Shift Weekly: What were you Expecting?!

Sometimes the best offensive coaching is defensive coaching. 

Overwhelm is a big reason we struggle with our weight.  When are trying to be perfect on a diet our Inner Critic is running the show—“You’ve got to do it perfectly!” it screams at us, and so we comply doing our best, feeling pressured to do it right as well as doing everything else right in our life too.

The “I have got to do everything on my list and take care of everyone and thing and do perfectly on a diet list”  is a very long list!!!—burdens us down.  In fact, you might call it the “Fat List”. The “Fat List” causes the brain to go into overwhelm mode. “help, this is too much, ahhhhh!”  So guess what, the Inner Rebel steps in to make things better “Forget it, this is crazy—this diet sucks—you have too much going on and you blew it anyways, start again next Monday when you won’t be so stressed”. So we let the diet go and once we have done that it’s a free for all eating fest until the following Monday.

When we SHIFT and begin to really become masterful at using our Inner Coach instead of the Inner Critic or the Inner Rebel—we can begin to notice the red flag of overwhelm. If you are feeling anxious or overwhelmed the first question to ask yourself is, “what is my expectation right now”—chances are the expectation is too big and is freaking your unconscious mind out a bit.  Now that you have become conscious of what you are “in overwhelm” about, begin cutting down that list of expectations until you start to calm down.  Move items to the “I can do that tomorrow” list, delegate tasks to others, mark certain items “not to be thought about until next month”.  In short—create the “Skinny” version of the “Fat List” and feel the Shift in thinking beginning to sooth you from within. Learning to Shift your perception of what is enough for you to be “okay”—enough to feel loved to enough to feel safe— enough to feel secure and in control is an important skill on your journey to long term permanent weight release. 

Here is a Shift coaching challenge for you this week.

1) Observe the times, people and places that you allow to keep you from setting yourself up for weight release success: making something or someone else a priority over exercise, allowing crappy trigger food to be within your grasp, letting someone else’s need take priority over basic self-care for yourself, allowing your circumstances to keep you from having healthy food around that make your body thrive.

2) Make a list of these times, people or places. 

3) During a neutral time--take out the “Fat List” and begin to look at each overwhelm challenge and engage your imagination in one way that you can change your relationship to it—meaning ask yourself, “why is this particular thing on my list more important than my taking care of myself?”.  Then begin to Shift your relationship in your head to that overwhelm challenge and begin to come up with a solution that would allow you to put self care first.  Is that item on your list really that important to do now—or does it just seem that way?  Maybe in a new light, with an Inner Coach talking your through your list, those HAVE TOS and MUSTS become less pertinent compared to your feeling good in your body because you are making healthy choices and exercising.  Look, I know it’s nice to cross things off the “to do” list, but if the first thing you are crossing off every day is “being health and showing up for myself” then maybe you need to re-think that list and come up with some new solutions.  Really visualize the solution response happening as if it were real. You will be creating a new alternative route in your brain circuitry for a different response.  But you must use the new route or it will go away!  Practice, practice, practice showing up yourself first before the other things on your list!

4) Try this  new response at least 3 times this week.

We usually gain weight with the same foods in the same places at the same times so this little Skinny List” could make a big difference in your long-term success.

Have a calmmmmm week Shifters.

Rita ox

Shift Weekly: It Stinks and Makes you Cry

SHIFT EVENT Coming up Saturday February 25th: Shift Support Saturday from 10-11:30 am

Topic: Moving into Spring—focus on exercise strategies and moving past resistance.  Cost $25 for non-series participants.

Dear Shifters,

 As we head into the final stretch of darker winter days, I sometimes hear darker rumblings from my clients too as they are feeling the effects of the ongoing shorter daylight hours and the wild weather swings which can trigger some heavier feelings, especially if the scale is moving more slowly than they would like.  The arising challenges can feel, to some, like they are treading on the same path over and over again.

"Why am I here again--it feels like I keep coming back to the same place!" a client will wail--"it seems like I get going and do well for a while but then it gets hard again and I basically feel like I am starting over."

Sometimes when a client gets a ways into their weight mastery journey, they may hit a tough patch or a plateau and it feels,  to them, like they have made no head way in their journey to long term permanent weight release.  But, ironically, this feeling of going around and around can actually mean great progress.  I remind them that “making the Shift” , as with any sort of mastery process or evolution, is like peeling the layers away from an onion.  We get a ways into our mastery by practicing the skills and developing our Inner Coach and as soon as our unconscious mind thinks we are ready, it allows more challenges to surface for us to face and conquer. 

