ll see salty, sweet, gooey toast with peanut butter and jam, or honey if I don’t have any sweets or chips. Here’s another one. Pasta with either pesto or butter and Parmesan. Salty, crunchy, then sweet. How many of you guys are a salty then?

[00:10:09] Sweet, then salty again, snacker. You’d be surprised how many people go from salty to sweet or sweet to salty. Crunchy, buttery, and salty. And then last one here, smooth and creamy yogurt, ice cream, nut butters, whipping cream pudding. So some similarities and yet some differences. So everybody has their little stressed favorite that they reach for.

[00:10:38] So why do we think reaching for food calms us down? Here’s the thing. It isn’t so much the food itself, but what is going on around the food? So let’s look at some of these things. So first of all, little information for you. Maybe you know this, maybe you don’t, but chewing actually does calm us down. So the actual physical act of chewing, it increases the blood flow to the brain, which can help improve cognitive function and reduce feelings of fat, fatigue or drowsiness. Haven’t you ever noticed? Sometimes if you’re feeling a little tired eating, it wakes you up. Chewing also stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the rest and digest response in the body.

[00:11:32] And this can help reduce feelings of anxiety and promote a sense of relaxation. So it’s interesting sometimes when people stress eat, I have found, because I hear a lot of people talk about where and when they stress eat and a lot of us go to the kitchen and we’ll just stand there and chew and we are alone.

[00:11:56] Usually, maybe we are in our car, or like I said, in the kitchen or in a bedroom, and usually we are zoning out and not even paying attention to the food. Haven’t you noticed that after that first bite or two or three of food, we go into sort of zone like trance-like state, and we are chewing. So we are chewing. Our mind is zoning out. We are alone. It’s usually quiet. So there’s all these things going around. The food itself. Are actually somewhat calming the quiet zoning out and maybe problem solving because if we’re stressed out, we might be sitting there thinking about the problem and solving it. And your brain, what it happens to do is it will start to make an association with that food.

[00:12:52] Oh, the Oreos calmed me down. Now actually, the Oreos didn’t calm you down, but your thinking about the problem removing yourself to a quiet place, perhaps chewing, that calmed you down, but the Oreos get the credit, not you. So when we’re in the habit of stress eating, often when we start feeling stress or emotions this trip wires that I need to eat for comfort signal also to the dopamine center in our brain.

[00:13:29] And this does something else, which is the brain starts to agitate you to go get the food, and we become agitated and that adds to the feeling of stress. So then when we do finally go reach for the bag of chips or the crackers or the Oreos what happens? Is that the agitation goes away because the brain got what it wanted.

[00:13:59] The reward center calms down and we don’t, but the agitation goes away. So it gives us the perception that we have calmed ourselves down somewhat, but what we are really doing is just relieving the agitation of the expectation that food is supposed to happen when we’re stressed out. I know that’s a concept, right? You have to wrap your mind around, so we’re stressed. And then on top of the stress is the agitation of the expectation that an Oreo is supposed to happen when we’re stressed. So we eat the Oreo and that relieves that stress, and then our brain goes, see, it relieves our stress. But no, we’re still stressed from whatever caused the stress in the first place.

[00:14:41] Huh? What a con conundrum. Ah, the challenge is, let’s be real, that eating that food, the Oreo, the chips, the crackers, rarely solves the problem, and in the long term, it just makes things worse, right? It keeps us stuck in that old habit cycle. Eat to comfort ourselves, feel bad about it. Then eat some more to comfort that feeling, and then overeat and then, huh.

[00:15:14] Then we, start all over again trying to be good, which makes us feel bad. And honestly, literally, let’s face it, let’s be honest, it makes us feel gross when we really overeat a bunch of refined foods. So that then adds to our anxiety. We feel unhealthy, we feel out of balance. Our blood sugar insulin is all often wacky, which then puts us into a mood.

[00:15:43] It really doesn’t solve the problem. And more importantly, we get in the habit of this. And what happens is it keeps us from connecting with our deeper need to truly take care of ourselves. Subconsciously, then we begin to lack a belief in our ability to manage our life without food, and that stresses us out even more.

[00:16:12] So my friends, what can we do? In my book and ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I don’t know who originally said that, but I’m a big believer in preventive. Action. I want to share a really cool mind and body hack that I think can help. Prevent you from stress eating or emotional eating in the first place.

[00:16:40] I know it helps me and it has helped a number of my clients and students. It can also help you start to evolve new self-care patterns that truly take care of you instead. So I call it the shift breath check in. So you know how doctors do a checkup. That’s preventive medicine, right? They’re checking you up every year just to check things before they go haywire or to catch them before they do, right?

