by Rita Black
FROM FAT TO THIN THINKING: Unlock Your Mind for Permanent Weight Loss. Copyright © 2018 by Rita Black. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No portion of this book, recorded sessions included with this book, or any materials included in the online process included in addition to this book, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, digital, or other, except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews or articles, without the prior permission of the author.
ISBN 978-0-9996782-0-6
FIRST EDITION: 2018
Published by Gramercy House Publishing.
Gramercy House Publishing is a trademark of Shift Hypnosis and Motivational Resources LLC. www.gramercyhousepublishing.com.
With deep gratitude to my wonderful clients and Shift Weight Mastery Process participants who have taught me so much over the years and continue to inspire me daily.
In loving memory of my mother, Catherine June Spiess.
DISCLAIMER REGARDING HYPNOTHERAPY AND MEDITATION SESSIONS—PLEASE READ: It is my experience that hypnotherapy and its approach can provide many beneficial effects; however, hypnosis is not a substitute for proper medical attention. The hypnotherapy and meditation downloads provided in From Fat to Thin Thinking are not recommended for persons experiencing mental disorders or illness. If you are unsure if you have a mental disorder or think you might have one, please consult the appropriate professional first. Never listen to or play hypnosis or meditation audio sessions while driving or operating equipment; always select an environment that is safe and secure. The audio products have been developed to assist you and give no guarantee; you are the only person who can provide a guarantee for your own success.
MEDICAL DISCLAIMER: The ideas, concepts and opinions expressed in this book are intended to be used for educational purposes only. This book is sold with the understanding that author and publisher are not rendering medical advice of any kind, nor is this book intended to replace medical advice, nor to diagnose, prescribe or treat any disease, condition, illness or injury. It is imperative that before beginning any weight loss program, including the From Fat to Thin Thinking program, you receive full medical clearance from a licensed physician.
Author and publisher claim no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application or interpretation of the material in this book. Sorry, but that is what I am legally bound to say in order to be able to offer you my insights. If you do not agree with this disclaimer you may return the book to the publisher for a full refund.
PREFACE
The Light Of Thin Thinking
I remember the day my “shift” from fat to thin thinking began. I awoke that morning and immediately got on the scale because I was four days into another diet. Was it going to be a good day? For me, if the scale was down, it was a good day. If the scale was up, it was a lousy one. Low and behold, it was down! Ding, ding, ding! The scale said I won! I was two pounds down!
However, instead of celebrating, I stood there as the depths of this 20-year, nightmarish struggle hit me hard. I felt a wave of grief and fear sweep over me. I was awash in the loneliness of my weight struggle and my self-hatred, cruel words, and feelings of deprivation. This was nothing to celebrate.
There I was, standing on the scale like a madwoman in some sort of frenzied need to find my worth in a number. The truth was that even if I did reach my goal weight I knew that I couldn’t stay on this stupid diet du jour. I couldn’t do it anymore. Forget wanting the thin body part; I just couldn’t live in the all-or-nothing, good-or-bad head anymore.
I sat down on the bathroom scale in my Santa Monica apartment and began to cry. I cried and cried. I cried for the times I beat myself up. I cried for the binges I had been on. I cried for my husband and my family and the relationships I had been “phoning in” because my struggle with weight overshadowed everything in my life. I cried because I felt alone and scared. There was no one out there who could help me. There was no diet that was going to put things right. There was no therapist or guru that was going to save me.
I cried and cried for what seemed like an hour. Then in a silent moment, a small voice arose inside of me. It was not harsh like my Inner Critic or seductive like my Inner Rebel. This voice, though faint, seemed nurturing and wise. It was coming from a place deep inside of me.
“Never again,” it said.
“Huh?” I asked, not quite sure what I was hearing.
“You are never going to diet again.”
How was I going to do this? I had no idea, but I decided in that moment to begin my journey. I got up off the scale and walked out of the dark, dank prison cell of fat thinking and began my shift into the light of thin thinking.
INTRODUCTION
It Begins with a Shift
If you have your nose in the introduction of this book, I’m guessing you are here because you have been struggling with your weight and are frustrated. Who could blame you? The continual cycle of dieting and weight gain is maddening to say the least.
Perhaps you think you are personally at fault for your lack of long-term success in the quest for the holy grail of weight loss? Well, you shouldn’t blame yourself but the human brain instead. It’s the source of all of this angst!
What if I told you that in 30 days you can make a shift from this mindset of frustration and inconsistency with your ability to lose weight— what I call fat thinking—into a thin thinking mindset that allows you to feel confident and capable and release weight steadily at a rate you decide? And, you’ll know you can maintain your ideal weight once you achieve it? Oh yes, and all of this without one millisecond of dieting?
How can I make this daring statement?
For the last 20 years, I have been a clinical hypnotherapist and expert in the psychology of weight management. I help people achieve long-term weight release by making the shift from fat to thin thinking with a hypnosis-based program called the Shift Weight Mastery Process.