Though this “cycling down” may stink and can make you cry with frustration, this is good news because you are actually not in the same place(as you may have been feeling) but further along in your Shift--another layer down, dealing with the same issue on a deeper level.

 Eventually you will get to the heart of your issues and the stinkiness and tears of frustration will give way to the smell of mastery accompanied by tears of joy and pride in your accomplishment.  So enjoy the stink--it may get stinkier yet--but the stinkier it gets--the stronger your powerful Inner Coach becomes in his or her ability to see you though to your ideal weight and long term weight release because the road have been cleared of the things that used to make you gain weight back in the past.  So bring on the onion and enjoy every tangy bite of learning and loving your way down the scale.

Shift Coaching for the Week:

Let me teach you a powerful cognitive tool called EFFECTIVE PRAISE.  You see, we spend a lot of our time collecting evidence that goes into one big file folder in our mind marked “I WILL NEVER BE THIN”.  In this think and heavy folder you will find such beliefs as, "I have a slow metabolism", "I get bored with healthy food", "I need food to cope", " I am a sugar addict!"  Unfortunately  we usually  have very little evidence collected that we will succeed at long term permanent weight release.  In fact, where in the heck is that file folder marked “I CAN AND WILL LIVE MY LIFE AT MY IDEAL WEIGHT”?  It’s kind of hard to find at all, huh?  Well, effective praise helps you move the evidence from the “I WILL NEVER BE THIN” folder--to the “YES I CAN AND WILL LIVE MY LIFE AT MY IDEAL WEIGHT” folder.

Effective praise simply is observing all the behaviors that you are implementing and  that take you closer to weight  mastery (no matter how small and insignificant they may seem) and taking notice of those behaviors or changes to yourself.  Not evaluating the behaviors--evaluating your own behaviors actually makes you nervous on a deep level—“oh I was “so good because I pushed the plate away”--or I was “so good because I exercised”.  Yes, it's nice to acknowledge ourselves positively, but when we label our behavior as “good”, or any other evaluative type of praise, it makes our unconscious a little nervous.  Why?  Because on an unconscious level we just do not buy into that we have been “good” in any way, shape or form. We tend to reject the sing-songy “I was good” praise as white noise so nothing gets stored in the positive evidence folder. REJECTED!  says our unconscious--you aren't "good" says our Inner Critic, “who are you trying to kid?”

However, if we instead just take notice of the behavior itself without the “good” then things begin to sink into the murky depths where those evidence files are stored:-"hmm I am noticing that I pushed the plate away and there was food left on it, maybe I don’t need as much food as I thought before--I am noticing I don't need to eat everything to feel full".   Our unconscious then perks up its ears and takes note, “ that’s interesting--let me store that in my file folder YES I CAN AND WILL LIVE MY LIFE AT MY IDEAL WEIGHT ” . Hmmm I am noticing that if I just get up and put my feet right into some sneakers and stand up-- I can get out of bed in the morning and go out for a walk first thing and it feels wonderful!".   Hmm the unconscious mind says, very interesting,  we can follow through on exercise--let me go take that “I hate exercise” belief out of the I WILL NEVER BE THIN file folder and put “I enjoy exercise into that YES I CAN AND WILL LIVE MY LIFE AT MY IDEAL WEIGHT ” folder.

Try praising yourself 10 times a day this week. It’s easy.  You will feel a Shift in the weight of the negative I WILL NEVER BE THIN evidence folder as it becomes lighter and the I CAN AND WILL LIVE MY LIFE AT MY IDEAL WEIGHT folder becomes heaver.  And that ain’t stinky my dear Shifters, and it's certainly nothing to cry over!

Have a great onion-scented week!

oxox

Rita

Shift Weekly: Inner Chocolate

Dear Shifters,

Happy Valentine’s Day!  I wish each and everyone of you a day where you take pause to love yourself, admire yourself and be smitten with just how wonderful you are.  I have chosen one of my favorite coaching stories to share with you today in order to illuminate  that the true thing you can celebrate every single day (not just Valentine’s Day) is your connectedness to yourself and the voice of your Inner Coach who is guiding you to the biggest celebration of all—long term permanent weight release.  I hope you enjoy today’s coaching session.