[00:17:12] You take a car in for a tuneup to make sure that everything is working properly. So your shift breath is a check-in for your emotional state, your inner state. For where you are, your shift breath check-in allows you a moment to just tune into yourself and say, how am I doing? Rarely do we do this, right?

[00:17:42] It’s so simple. We take a breath and then we check in. Here’s the thing. We live in a virtual reality most of the time, right? We are disconnected from our bodies a good part of the day. We are just lost in our thoughts, patterns of thinking thoughts that are going on in our heads. It’s a virtual reality and most of our life is from the neck up.

[00:18:11] Oh, that’s our experience of life. So we often ignore signs of stress, hunger, feelings, and emotions because our brain so wants to avoid things and keep things the status quo. So what happens is we don’t tune in or even notice until it’s too late, and then we’re impulsively reaching for food. And this impulsively reaching for food isn’t conscious because we are not conscious.

[00:18:39] So let’s employ a tool to get us conscious and present. I. Shall we? So the first part of this two part process is a breath, and I call it the shift breath because we are shifting into the present moment, out of our heads, right out of our thinking and bringing it with some power students of mine from the shift weight mastery process.

[00:19:05] We’ll know the shift breath. So if you’re listening, you’re all down with this. I know. But I, we are going to add a little to it today. And we use the shift breath a lot for many things, but this particular instance, we are going to use it to get present and bring our attention into our bodies and with it, a feeling of calm.

[00:19:30] Confidence. So with this particular shift breath, what we are gonna do is breathe in either through the nose or through the mouth. I leave that up to you. You can either breathe in through the nose or breathe in through the mouth. It’s usually easier to breathe in through the nose and do it to the count of five.

[00:19:51] So you’re gonna breathe in. I can’t, I don’t know if I can count and do this at the same time, but 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, breathing in and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Breathing out. So what does this do? Just the breath itself. It regulates the breath, and many of you may have done breath therapy or be working on different breath patterns.

[00:20:17] The, this is very in vogue these days, but this is just very simple end for the count of five and out for the count of five, and it really helps to count. As you go, it regulates the breath. Breathing this way it slows things down, slows down our heartbeat slows down our mind. It stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the rest est, as we said earlier.

[00:20:47] It can help reduce feelings of anxiety and promote a sense of relaxation. Just doing the breath and it promotes mindfulness. It cuts through those subconscious thoughts that are causing the stress and forces you to focus on counting and the breath, and it quiets the mind. So let’s work on it now. So what we’re gonna do is add to the breath if you like a feeling of confidence and calm.

[00:21:16] So we’re gonna do an anchoring technique right now. If you have the time, hopefully you aren’t driving around in your car. If you are, please don’t do this. Particular anchoring technique while you’re driving around in the car, you can pull over to the side of the road or you can do this later. It’s very simple.

[00:21:35] We’re just gonna take a couple of minutes and add this to your shift breath to give it a powerful, confident feeling. And then we are going to talk about the check-in part. So go ahead and just take a nice deep breath in and close your eyes. And just breathe and tune into your breath.

[00:22:01] You are not doing the shift breath right now. You’re just tuning into your breath and tune into your body. It’s so amazing how we live above our neck and when we just tune into our body, it’s such an amazing experience. Feel all just notice all the different sensations going on in your body. Notice the beating of your heart and the rising and falling of your diaphragm and chest.

[00:22:30] And notice wherever your backside is, meeting a surface that you’re resting on, whether it’s a chair or a bed or a car seat or where. Wherever you are, just notice your body resting on. That surface. And now as you’re tuning into your body, if you’re noticing any sensation of stress, just go ahead and take a nice deep breath in and send a breath of relaxation to that part of your body and give it a little love.

[00:23:04] Good. And now just bring to your mind a time in your life when you felt wonderful, calm, confident. A time in your life when you felt in control of your life. Now, this might be as a child, this might be a time as an adult, just peaceful, happy time. It can be a very simple time walking on the beach, going on a hike, sitting out in your backyard and listening to the birds.

[00:23:34] Or it could be when you were on a holiday or a birthday, or just a wonderful moment where you felt good. Calm, connected to yourself. Okay? Now bring that memory to your mind. Good. And notice the feeling in your body, that having that memory in your mind creates

[00:24:01] good. And now imagine that there’s a thermostat for your feelings in your mind. And just turn that thermostat up. A degree or so. So you’re feeling that feeling a little more Foley, and as you are feeling that feeling a little more Foley, take a nice deep breath in through your nose, intertwining that feeling with the breath and holding it for the count of 3, 1, 2, 3, and

[00:24:32] let it go. That is your power shift breath. Now go ahead and let’s do that one more time. So just go ahead and bring. Your mind back to that memory

[00:24:47] and notice that nice feeling in your body and just turn up the thermostat a degree or so. And if you can’t get that extra degree or so, so don’t worry about it, but just take a nice deep breath in through your nose this time to the count of five. Bringing that feeling in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, in, and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 out.

