Rita Black: [00:00:00] Now Halloween is supposed to be about ghosts and witches, but let’s be honest, the real thing that goes bump in the night isn’t a ghost. It’s that voice in your head, whispering. Go ahead. Just one fun sized bar, and suddenly it’s 11 wrappers later, and you’re wondering what kind of sugar spill just possessed you.

Rita Black: This week we’re gonna put on our mental witch hats and brew up some powerful mindset magic to break free from trigger foods before they haunt you all the way through the holidays. Yes, all the way to January 1st. So grab your cauldron of sparkling water. Pull up a pumpkin. And get ready because we’re about to turn those fears into confidence and control.

Rita Black: So come on in.

Rita Black: Did you know that [00:01:00] 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.

Rita Black: 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.

Rita Black: Enter the Thin Thinking Podcast where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I’ll [00:02:00] 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: Sound good? Let’s get started.

Rita Black: Boo. I really mean it. Boo. Oh, I don’t know how to make that scary. Hey, don’t worry, it’s just me, Rita Black and welcome my lovely thin thinkers to our annual Halloween edition of The Thin Thinking Podcast. If you are listening, when this drops, I hope this finds you happy and enjoying your life, and grateful for being alive and on this side of the grass and looking forward to a [00:03:00] healthy Halloween.

Rita Black: What are you gonna go and be this year at Halloween? Do you dress up? I usually like to dress up, but this year my husband and I are in Florida hanging out with his 90-year-old mother who is the best. So we’re keeping it pretty chill though. Back home in LA there are 12 little kids just hitting that peak, prime trick or treating age where they’re so cute and they are just so adorable running around in their aerial, Disney princess outfits, et cetera, et cetera.

Rita Black: We got to get a little taste of Halloween before we left and it reminded me, my husband reminded me. Of this time when we hired Ariel for my daughter’s preschool. So my daughter was turning four, I believe, and in la [00:04:00] her birthday’s in April. And it was raining. It never rains in April. It does occasionally, but this particular April, it was crazy raining all the time.

Rita Black: And the preschool that we belonged to was a co-op. So that’s, some where the parents would volunteer their time. So either my husband or I would go in. Help run a preschool for one day a week. Clean the bathrooms, make a horrible, awful, I never agreed with what they were feeding the kids, it’s the kid food, the chicken nuggets and all that stuff for their lunches.

Rita Black: Yada yada. Anyway but, and every child time a child had a birthday the parents were responsible for making everybody happy and, entertainment and all that stuff. So it was our turn and it was our daughter’s birthday and she was very into Ariel. In fact, one Halloween she was a mermaid hybrid [00:05:00] mermaid.

Rita Black: Frankenstein Vampire. Yes, it actually happened. We were able to do that fusion and it was super sweet. But this particular birthday of hers, I’m just telling you this story ’cause it’s a, it is, it’s a funny, cute little story. My daughter was four and when you’re four you just believe in everything, which is so amazing and so lovely.

Rita Black: And so we hired this ariel. We are in Los Angeles, so there’s a zillion actresses who will, play Ariel for your child’s birthday and come and tell stories and do all this stuff. So it was pouring down rain and this particular preschool that we belonged to was mostly outside. It was, the, not the, it wasn’t a fancy pants preschool.

Rita Black: It was pretty bone basics. And we had a little. Hut basically. And then because it’s California and you can be outside, pretty much every day of the year most of the preschool was outside. So all the kids were [00:06:00] huddling in this hut. ’cause I was pouring down rain. And this aerial gets out of the car in the parking lot.

Rita Black: The poor woman ha has her tail. She is in a tail. And the distance between the parking lot. And this hut, what’s a pretty long distance. And she was just standing there by her car, like kind of shivering, poor thing, with her big red wig in this mermaid tail and, getting a little soaking wet.