The Inner Chocolate

I have always disliked Valentine’s Day.

As a child I hated the pressure to get as many Valentine envelopes at school—for some reason I always seemed to lag behind the more popular girls who seemed to have a bag brimming with special card and candies from all of their admirers.

As a teenager who didn’t really date (did I not have  any boyfriends because of my weight or did I not put myself out there because of my weight—not sure what is more true) I always felt particularly undated, alone and unloved.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties I was a waitress.  Waitressing helped pay for college and after college as I started out in the world.  I always had to work on Valentine’s Day as a waitress because it was the most busy restaurant day of the year.

 As a waitress, you get to see Valentine’s Day from the inside out because these are the times that everyone has to “go out and have a good time with that special someone”.  Talk about high expectations run amuck!!!  The pressure to have good time on this day forces everyone out to restaurants where they are paying twice for what they are getting, the restaurants are packed, the wait staff over worked and surly (that’s me), and I swear I have never seen so many miserable faces on lovers as on Valentine’s Day where the pressure to be lovey-dovey forces every one into a state of “gotta squeeze all of the love of the year into one night” panic. 

I remember one Valentine’s Night in particular that stands out because I learned a really amazing lesson about stimulus control.  It was the mid-eighties and I was working as a cocktail waitress/coat-check girl at this really old and famous steakhouse in Manhattan called “The Old Homestead”—yes there was a huge statue of a steer over the front door.  The owners of this place in the meat-packing district were a couple of real charmers—real Tony Soprano types.  They were always telling me, “Honey, go put on some make-up” or “honey if you’d lose some weight you might just be hot”.  Gee thanks guys—did you ever look in the mirror at your not-so-slim physiques?  Anyways, I was young and overweight and fell prey to feeling horrible whenever they made these remarks—especially since I was single and feeling fat and unlovable.

So on this Valentine’s night everyone is coming across the bridge or under the tunnel from New Jersey to eat a pound of prime rib and make phony goo-goo eyes at their Missus across the table.  I was up to my ears in mink coats in the coat-check room and starving because I had been dieting for the last four days.  I was on some new diet, a drink in the morning a drink at night and a potato at lunch—you know the score. Tsu Tsu the skinny leopard skin clad hostess comes up to me and motions with her long three-inch nails to come with her.  “Honey, they want you in the gourmet shop—the girl got sick and you have to stand in for her”.   She shoves me into a room filled with boxes and boxes of Godiva chocolate.  “Sales are down honey, and we gotta move this chocolate—do whatever you can—Valentine’s Day—IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHOCOLATE!!!”

So it’s me, starving and unloved standing amidst a mountain of chocolate.  Hmmm and there, right beside the register is a tray of sample chocolate truffles.  My stomach rumbled and I moved away, trying to stay busy because nobody was coming into the shop.  I smoked some cigarettes (yes this was NYC in the 80’s and you not only could smoke but were encouraged to do so—it was called defensive smoking).  I smoked and cleaned but still the chocolate samples called to me and my Inner Rebel said, “hey you could just have a nibble—you have been so good and that potato you ate at lunch was so small”, so I reached over and very delicately took a bite. I tasted all of the creamy gooeyness of the chocolate and for a second the gourmet shop and the horrible owners and the minks and platters of prime rib all faded into the background—for a fleeting truffle second.  But then I was back, in the musky gourmet shop and I had the taste and I wanted more—I wanted to be transported back to that place of peace—my sacred chocolate space.  So I took another bite and another, but I couldn’t get it back—that place that the first bite had taken me to.  All I got now was more sugar gushing in my system and a guilty feeling in my soul, “why am I doing this?”  Half the plate of truffles was gone—I had eaten them down in a dark chocolate frenzy.  I smoked another cigarette--hoping that would make me feel better—it only made me feel worse—the sugary chocolate earthy taste now mixed with the smoky nicotine.  I felt sick but had no choice-- I had better eat some more chocolate to get the yucky cigarette taste out.  I ate a few more bites, really in the depths of physical and mental despair—when a beautiful older woman stepped into the store.

She was the type of woman that you think of when you think classy New York broad.  She was beautifully dressed, elegant, slim and sophisticated. I muttered a muffled hello, half a chocolate still in my mouth.  She looked around the room at all the different chocolates in all of the different cases.  She pointed to a heart shape one with a walnut filling and asked me, very politely for it.