[00:25:15] Let’s do that again. Just breathing in through your nose to the count of five. Breathing, bringing that nice feeling memory in five and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Good. Did you get a sense of that? So in through the nose to the count of five and out to the count of five, and if you can’t do five, do four, do three. There’s no perfectionism here.

[00:25:45] But the idea is you’re taking an, oh, sorry, I’ve got my notes here. You’re taking a deep breath in through your nose. And what that is doing is like a mind machete. It’s cutting through all the white noise in your brain, all the thoughts, all the stressful thoughts, and bringing you into your body and into the present moment.

[00:26:05] Okay? So I taught you the five, the shift breath, five in five, out with that anchor. But if you can’t do that, do what You can. Take a breath in and take a breath out. We don’t have to get perfectionistic about it. I don’t want you to get hung up on the breath, but the idea is to take a breath in and be in your body.

[00:26:29] Okay? That’s part one. Now let’s talk about the check-in part. As I mentioned before, we spend most of our time in our thoughts, not in our body, feeling the emotion, feeling the hunger. We ignore that. We ignore ourselves and our needs. Haven’t you noticed. So you may be thrown to ask your children or your spouse or your friends or your coworkers all about how they are.

[00:26:57] How are you? Are you okay? Can I help you? What do you need? Don’t we do that all the time? But do we ever say, Hey, me, am I okay? What do I need? What? What do I want? But why the hell not? You check in with these other people or wonder how to make somebody’s day better when they seem down, but you don’t check in with yourself, but check in with the nearest bag of chips, right?

[00:27:34] So a check-in is simply taking a moment to ask yourself, how am I right now? Do I need anything? And will I need anything later? What do I need to do to tend to my needs? These check-in moments, take only seconds, but help you not only to ward off stress and emotional eating by taking care of yourself before things happen, but can also help you in the stressful or emotional moment before you reach for food.

[00:28:14] Take a shift, breath in, 2, 3, 4, 5, out, 2, 3, 4, 5. Now tune in and ask yourself, how am I listen for an answer? Don’t just push through. How am I,

[00:28:37] am I tired? Am I happy? Am I grateful? Am I resentful? Am I getting tired? Am I getting stressed? Am I feeling overwhelmed? Am I feeling like I need to be alone and not around all these people? Am I feeling like I need to talk to somebody that I’m lonely? What do I need? Do I need anything? Will I need anything later?

[00:29:12] Am I getting hungry? Should I start thinking about perhaps nourishing myself with something stabilizing so I don’t need to reach for crap later? Can you see how the shift breath check-in allows you to have a moment where you have a productive self-care conversation with yourself and you start to learn to take care of yourself?

[00:29:39] To truly address the needs instead of numbing the needs out temporarily with food.

[00:29:49] So let’s talk about what I consider key shift breath check-in points with yourself. These are ones that I would say you really wanna get in the habit of doing if you can. So the first one is. The shift breath check in for the week, and I like to take time on a Sunday. I think many of my students already know this about me because I have them do it, as well as to do a Sunday sit down with themselves and really think about their week.

[00:30:25] So we could call this a check-in or just sitting down and planning their week out. But if you aren’t planning your week out, I think it’s really nice. On a Sunday or a Monday just to sit down, take a breath, get present, get in your body. Get in your life and say, wow, the week is coming up. What am I creating this week?

[00:30:48] What do I need? Where am I in my life right now? Today our minds are so prone to just rush ahead with plans and, oh, I gotta do this and I gotta do that, and da. And we’re responding. It’s, what I call defensive living versus offensive living, where living in reaction to things and reactions to thoughts that aren’t necessarily even thoughts that.

[00:31:11] Are we are having, but they’re having us. Those thoughts run us and own us that don’t even belong to us, but maybe they belong to our our work or our culture or our parents or do you know what I mean? Like we, so often when we sit and just say, where am I? What do I want? What do I need this week to take care of myself?

[00:31:39] We really give ourselves a whole new opening for self-care, not out of defensive living, but creative living and offensive living, offensive in the form of creation. So what can I create this week? How can I move my body? Is there a way that I can go for a walk and really enjoy nature? Is there a way that I can, I.