Rita Black: Her umbrella was just this pathetic little thing. Because nobody in LA has umbrellas that work. ’cause we never use them. ’cause you know it never rains. And when it does then we just all panic and stay inside. Not like when I grew up in Seattle and you just walked in the rain, no matter what. Without a hood, without an umbrella.

Rita Black: But anyway, that was then, and this is now. So she’s standing there getting wet and my husband’s like, all right, I’m gonna go get a, [00:07:00] so my husband has to go and carry this aerial in. And it was a priceless site. This poor ariel is just holding, something above her head. So this big red wig of hers wouldn’t get drenched.

Rita Black: And we squeezed this woman. Into this hut full of, 4, 3, 2 year olds. But they were so mesmerized by her. They could, they just couldn’t stand it. They were just like, oh my God, Ariel’s here. And my daughter just couldn’t even speak My daughter when she was very young hardly spoke at all. She was incredibly shy.

Rita Black: And Ariel put her on her lap and told, sang songs and told the most amazing stories and it all worked out. But that’s when I think of Ariel, I think of that a woman being carried across this, a field of grass by my poor husband. And she wasn’t a teeny, tiny aerial. This woman had lived a [00:08:00] life and that was a sight.

Rita Black: Okay. Anyway, I’m gonna move on. But anyway, we also in our neighborhood back in LA, have some scary kids. We’ve had eggs like maybe three years in a row. We, somebody’s thrown an a egg at our house, and if you don’t clean that egg up, I don’t know if you’ve ever had somebody throw an egg at your house.

Rita Black: It is don’t wait to clean it up because it takes forever to clean up otherwise, my daughter and her boyfriend are in charge of our house this week, so they will be taking care of the little cute trick or treaters. So my daughter will get a taste of, what we had when she was little.

Rita Black: And and hopefully you’ll have an amazing Halloween, but. This episode that we are doing today and that I am going to be playing for you. Are I my candy episode? Because I, if you’ve heard it before, good. It’s gonna refresh your memory because guess what? Anything you’re learning, I often will like a little, you’ll [00:09:00] need a little refresh.

Rita Black: And if you’ve never heard it before, you’re gonna find it incredibly helpful with regards to your relationship to the Halloween candy and or just other trigger foods like this is just really about trigger foods because Halloween is honestly a holiday where the candy industry of the world, cashes in on our addiction to sugar.

Rita Black: So sit back and, or go for a walk or ride in your car, but enjoy navigating the sugary side of Halloween. Ha. I’m thinking a lot though. Every year I’m always reminded about when I struggled with my own weight. Halloween was always about for me. What kind of candy do I have on hand?

Rita Black: Because there was that an internal struggle always within me. The part of me that [00:10:00] wanted to be good, the part of me that said, get a candy, you hate, so you don’t think about it. You don’t have to worry about it. Even though I would usually end up eating that as well. But, or do I get the candy I love?

Rita Black: For me, candy corn was always a big thing. I know most people are really grossed out by the idea of candy corn, but it is like a huge trigger food for me, not it is a huge trigger food for me. So I usually always ended up getting the kind I hated. But every once in a while would break down at the last minute and go buy, the little Snickers and all of those things too.

Rita Black: And some candy, corn. I didn’t give anybody the candy corn, of course. I just bought it and ate it for myself. The post Halloween sales are the worst because then, they’re offering the candy at like half price, and you’re like I’ll get this for next year. And then you get home and you’re like.

Rita Black: This is gonna be too stale next year. I better eat it [00:11:00] now. Halloween is the official opening of the season of candy, but let’s face it until we all go on a sugar detox in January, it’s usually from now until the end of the year, unfortunately. I want you to have a great relationship with sugar now, so please listen in.

Rita Black: Sugar and other trigger foods. Because for some of you, you might not be a sugar person. You might be a savory, salty person or just a savory person. So I’m not excluding you in the Trigger Foods episode at all. So please listen in. But if you are into sugar and don’t wanna be. Run by Sugar anymore.