I gave it to her.  She looked at it, smelled it, and smiled. “I used to love these things,” she said to me as she paid for it.

“Why don’t you get more?” I asked—Tsu Tsu’s voice ringing in my ears-sell the chocolate! , “I mean it is Valentine’s Day”

“Actually,” she replied, “I won’t even eat this one.”

“Huh?”  I wasn’t quite sure of her logic and my sugar induced insulin surge was making me dizzy.

“You see,” she explained, “I used to eat quite a lot of these, in fact so many that I weighed eighty pounds more than I do now.  Then one day I decided that I had had enough.  That even though they tasted divine, the moment of pleasure I got was not worth all of the agony they caused me being overweight.  So I stopped eating these and all the other sugary foods that I ate.”

“So why did you buy one then?”

“To remind myself that I have a choice, I could choose to eat this, but what I get from being thin is much richer and far more decadent”

“So you’re buying it but not going to eat it?”

“Yes, because I have come to realize that even the best chocolate in the world, is not as good as the feeling I get knowing that I am staying true to myself and my desire to be slim and healthy. Thank you for the chocolate, I have really enjoyed it—not eating it that is”. She threw the chocolate in the trash, turned and left.  I thought about her logic and how strange it was at the time.  I figured well, just another eccentric Manhattanite coming in to add to my surreal Valentine’s Day reality.  I did, however, follow her lead and dumped the rest of the chocolates from the sample plate into the trash and immediately felt better! Once the mind has made a decision with 100% of itself, it’s amazing how easy it is to disengage from things that seem to have power over you.  I made the decision not to eat any more truffles, the desire lifted and I could sit amongst the Godivas like they were mothballs for the rest of the night.

Now all of these years later, having Shifted and made my journey to where I am now—I understand that woman’s logic.  As I am surrounded by chocolates and candies every holiday season (monthly!), I see them in a different light.  I do not see them as a source of love, or temptation, or as my sacred space as they used to be—I see them as chocolates—which I could choose to eat or not to-- it’s up to me—it’s a decision.

So this next upcoming holiday season I urge you to make a decision—ahead of time—what your relationship with chocolate will be before you get shoved into a room full of Godiva on an empty stomach.  I invite you to make your holidays about practicing stimulus control and staying connected to your Inner Coach and by doing so you give yourself not only the gift of staying connected—but others get to be connected to you as well.  This feeling can become a sacred space that you create that lasts a lot longer and feels a lot better than any fleeting enjoyment you would get from any chocolate or anything else for that matter outside of you—because this feeling comes from inside of you.  It’s yours for keeps—so it’s truly special and doesn’t melt in your hand when it gets too hot!

Have wonderful Shifted Valentine’s Day!

 ox Rita

Shift Weekly: Monkey See, Monkey Eat

Coming this Saturday: “How do we create boundaries with ourselves and others?” February 11^th Shift Saturday Support group 10-11:30 at the 5455 Wilshire Office—Floor 21 Cost $25 Please contact Rita if you plan to come.

Dear Shifters,

I am going to start this week by repeating myself.  Yes that’s right –here goes—“weight management success is two thirds stimulus control”.  For those of you that have been reading my weekly emails for awhile, forgive me, but I honestly feel I could say it every day for the rest of my life and I would not be saying it enough.  I may even have to have it as my epitaph when they finally lay me to rest in my final Shift place.  “Here lays Rita Black and she would just like you to know that the path to weight loss and weight management is two thirds stimulus control!”

When we Shift and begin to practice the winning skills of long term weight management this skill –keeping tempting and trigger foods out of your daily environments—stands out as one of the most effective and yet challenging of the 9 Skills.  Why?  Because, when it comes to keeping our world “stimulus-free”, we are not always in total control of our environments.

For example, as a mother of two children and someone who has been maintaining a weight loss for 18 years I keep my home relatively free of gak (the Shift word for junk food, fast food and food devoid of any nutritional value).  No that doesn’t mean you will only find tofu and kale in my refrigerator and jars of sprouted grains in my cupboard, but I mean if the foods that I bring into my home, for the most part support me in reaching for the foods that nourish me and my family, but also allow me to feel like a I am living a full and tasty life of my dreams. 

