July 2013 Shift Monthly Shift
Monthly is a monthly coaching session written by clinical hypnotherapist and
cognitive weight expert Rita Black dedicated to exploring how to implement
“thin thinking” in order to achieve long term permanent Weight Mastery. Each
month we focus on a different theme of Weight Mastery. www.shiftweightmastery.com
July’s Theme: Slimming into Summer
DOWNTON FLABBY (or How to Avoid Midsummer Weight
Gain Blues)
Have you
ever tried to lose weight living on an English country estate? Well if you haven’t, let me tell you from
personal experience, it can be quite a challenge.
Many fans of
the Masterpiece Theatre series “Downton Abbey”, based on the lives of both the
aristocrats and the servants who live in an English country estate at the turn
of century, watch the series and marvel at the amazing costumes and set design,
or the romance and the historical storyline. I watch the series and marvel at how those
women with the 18 inch waistlines can eat 7 course meals every night and not
gain weight.
One summer,
while I was living in England, over 20 years ago, I spent the summer living at
a 16th century estate and gained one pound for each century within
an eight week time. Talk about period
drama!How did I gain 16 pounds so quickly and, more importantly, how can you avoid the pitfalls of the mid-summer weight gain blues? Read on and get some coaching on how to Shift from Fat Thinking to thin thinking this summer.
THE INVITATION
It was the
summer of 1991 and my husband and I had been living in London for about 2
years. I had been struggling with my
weight while living in London and for over 10 years before that. Struggling with weight in England is pretty
much the same as in the states except you weigh in stones instead of
pounds. There are 14 pounds in a stone
so the one good piece of news is that you weigh a lot less number wise on the
scale!
In the
Spring of ‘91 a friend of ours asked if we would like to come and take care of
his dad’s estate out in the countryside east of London. His father, who was a wealthy businessman
owned a 16th century home with 10 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms set on
over 20 acres of picturesque and pastoral land, needed someone to “house sit”
Hall Court (the name of the estate) while the caretakers were away.
Our friend
assured us it would be easy and that his dad only visited from London on the
weekends every once in awhile so we would mostly have the vast place to
ourselves to pretend we were lord and lady of the manor. Well yes, we did have to clean up a bit and
keep the grounds tidy a bit but that nothing, assured our friend.
The winter
before in England had been grim. The
Gulf War had been raging, London was experiencing record cold and snow, and my
husband and I were longing for a change from the dreary flat we were living
in. So we said yes!!
I also
secretly was happy because I had gained a bit of weight during the winter and
needed to lose it. What better way to
lose weight than to go to the country—my thinking was it could be a kind of Fat
Farm where, since I was on break from work, I could eat healthy food and
exercise by running through the country fields every day. Losing weight this summer will be a cinch I thought
as we boarded the train and left London behind.
Little did I know what weight gain horrors awaited me and that those
innocent beliefs were the beginning of a summer of Fat Thinking with a British
accent.
THE ARRIVAL
Things
started going south the minute we arrived at Hall Court. As the caretakers showed us around the placed
and filled us in on our “duties” it quickly became clear that the expectations
of the chores we were supposed to do around the estate on a daily basis were a
lot more than what our friend had told us to expect. Its great living at an estate with 10 bedrooms
and 8 bathrooms until someone expects you to clear them all once a week! And as for the stately grounds—have you ever
tried taking a run-of-the-mill lawnmower to them? In addition to those tasks I was expected to
cook when our friend’s father arrived on the weekends.
My husband
and looked at each other and considered fleeing but we had given up our flat
and had told all of our friends to come and stay over the course of the summer. We called our friend whose father owned the
place and he told us to “do our best” and not to worry, it probably seemed like
a lot but he assured us it wasn’t.
THE STAYSo we decided to stay and make an adventure of it anyway. I took up the house duties and my husband became the gardener. Instead of my luxurious days spent running through the fields and then luxuriating in the gazebo with a good book I spent my days scrubbing toilets and endlessly dusting and polishing the endless amounts of priceless antiques. Grrrrrrr.
In my mind I
had been working so hard and cleaning so many hours of the day that I surely
should have been burning bucketfuls of calories. But alas every day I stepped onto the scale that
was in one of the 8 bathrooms and found I had not only been NOT losing but I
had been gaining weight. How could this
be? I was working my butt off. I was taking into account that I would get so
frustrated with the cleaning that I would go down to the huge kitchen and
emotionally eat as a break, shoving in cookies I had found in the larder along
with a new addiction I found in there—orange marmalade.
That’s it I
am going on a diet—I had to lose weight this summer, who gains weight in the
summer? Summer is supposed to be the
easy time to lose weight. What was wrong
with me? What was wrong with my body?
So I went on
a diet that was very restrictive, only allowing for fruits and vegetables. Things went well for a few days but then I
got a little bored. In my fat thinking
mind I decided that orange marmalade was a fruit and started adding that into
my diet regime.