Rita Black: Please, if you haven’t, grab my free shift out of sugar cravings hypnosis session that is in the show notes, and it is also available on my website, www.shiftweightmastery.com. That’s www.shiftweightmastery.com. [00:12:00] And grab it there, and let’s dive into today’s episode, shall we? And now let’s just unwrap the wrapper around these trigger foods and get to the soft and caramely center of it all.

Rita Black: Okay. So what exactly are trigger foods, Rita, you would ask? You may know what trigger foods are, but if you don’t, a trigger food is a food that we really, we eat one and then we want another one, and then we want another one. And really, trigger foods are foods that our brain embodies, react to that it.

Rita Black: Kind of render, they render us powerless. We’ll eat the whole bag, we’ll eat the whole gallon, we’ll eat all of it. And typically trigger foods are wired in in a special way in our brain. And from my understanding, with working with people in weight [00:13:00] management for 20 years, I think there’s a genetic component.

Rita Black: I think there’s an emotional component and I think that these foods get wired in our brain and hit our dopamine center in a special way because nobody has the same trigger foods. I have very specific trigger foods for me. And of the thousands of people I’ve helped, there, there are and obviously there are trigger foods that are common.

Rita Black: For a lot of people. For a lot of people, frozen yogurt is a trigger food. Popcorn can be a trigger food for people. Candy is definitely a trigger food for people and especially that really sweet candy. And that is me. That is my trigger. Foods are all really sugar based, but they don’t need to be sugar based.

Rita Black: They can be they can be a savory food. They can even be a non carbohydrate. Food. But the trigger foods are just foods that we tend to not once we begin eating [00:14:00] them, we really don’t have a lot of control over them. We can’t stop at just one. And mine, mine are, just to share with you Sweet Tarts.

Rita Black: Mine are also candy corn, AKA, the Halloween candy. That is my biggest nemesis. And then my other one, probably my favorite one other than frosting. And I’ve done a whole episode on frosting. That’s, I’m not gonna get into frosting today, but I’m talking about candies today ’cause it’s Halloween.

Rita Black: Are wine gums. Do you guys know what wine gums are? Now if you’re British, you absolutely know, or if you’re maybe Australian or but, or even Canadian. But wine gums are like gummy bears, like you think wine gums, when I first moved to England. I moved there with my husband in the beginning of many years ago.

Rita Black: So I lived there probably about 30 years ago at the beginning of our married life and wine gums, I discovered them and I, people would say, oh yes, [00:15:00] oh, I love those wine gums. I thought they were talking about gum that was flavored, like Chardonnay or Cabernet, and that was the, I don’t know if anybody’s watching Ted Lasso, which is about an American coach who’s over in England.

Rita Black: And he highlights all the different isms between the Brits and the. The Americans. But I’ll tell you a really quick, funny other thing is there’s this pickle in, in, in England, and it’s a spread or you put it with cheese. You eat it with cheese. It’s like a dark.

Rita Black: Brown, very sweet relish. Basically it’s like a dark brown relish that has onions in it, and it’s it’s, I don’t think it does have pickle in it, but they call it pickle, right? It’s like a chutney. And I worked, when I lived in England I worked at a sandwich shop very briefly during, I was a student there, so I had like a winter break and so I got some, job, I needed some money.

Rita Black: So I, I got a job at the sandwich [00:16:00] shop and somebody came up and they’ll go, oh yeah, so you know, I’ll have a Turkey sandwich with pickle. And I thought, oh they wanted pickles. The sandwich and I went to go and go to the refrigerator and look for, and I was like, where are the pickles?

Rita Black: And where’s the pickle? Where’s the pickle? And the girl who was working with me was like, oh, over this, watch over that. You can’t see. It’s right in front of your face. And I was like, I don’t see any pickle. And then she brings out this jar of brown stuff and I was like, oh. That’s pickle. So that was my introduction to Pickle.