[00:32:07] Get food to myself throughout my days this week and be healthy. How can I make those healthy choices? How can I set myself up for success? Am I gonna be vulnerable This week? This is a great time to look at your week for your social plans. You know where. Where it’s a great time to think about where you usually get stressed out and get off track in your week.

[00:32:29] We just dive into the week and hope things go well versus saying, gosh, on Thursdays, I know it’s a crazy day, it’s a stacked day. I always come home Thursday night, order takeout, overeat the takeout, drink a bottle of wine because I’m just so spent. So why not on Sunday? Think that through ahead of time and start to plan a way of making Thursday a better day for you rather than just trying to survive it and hope that you’re gonna do better next Thursday.

[00:33:04] Chances are, if it’s the same Thursday that you’ve always had, you are gonna have the same response. So you wanna think about. The new behaviors that you wanna have. If you wanna come home and eat a healthy meal and not over drink, then what would that look like? And how would your day need to occur so that you’re not so overwhelmed and stressed by the end of the day?

[00:33:31] Can you lower your expectations? Can you have other people help you set yourself up for success? Can you just literally take some things off of your to-do list for that day and move them to Friday or the weekend? You know what I mean? So it’s just a moment where you’re sitting and looking at your week and being loving.

[00:33:53] Towards yourself and really giving your, the yourself the gift of a week that you create rather than head, heading into the week and reaction mode, hoping it turns out for the best, knowing that it’s gonna be the same reactions over and over again. Because your mind is, unless you think it through and create an alternative route, your mind’s just gonna go falling into the same route.

[00:34:20] You know what I mean? So giving yourself that opportunity at the beginning of the week and doing a check-in with yourself is a, an amazing time. I tell you, it will be well worth the time you take. Alright, so let’s move on to, the next one, which is to check into the day. So this is a great morning check in.

[00:34:45] I like to do this when I’m laying in bed, the, in the morning. And I now I’ll just take a breath. And, again, we wake up in the morning, I was like, oh, okay, I gotta get the kids off to school and I’ve gotta do this and I’ve gotta do that and I’ve gotta get dressed and I’ve gotta, I gotta take that moment, breathe.

[00:35:04] Settle into the bed and give yourself, I do this, I hate to set a timer. I do a lot of things in the morning before I get up. I do meditation, I do self-hypnosis. But right before I wake up, before I get out of bed, I take a breath and I settle in and I say, what are my intentions for today?

[00:35:25] How do I need to take care of myself today? And I really. Think my day through, what do I need to have that successful day for myself? And a successful day is a day where I show up for myself and I care for myself and I advocate for myself. And I give a lot to a lot of people. So believe me, I’m not the selfless person, but I am really, taking that moment to set myself up for success so that I can then be there for others. But I have to start with me and I have to care for me. So before I run and let my dog out the door and I go and make my husband some tea, and I make my son his protein shake for breakfast in the morning, I, thinking about what do I need and taking care of me at mentally first, and then I will take care of myself the rest of the day so much better because I thought my day through, oh yes, that’s right. I need to pack the food for my office. I need to make sure I get exercise after work today. I’m thinking those things through, I’m thinking, oh yes, I’m seeing a lot of clients today.

[00:36:40] I may be a little stressed, let me plan in a little downtime. I’m really thinking those things through ahead of time so I don’t get overwhelmed. I make sure I’m stabilized and fed throughout the day and nourished so that I don’t get too hungry. I’m looking after making sure I have enough water, making sure that I’m taking care of me.

[00:37:06] So that’s a great time to check in. Another time that you can check in. Now you can check in with yourself all throughout the day. It’s awesome. I would recommend doing it every hour, especially in the beginning when it’s new to you. ’cause you’re gonna start getting addicted to it. It’s really actually super fun to do.

[00:37:26] But another critical one I feel is the morning, sorry, the afternoon check-in. So the afternoon check-in is a refresh of your morning check-in meaning, okay, here we are now it’s four o’clock and I’m heading home. Yeah, and or I’m at home and we’re heading into the evening. And the evening is really a time where most people that’s their most vulnerable time.

[00:37:56] We have do much way more impulsive eating in the evening. If we’ve been stressed out all day, often, we’ll come home and eat to unstress ourselves from the day or pour that glass of wine or pour drink. Or numb out with television or YouTube or TikTok. So we’re numbing versus truly thinking through like, how am I going to take care of myself?

[00:38:24] So that afternoon check-in time is often a great time to also plan to have a nourishing. Protein snack and stabilize yourself. I’m not getting into how to feed yourself today, but I’m just talking about tune in. And usually for a lot of people, we ignore our hunger signals until we get home.