However, every once in a while I open a cupboard in my house and I find some “thing” there that my husband has bought on a whim and I have to “deal” with it.  You see, my husband gets carried away by free samples.  Every week he takes our kids to piano lessons on Saturday and next to the music center is a small gourmet shop with samples.  He eats the sample, his eyes roll back in his head in a gourmet food induced trance, and he buys the thing that is on sale.  He may not even really like it, but he buys it because that is what his brain is programmed to do (I think he is not alone).  He then comes home and puts the free sample thing in this cupboard in our kitchen.  Like clockwork I find the purchase and say “why did you buy this gak?” and he will say “it was on sale and I thought it could be a treat for the kids”.  I sigh because I know 90% of what he buys the kids won’t touch and neither will my husband once he has bought it—he has moved on to more free samples out there in the world and I am stuck at the cupboard with the thing he has bought.  Generally the “thing” stays unopened and will eventually get thrown away by me.  Stimulus control rule #1—an unopened container is a lot less tempting than an opened one.  Rule #2 get it out of sight. 

Occasionally the “thing” gets opened and if it turns out to be a trigger food for me I have to deal with it.  Like the other week he bought these chocolate covered dried fruits.  At first I saw them I said, “honey you know these are a trigger food for me”.  He replied, “Oh, I forgot—sorry.  I thought, chocolate is good for you and so is dried fruit so how could you wrong?”  I popped a few in my mouth as a sort of victim of my husband’s gesture—“see what you made me do—shame on you for tempting me” and walked away and got on with my day.  But later that night—the ‘things” in the cupboard began to call to me from across my home and I found myself back at the cupboard having a “relationship” with the chocolate covered fruit.  I popped a few more in my mouth, walked away and then went back.  The third time back at the cupboard I thought to myself “you no longer have power over them—they have power over you—get rid of them. ”  So I did, I took the chocolate covered fruit and threw them in the trash and then walked away, having taken my power back by practicing the amazing skill of stimulus control.

Nine times out of ten when a client has lost focus and gained some weight it is due to a stimulus control issue.  So how do we practice stimulus control?  How do we know a food is a trigger food? Trigger foods are those foods that call our name.  We know a food has an addictive hold on us if we eat one and won’t stop until the bag, the box, the whole thing is gone.  Like I knew the chocolate covered fruits were a trigger food for me—despite my husband’s claims that they were “healthy”.  Sometimes our attachment is emotional, sometimes addictive—mostly both.  What matters the most is not the why but the how.  How do I create a new shifted relationship with this food?

Stimulus Control Rule 1: Keep your trigger foods (or drink) out of house.

Stimulus Control Rule 2: Define times and places that consuming your trigger foods is safe I call this creating a loving boundary.

Loving Boundary

Example: If your trigger food is ice cream—you can't stop eating the ice cream till the carton is done—well this habit probably isn’t going to serve your long term permanent weight release so maybe you can create a new habit with ice cream with a loving boundary:—Loving boundary: "Once a week I can have a scoop of my favorite at the ice cream parlor" maybe you go as far to look up the ice cream calories on line and see that one scoop of  rocky road is 250 calories and you make it work calorically for you on that day—so that you can have ice cream but still remain within your calorie budget for weight release. 

With Valentine’s Day and the week of waxy cheap chocolate around the corner, (as well as really amazing chocolate) I coach you to deal with the outer sweets with some inner sweetness first—meaning connecting with your Inner Coach and asking yourself—how am I going to manage the stimulus control of the Valentine’s sugar fest and make a plan for success?  Ask your friends, family, students, children, co-workers, or clients not to buy you sweets (or keep them wrapped and donate them to a charity of your choice—probably not the American Diabetes Association thoughJ).  Make a plan for keep the sweets, sugar and chocolate out of your house.  If you do want some chocolate for VD day—great, plan for it and eat it in a “safe zone” out of any environment that triggers you to eat.

What trigger foods are in your environment today??  How can you practice stimulus control with them?  Should you get rid of them or can you create a loving boundary with them??  When you start taking back you power from your environments instead of falling victim to it day in and day out—that’s when you will begin to feel more masterful and confident that you can take the weight off and keep it off for good.

Have a great week!! Please come Saturday to the support group--we will be discussing how do we say "no" to ourselves and others in powerful and effective ways.

Ox Rita