For almost two decades before I developed the process, I yo-yoed forty pounds up and down the scale and thought my weight problem would never be solved permanently. I looked everywhere for answers—fad diets, vegetarianism, extreme exercise. You name it, and I did it, but I always ended up in the same place—back with my overweight self and feeling like a failure.
Little did I know that the answer was not outside of me. Rather the key to unlocking the prison door of my weight struggle was inside of me. Once I made that profound realization, I was able to unlock the prison door, shed the weight, and walk into a life that was healthy and full of confidence. I would like to offer you the same opportunity to end your weight struggle. I also invite you to see that the starting place does not begin outside of you, in the gym, or on the plate. The journey begins in your mind. The same place that has been the source of your struggle is now going to be your key to long-term, permanent weight mastery.
“This program saved my life! I haven’t binged since I started it, and I don’t even think about food like that anymore. I’m almost 30 lbs. lighter, and I fit in jeans tonight that I haven’t wore since 2012! I couldn’t believe they zipped up. I credit all of this to shifting my mind out of the jail cell of my fat thinking that I created over years of yo-yo dieting.” Laura M. (Released 35 pounds, still releasing.)
The Weight Struggle
On any given Monday, a large percentage of more than 2.1 billion Weight Strugglers1 wake up and hope to “be good” on their diets.2
The typical Weight Struggler begins the morning feeling like a weight-loss saint while eating a healthy breakfast. The Weight Struggler is on top of their diet and is even able to resist, with some heroic exertion of willpower, the doughnuts that Tina, the skinny receptionist, has brought to the office coffee room. Our Weight Stru
ggler even aces lunch when smugly ordering a plate of sinless organic greens with the dressing angelically placed on the side.
But things begin to unravel for the Weight Struggler as the day wears on:
Maybe it’s the afternoon energy dip that leads to impulsively grabbing a mini candy bar from an office mate’s desktop.
Maybe it’s the leftover doughnut in the coffee room that screams “Eat me” loudly after that stressful conference call.
Maybe it’s the cheese slices nibbled while making dinner and feeling starved.
Whatever it was, our Weight Struggler thinks they have fallen off the pedestal of “being good” on her diet and then feels bad because she “blew it.”
Fat Thinking
Then another part of our Weight Struggler’s mind follows with “Well, since I’ve already blown it, today is ruined. I’ll start over tomorrow and be perfect.”
All of a sudden, like magic, the Weight Struggler feels better, and the rest of the day is a festival of eating everything that is not on tomorrow’s diet—more candies, doughnuts, and cheese slices. “Now where were those crackers?”
Or maybe the Weight Struggler’s being-good stint lasts longer than a day. Perhaps the stint lasts weeks or even months with sticking to the plan and shedding pounds. One might believe the magic solution, and the cure, has been found with whatever diet has been followed. But even with this apparent success, the Weight Struggler can’t quite feel confident. Somewhere in the back of their mind is the fear that the weight loss will not last. Then, as predicted, something happens that causes the diet honeymoon to end:
A weight milestone is reached, and everyone tells our Weight Struggler how great they look.
Family from out of town, who loves to eat, comes to visit.
A stressful patch of life is encountered.
Whatever the trigger is, our weight struggling friend falls off the plan. Now the “being good” phase ends in one’s mind, and the familiar “being bad” phase begins. Soon the Weight Struggler is indulging on whatever was missed while on the diet.
Frantic about the gain on the scale, the Weight Struggler tries to recapture the magic. “I have to go back to being good!” The stress of trying to be good again is overwhelming and seems to trigger the “bad” eating of everything in sight. “Come Monday morning,” they say to themselves, “I will start over!”
Welcome to fat thinking, where the Weight Struggler’s brain has been trained to cycle from a “being good” phase to a “being bad” phase. This Weight Struggle Cycle plays out over and over, putting the Weight Struggler in a constant battle with food, exercise, weight, and, most of all, oneself.
Weight Mastery
On the same Monday morning when the fat thinking Weight Strugglers are waking up, there is another group of Weight Masters beginning their day. These people have successfully achieved their ideal weight and maintained it for a year or longer.
On any given Monday, the typical Weight Master:
Does not “start over” on a weight-loss eating plan but rolls out of bed and gets on the scale, confident the number will be within a few pounds of their ideal weight. There are no surprises, no yo-yoing, and no struggle.
Is confident they will be repeating the same skills today that have allowed for maintenance of an ideal weight for the past year.
Knows that if the day or evening is stressful, there are other ways to de-stress than reaching into the candy jar. (Even if a piece of candy is eaten, they mentally note it and move on, knowing a single candy isn’t going to make them fat.)
Goes to bed feeling nourished and light because of the day’s food and exercise choices. Also feels prepared for another healthy Weight Mastery day tomorrow.