Rita Black: And actually I really, when I lived there, loved pickle because it had sugar in it. And of course anything with sugar, it stimulates my brain. But anyways, so our trigger foods, I digressed greatly. I am sorry, I’m gonna bring you all the way back. I had my little, remembrance of England. But I’m.

Rita Black: Bringing you back to this idea that your trigger foods are always your trigger foods. And I think what I see people getting [00:17:00] stuck in is it’s like smokers. When I work with smokers, they think. That. Sometimes people think that, when you quit smoking if you go for enough time, after a while you could just have a cigarette every once in a while.

Rita Black: But the problem is, in my experience with working with smokers for 20 years and being a former pack and a half a day smoker myself, is once the brain is wired with a highly addictive substance, the wires. Even though they’re no longer tho, those wires are no longer primed. Those the wires of that habit they exist, right?

Rita Black: So with smokers, a lot of times they’ll stop smoking and then, they’ll go for a year or two years or, I’ve had smokers tell me stories. They went for 20 years and then they were like it’s been 20 years. I haven’t had a cigarette. I can just have a cigarette. And they smoke one.

Rita Black: And then that part of their brain gets a little nicotine and it starts [00:18:00] to trip wire the rest of the wiring. And I see this again and again. When I work with smokers, it’s like you, it’s, you have to understand that you smoke one, the rest, smoke you, and.

Rita Black: It is really, I do see with our trigger foods, I’m not saying with all foods, not all sweet foods, but with a lot of trigger foods, it is the same sort of thing for people. So if I eat candy corn, the impact in my brain, because my brain has been wired. I have an emotional connection to candy corn, I have a physiological connection to candy corn, and I have a history with candy corn where I have been able to sit down.

Rita Black: With two bags of candy, corn, and eat the whole thing and get myself into a sugar high sugar coma, even though candy, corn and me are an unhappy ying because obviously. All of those episodes with bags and bags of candy. Corn had ended up with me laying down in a sugar coma, feeling horrible and awful [00:19:00] and, totally feeling like a fool and like a loser and all that too for not having that willpower.

Rita Black: Even though I’ve had those memories there it. In my mind, the next year, because it’s been a year, oh, this year I can manage the candy corn, right? And then I’ll buy it. And then again, I am, I’m brought to my knees by candy Corn again and again, and I’m brought to my knees by wine guns again and again, I can tell you another quick London story.

Rita Black: So I’ve been on a diet and I had quit smoking. So I was a big smoker when I lived in London. And as many people are. And I had quit smoking. I’ve lost weight. I was like, okay. I went, and in the underground they had the candy shop, like the seven 11, but it was underneath in the underground.

Rita Black: In those of you who are, like in cities that have underground transportation, it’s. Probably the same like New York, I think I don’t remember, but I know I would get off the tube and I would pass by this sort of [00:20:00] stand that had wine, gums and cigarettes. And one day I was just like, you know what?

Rita Black: It’s been so long since I’ve had a cigarette and so long since I’ve had wine gums. I’m gonna buy both. I’ll just have a few wine gums and I’ll just smoke a few cigarettes and I’ll throw away the pack and I’ll, just eat a couple of wine gums and then I’ll give them to my husband and then I’ll be done with that.

Rita Black: But, I just feel like I can have a couple. And of course then, a, it cut to me walking down the street, like eating four wine gums all in my mouth at the same time and smoking a cigarette and then, smoking another cigarette and eating another four wine gums. And then, smoking myself and eating wine gums like.

Rita Black: After wine gum and it was just like it was, of course I was brought to my knees by both of the, my habits. So we really have to understand that we have a relationship. Our brain puts our wine gum in the same place in our brain as our friends and our family. There is an emotional, visceral connection to [00:21:00] our trigger food sometimes, so it’s really hard for us to really make peace with the fact that maybe we need to put those.