[00:38:44] And by that time, our blood sugar is so low. Oh, we can’t help it overeat because you put one thing in your mouth and you’ve become so, low in blood sugar. It takes a long time for your satiety hormones to catch up with your blood sugar. And then we’ve, grazed through a bunch of crackers and cheese or nuts or we come home, we just start shoving food in our mouth and we can’t seem to feel satiated, but if we ate an hour or two hours earlier when those first signals of hunger started to come through.

[00:39:22] Then you can come home and have a lot more willpower because you have stabilized yourself and nourished yourself at the right time. So checking in also allows you to start to tune in to where you’re truly hungry in your day and to feed yourself when you’re hungry versus allowing it to get too late.

[00:39:43] Now, many people think they struggle with their weight, but I think a lot of times it’s just that we don’t. Tune in, and we allow ourselves to get too hungry if we feed ourself at the right time when our body’s hungry, a lot of those eating challenges go away. People are amazed when they feed themselves appropriately at the right time, that they feel a lot more in control of their eating.

[00:40:12] Tune in, check in and think your night through too. Think about the evening where you’re gonna be vulnerable. If you’re prone to after dinner eating. Maybe come up with a plan for what you’re gonna do after dinner so that you’re practicing that ahead of time. In your mind and thinking that through.

[00:40:33] So that’s can be part of a check-in, but sometimes your check-in is just tuning in, going, wow, I’m feeling a little lonely right now, or I’m feeling a little stressed out right now. I. I need to take a break or I need to calm myself down. I need to maybe do some deep breathing Once you start to tune in and give yourself that loving care and attention it there it’s so wonderful because it.

[00:41:07] There really is that subconscious part of you saying, wow, somebody really cares for me. And it’s almost like a part of you calms right down because there’s a part of you that’s down there screaming all the time saying, Hey, I’m down here. Nobody’s paying attention to me. And a lot of times this little kid in us, it doesn’t know how to ask for true help. It will just say, give me food. Give me those donuts, give me a cookie. What it really wants is just for you to pay attention and for it to be heard, that part of us to be heard. Here are some ideas I have for calming yourself down when you do tune in. Loving on yourself and just allowing the feeling to occur, oh, I’m feeling lonely right now.

[00:41:55] And give that lonely feeling. Just some space to feel that lonely feeling in your body. Our brain will try to avoid that. We will take us to food, but if we just allow ourselves to feel vulnerable. It’s a vulnerable feeling. If it’s a little stress feeling, then you can recognize, okay, I’m feeling a little stressed out now.

[00:42:19] How can I take care of some of that stress or that feeling. So here are some ideas. What, as you’re allowing that feeling to occur, maybe you can. Hug a pillow, right? I know that sounds silly, but hugging a pillow when you feel lonely and just allowing yourself to feel loved by yourself is really nice.

[00:42:41] Or you can take a bath, or if you’re feeling stressed, you can just shut your central nervous system down by shutting your eyes and just tuning into your breath and your breathing Just. Beginning to, shutting your eyes just begins to shut down your senses If you want, maybe put on some soothing music.

[00:43:06] Sometimes it helps to just if you’re at home, to get into bed. Crawl into bed, and just give yourself five minutes in bed with a weighted blanket over you just to calm yourself down. Just allow your body to slow down. You could meditate. If you’re feeling sad, you could turn on a YouTube channel and of your favorite comedian or Saturday Night Live or something and laugh.

[00:43:35] You can make yourself a hot tea, or if you’re feeling lonely, you could text or call a friend. So I hope this. Has been helpful for you. The idea is we take that breath in, 2, 3, 4, 5, and out, 2, 3, 4, 5. We’re cutting through all the white noise of the day and then we’re checking in. How am I? So let’s try one out right now.

[00:44:05] So let’s just all take a nice deep breath in. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And out 2, 3, 4, 5, and now let’s just check in. How am I doing? What do I truly need right now? Am I hungry?

[00:44:30] How can I take care of myself now? How can I take care of myself later and just see what comes up? The more you do it, the quicker the answers come. So in the beginning, the answers might not come right away, but just listen for them, I promise you. They will come and you’re going to start to create a subconscious level of trust that you can take care of yourself, which builds confidence and belief and consistency on your weight release or weight maintenance journey.

[00:45:07] All right, so take another deep breath in. All right. I hope 3, 4, 5. Hope our time together was helpful for you. Four, five. I certainly enjoyed my time with you today. Awesome. And I wanna thank you for being here and showing up every week and being part of the thin Thinking community. And remember, hit.

[00:45:25] Subscribe so you stay in the community and keep coming back for more love. 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. I will be here next week, maybe with a creamy in my hand. Okay, bye.

[00:45:58] If 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.