Thin Thinking
The typical Weight Master used to live in the world of fat thinking but made a monumental shift that allowed “thin thinking” to begin. The Weight Master shifted the way in which food and exercise choices were seen and how weight management could fit into their life.
The Weight Master no longer falls into the “I blew it, so screw it!” trap. They’ve learned to break though the starting-over habit and to stay consistent even if momentarily going off track.
The Weight Master doesn’t deprive themselves on diets. They have evolved a way of eating that honors their life and tastes and allows them to feel nourished and pleasantly satisfied while maintaining an ideal weight.
The Weight Master is not expecting to be perfect. They understand that weight mastery is a lifelong process. That feeling of accomplishment feeds into all aspects of life.
Now you might be thinking that Weight Masters must be pretty special. Perhaps they are blessed with strong willpower, are well disciplined, or have inherited a special Weight Mastery gene from Granny’s side of the family. The fact is, Weight Masters are not smarter, better, or cuter than you. They don’t have better genes than you, either.
You have the ability to be a Weight Master starting right now. The Shift Weight Mastery Process is going to allow you to shift from a mind that is wired for fat thinking to a mind that is wired for thin thinking so you attain your healthy weight and confidently maintain it.
How to Shift From Fat to Thin Thinking
Research shows that to be successful losing weight and maintaining an ideal weight in the long-term, most Weight Masters had to change not only their eating and exercise choices, they also had to change their thinking. They had to rewire the way they communicated with themselves in order to begin their journey to success. Psychologists call this cognitive restructuring. The resulting shift from fat to thin thinking is what I call weight mastery.
Imagine, for a moment, that the fat thinking part of your mind is a prison with electrical wires running through it. Much of your fat thinking behaviors, beliefs, and negativity are programmed into these wires. Trigger a wire and the current of that habit or belief plays out automatically below any conscious thought. The more often you trigger a habit to run through your mind’s circuitry, the more entrenched and powerful it becomes.
For instance, imagine it’s the end of a long work day. You walk through the door feeling stressed and reach in the kitchen cupboard for a bag of chips. The walking in the kitchen part is the trigger that automatically turns on the preconditioned currents traveling along those fat thinking wires. Here’s how it goes after you grab those chips:
You eat half the bag.
You feel bad and think I blew it.
Another thought pops into your mind: I’ll start over tomorrow.
You eat the rest of the bag of chips. You feel good while you’re eating the chips but like a failure when the bag is empty.
Why do you do that? It’s not because you lack willpower. It’s because the mind has been wired for fat thinking behavior. Once a habit gets triggered, that unhappy cycle plays out automatically. It’s hard to fight against, and so the cycle keeps the walls of the mental prison firmly intact.
In order to shift from fat to thin thinking, you need to create a different place, a confident and peaceful home in your mind that is wired for thin thinking habits and beliefs. Here are some thin thinking goals:
Develop habits and beliefs around food and exercise that are so powerful the excess pounds melt naturally toward an ideal weight.
Establish a mindful way of communicating with yourself that is focused on self-care and self-respect.
Easily resist the “start over tomorrow or Monday” trap that keeps the Weight Struggle Cycle going.
The more your mind is wired for thin thinking and the more frequently those wires are used, the stronger and thicker the circuits become. Eventually they are more powerful than the fat thinking wires of that mental prison.
Can we just flip a switch and turn on our thin thinking wiring? It would be great if we could, but first we must create thin thinking wiring
, and then use it over and over until it’s strong. That is what the process which you are about to embark on is all about.
The Shift Weight Mastery Process
For two decades, I have spent thousands of hours in the trenches with clients from all walks of life and socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, guiding them out of their frustrating and painful fat thinking and into healthy and powerful thin thinking. During this time, I evolved a process that allows people’s minds to get on the fast track from fat to thin thinking in 30 days.
I have been teaching clients and seminar participants the Shift Weight Mastery Process since 2007 in Los Angeles, California. This process has been extremely successful in helping men and women make the subconscious changes in their thinking that are necessary to move past the self-sabotaging thinking and behaviors holding them back from long-term weight mastery.
Weight Strugglers begin with a day-long intensive Shift Weight Mastery Process seminar where men and women make the initial shift from fat to thin thinking with a powerful recoding process that incorporates coaching, special mind exercises, and hypnosis.
“What is going on? I dreamt about exercising last night! This process sure is amazing. The hypnosis has given me a new way of thinking (and dreaming LOL) about food and exercise. I am effortlessly letting go of old habits that, for years, have been roadblocks to my success.” Micki F. (Released 11 pounds in 30 days, maintaining 3 years.)
Hypnosis isn’t mind control but a relaxation technique that allows the stubborn unconscious mind to become more open to change so that old fat thinking habits can shift to thin thinking ones.
The overall impact of the hypnosis and other metal processes radically change participants’ thinking about their weight, food, exercise, and, most importantly, themselves.