Rita Black: Trigger foods to the back of our mind. And we, you can, there’s a million other foods, there’s so many other candies that I can have a few of and, take it or leave it. Chocolate is one of those. I’m not a chocolate aholic. I, some of you may be, but that’s not something that’s a problem for me.

Rita Black: I can eat a nice piece of chocolate, be like, okay. Thank you very much. That was lovely. And enjoy it mindfully and move on with my day. It doesn’t haunt me and hunt me down like candy corn does. I just wanted to have this conversation with you guys because I want to be real with you with regards to your relationship with your trigger foods and maybe starting to have a different relationship with them.

Rita Black: So I wanted to give you a couple of tools so that they don’t own you, and especially if you’re one of those [00:22:00] people that around Halloween, those foods end up in your household, whether it’s you buying them or. Your family buying them or your kids bringing them in their baskets? I’d like to give you a word of caution, and I don’t mean to be a killjoy because I know, again, like you, it’s, we it’s a love hate relationship.

Rita Black: We’re eating and we’re like, why am I eating this? I don’t wanna be eating this, but it is, ugh. And so there’s a love hate we don’t want it. We do want it. And I completely, our brains are so screwy when it comes to things like smoking. People will be like, why am I smoking the cigarette?

Rita Black: I hate it so much. And the other part of the brain’s ’cause you love it. So the part of your brain that loves your trigger foods doesn’t really care about your weight management, doesn’t care about your happiness, doesn’t care about your blood sugar, insulin levels, or that you’re pre-diabetic or that you know it.

Rita Black: It’s a problem for you. It’s just I want what I want when I want it, and you’re going [00:23:00] to give it to me. So we have to start to listen and really create a firm boundary with ourselves and our trigger foods. So one one technique I would say is to really just make your trigger foods not an option for you and to get really clear on what they are.

Rita Black: I think sometimes people aren’t quite sure is that a trigger food or. Is it not? So hopefully this conversation has helped you ascertain like, is that, is that really a problem for me or is that not, and if you’re thinking it’s a problem for you, it probably is, but sorry.

Rita Black: But it probably is again, don’t hate me. I’m just the messenger. I am. I didn’t make this up. What I would say is creating something like a, not an option zone or and I’m gonna get into a way that you can have your trigger food, so don’t hate me completely, but it’s the not an option is just really clear because when and I would just say, I am X, Y, z, free.

Rita Black: I am Wine gum free, or I am Candy [00:24:00] corn free because when I say I don’t want to eat candy corns, or I don’t eat candy corns, I’m trying not to eat candy corns, or I’m trying to do this Halloween without eating candy corns. That’s all deprivation language in my brain, and that makes me feel deprived. It makes me feel like, oh, I’m one of those dieters and I have to, but when I say I’m candy corn free in my brain, it opens up my brain.

Rita Black: It’s oh, I’m free. I’ve chosen my freedom. I’ve chosen to stay clear of that stuff. Because I know the second I put a candy corn in my mouth, I’m not there anymore. But that other part of my brain is there saying, and now have another one. And now have another one, and now have another one. So I choose my freedom.

Rita Black: It’s the same with smoking. I’ve been a non-smoker for 25 years. I. I’ve chosen that, I’ve seen people smoking and it looked, I was like, that looks damn good. I’m like occasionally, most times I see people smoking. I feel so sorry for them. Occasionally I’ll, and it hasn’t been for years, but I remember in the first years of my being a non-smoker, I’ll be like, oh yeah, that looks good.

Rita Black: But then I’d say [00:25:00] but. Then I would wait. If I had that cigarette, I would wake up tomorrow and then I would want another one, and then I would want another one, and my mind wouldn’t be my own anymore. It would be gone. And I’ve learned that having that freedom of my mind being clear and being aligned with myself feels so much better than eating candy corn, because really, honestly, after three bites of candy corn. We don’t even experience it anymore or whatever your thing is. We’re then off to the races and our dopamine center is just going and again and again. Remember, I don’t know if you’ve heard me quote this study, they gave rats sugar water and they stimulated the dopamine center in the rat brain and the rat continued to drink sugar water till its stomach exploded.

Rita Black: You know that part of the brain that is driving your eating that trigger food doesn’t care about you or your health, right? You can see so we need to be aggressive back because that part of our brain will speak to us and it’s smarter than us, right? It will say, oh, come on, you’ll just have one.

Rita Black: Oh, come [00:26:00] on. It’s, it looks so good and you’re gonna enjoy it, and then tomorrow you’re not going to eat it again for another year. Oh, they’re only here this time of year. Or if you go and, oh, they only have them in this part of the state, whatever it is, it’s it.

Rita Black: It. The brain will bug you like a child that wants some money from you, right? And if you aren’t clear, like no, that’s not an option. And I’m choosing to be wine gum free. Thank you very much. Now believe me, I’ve had people bring me bags of wine gum from England. Every time people come to visit me in my house, I don’t know, I tell them, don’t bring me wine gums, and their brains must just absorb.

Rita Black: Oh, bring her wine gums because they bring me these damn bags of wine gums. And I’m like, Nope, I’m not gonna take ’em. Give them to my, I was like, get rid of these to my husband. And of course then my kids end up eating them or whatever. But yeah, I’m wine gum free and I’m a happy wine gum person until they d until they invent wine gum.

Rita Black: That sugar free gum that tastes like [00:27:00] wine. Maybe I would find that. It’s not a bad idea. So now I wanna read to you from my book, from Fat to Thin Thinking. And I, yes, it’s, I’m being lazy. It’s the lazy man’s way of walking you through this other tool and technique. I think I laid out pretty well in the book, so I’m just gonna read to you from it.

Rita Black: And this is in underneath stimulus control. So that’s one of the skills of weight mastery is stimulus control. It’s really a huge skill and people really don’t seem to know that so much is that, if a food, especially a trigger food is in our environment, it’s gonna call her name, it’s gonna say, Hey, Rita.

Rita Black: I’m over here, come and get me and it will wear you down. And so one really key skill is to remove those things from your environment. And and I think a lot of us think I should be able to have them in my environment. Why? Like really, why would an alcoholic have an open bar at their home?

Rita Black: And [00:28:00] again I don’t want us to think of ourselves as oh, we’re this person who just, can’t be controlled. It’s, no, you’re a powerful person. And you’re a cool person and you’re a highly functioning person, but your brain has been wired in and your body has been wired in particular way around this particular food.

Rita Black: So why the hell would you have it in your house? Why the hell would you have to have a conversation with that thing again and again? It’s like a toxic friend, like you had a lot of fun in the beginning of the relationship, but now they’re bugging you. And now they’re bringing you down and so why have them around?

Rita Black: Honestly, get them out. Respect yourself enough for doing that. Show up for yourself and love yourself, and you can have other food in your house. I’m not saying you have to strip your house bare of all goodies. I’m just saying that these foods that bring you to your knees, love and respect yourself enough to get them the hell out of your house.

Rita Black: Bring some foods in your house that you can enjoy [00:29:00] and have in your house, right? Show up for yourself. So here’s, now having said that, here’s a way. It’s called creating a love loving boundary with your trigger foods. So I’m just gonna read from the book, so life is long and there will be times when you want to indulge in a pleasurable treat, including your trigger foods.

Rita Black: How do you set your mind up for success when having that treat? Make a rule with your inner coach ahead of time about when and how much of a treat that you are going to enjoy. That treat is not an option at any other time. I call this strategy creating a loving Boundary. Alan Dhar, PhD. A neurologist, or sorry, a yes, a neurologist.

Rita Black: I read that right at Montreal’s Neurological Institute conducted a study on expectation and brain activity with regard to smoking. He [00:30:00] measured the brain activity of smokers who were kept from smoking for four hours. One group was told that after four hours they could smoke. The other group was told they needed to continue to abstain from smoking for six more hours.

Rita Black: The smokers who expected the cigarette after four hours began to show high levels of arousal the closer their time came to smoke. The other smokers who did not expect a cigarette showed no arousal. When the brain knows that a reward or treat will not be forthcoming, it puts the attention elsewhere.

Rita Black: Once you make a decision about something and you are clear about that boundary, it helps your mind to say no easily. So here’s and this definitely happens with smokers. Like I ask them all the time. I say, when you get on a plane and go, are you okay? Even though they might be a very heavy smoker, yes, I’m fine.

Rita Black: I might think about the cigarette, but it’s not an option and my mind does, [00:31:00] forgets about it and moves on to something else. So here’s how to do it. Step by step. Identify the trigger food. This should be easy. It’s the one you can’t stop eating. Think of what a single serving would be in both amount and calories if you’re, if that’s your thing.

Rita Black: And make sure that it allows you to make sure that is a real serving. It’s not like a multiple serving, but a real serving. ’cause you don’t wanna eat too much, you don’t wanna trigger your brain. And now think of an environment in which it will be safe to eat a single serving. This environment is one that you have not had a stimulus control issue.

Rita Black: In. So I wouldn’t advise in your car, I wouldn’t advise in your home. You wanna take it outside your house. So create a limit how, on how often you might enjoy your trigger food in this setting. Create a limit. It keeps you from overindulging or abusing the boundary. Like for instance, you say your trigger food is ice cream.

Rita Black: If you [00:32:00] can’t stop eating the ice cream until the carton is empty. Our stimulus control strategy would keep ice cream out of your house. But what if you wanna be able to enjoy its creamy goodness? Every once in a while, you can create a new loving boundary with ice cream. For example, a loving boundary for ice cream might be once a week.

Rita Black: I can have a scoop of my favorite. At the ice cream parlor, right? Or your local ice cream store. So you’re sitting and eating it there, or outside, on the street, but you aren’t taking it into your home and you’re not buying a carton. You are giving yourself something you enjoy, but in a moderate and measured way outside your environment.

Rita Black: So that is a way that you can create your loving boundary around your trigger foods. I hope with this Halloween season or any season that you might be, that you have found this helpful conversation. [00:33:00] So this Halloween, don’t buy candy. That is your trigger. Do yourself a loving favor. And if you have kids and they bring that trigger food home, just, have them keep their candy out of sight.

Rita Black: Out of mind from you, right? Stimulus control. You might even have a little mantra for yourself. You might have a mantra for yourself that says, it’s my kids’ candy, not mine. Or, I don’t wear my kids’ clothes and I don’t eat their candy either, right? So just keep it out of sight. Out of mind practice, stimulus control practice.

Rita Black: It’s not an option. And if you wanna have a Tootsie roll, if that’s your thing, your trigger food, have a Tootsie roll, but not in your home, not in your car, somewhere out, and have one. Enjoy it, be mindful of it. And I would also advise having it not on an empty stomach, because that will even trip wire your brain more quickly, but have it after a meal.

Rita Black: Okay. Alright everybody, I hope you have a [00:34:00] wonderful time if you are celebrating Halloween. A powerful time. I love getting dressed up. It is fun. That is one thing I do every year or I try to do, especially I like to dress up and answer the door. Go out walking in the neighborhood. But definitely pick up that sugar cravings hypnosis session if you haven’t already, and have an amazing week and Halloween.

Rita Black: And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door of the weight struggle. Is inside you, so keep listening and find it. Do you wanna dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release? Head on over to www shift weight mastery.com. That’s www shift weight mastery.com, where you’ll find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release.

Rita Black: Tips strategies and more. And be sure to check the show notes [00:35:00] to learn more about my book From Fat to Thin Thinking. Unlock your mind for permanent weight loss.