Pretty soon
I had gone through all of the 10 jars of marmalade that had lined the larder. Oh and in the evenings I decided that gin and
tonics fit into the diet too. Heck, gin
is made from juniper berries right? And tonic water, that hardly counts for
anything and don’t forget there is a lime wedge in a gin and tonic and that, my
friend, definitely falls into the category of fruit! My husband wasn’t so sure of my reasoning and
he told me I was a jam-a-holic and that perhaps I should find a local 12-step
group that specialized in spreadable fruit.
I told him he to go mow some more grass and mind his own business.
Well, do I
need to even tell you that this daffy diet plan led not to more weight loss but
weight GAIN. Not only did my jam-a-holism
and gin-and-tonicism lead me off my weight loss plans but so did entertaining
and weekends.
Soon every
week I was on a different diet and every weekend I was falling off it. Between our friends father coming to stay and
our friends coming in from London it was party central at Hall Court. We would sit down in the large dining room
reminiscent of the one in Downton Abbey and have amazing spreads of food and it
became very hard to stick to my restrictive diet.
First there
was the social pressure, “Why on earth are you on a diet? Nonsense, you Americans love to diet and you
are fatter than all of us who don’t.
Just enjoy food in moderation and you will be fine.” Then there was the feeling that I had worked
so hard on cooking the food and cleaning the house that I should be rewarded
for my efforts. I would give in and eat,
but unfortunately I didn’t know what “moderation’ meant, especially after
starving myself all week and I would eat so much that I filled in any calorie
deficit that I had created during the week.
Every Monday
morning I would swear this would be the week I would start running every day
and not eat anything and every Sunday night I went to bed filling so full that
I was going to burst. Thank god I didn’t
have to wear a corset.
THE EXIT
By the time
the eight week stay at Court had come to a close I was desperate to get back to
London, back to real life, real structure and relax from my summer “holiday”. As I got on the train and headed back to the
city 16 pounds heavier than when I came I looked back and wondered what went
wrong? What could I have done differently
to Shift my summer of weight gain into a summer of weight mastery?
Having now
SHIFTED my thinking and released the weight and maintained it over many summers—please
let me share some coaching on the Fat Thinking to avid and the Thin Thinking
you can Shift in to instead.
SLIMMER SUMMER SHIFT COACHING
Fat Thinking#1: Assuming it’s going
to be easy to lose weight this summer.
Many people
believe that summer time is an easier time to lose weight and in a way their reasoning
is correct. During the summer there are lighter
foods available, the days are longer, giving us the chance to exercise
more. BUT because summer is full of
holidays and travel and kids being off from school the structure of the year
gives way to a more free for all feeling.
The Fat
Thinking is ASSUMING anything is going to be easy. Weight release doesn’t just happen, there is
an initial focus that is needed and a commitment to show up for yourself that
is essential. If you don’t think things through and set a roadmap for success
with a vision to guide you it is almost impossible to find sustained success
just “winging it”.
The mind
doesn’t “wing it” to lose weight. The
unconscious wants things to stay as they are so if you are struggling with
weight you need to focus on Shifting out of habits.
THIN
THINKING: Reverse engineer your summer and start with the end in mind. Where do you want to be by September in your
weight release and work backwards creating an overall vision and defined
milestones with goals. Don’t overwhelm
yourself. Keep it simple but the
structure of your goals will keep you on track.
Use your hypnosis CDS. It is
important for the unconscious mind, that wants things to stay the same, to be
exposed to consistent strategies for weight release.
Fat thinking #2: Food is a reward
Our culture
immerses us pretty heavily in beliefs that do not serve our waistline. Our minds are wired from a pretty early age
to hit the snack cupboard when we are stressed or want to treat ourselves for a
job well done.
The problem
is over eating may “calm” us or “treat” us in the moment but in the long run
over eating stresses us out and makes us feel out of control and bad about
ourselves.
THIN THINKING
Begin
cultivating ways of calming yourself or rewarding yourself for getting tasks
done instead of reaching for food this summer.
Keep your new “self care” strategies posted in the kitchen until you
have made them habits. Make sure you
plan breaks into your day to re-boot your brain and your energy levels this
will keep you out of the stress zone and the kitchen.
My Favorite
Rewards:
-taking a 10
minute nap
-sitting
outside and just letting myself do nothing for 10 minutes but stare at the sky
-laying on
the floor with my eyes closed listening to music
-reading People
Magazine
Fat Thinking #3: All I have to do is
find the right diet and be perfect on it.
Life is
never going to line up for us to do perfectly on a diet—especially during the
summer! With holidays and travel and
looser schedules and all the socializing with friends and family being on a
restrictive regime is going to lead to the “on or off” dieting mentality which
leads to binge eating and “starting over” on Monday.
THIN THINKING:
Stop beating
yourself up and putting yourself on restrictive plans. Instead of taking away
food make a commitment to creating a healthy eating plan based on your needs. Think about flavors and light food that you
really enjoy and make a point to have those around. Focus on eating protein which helps stabilize
your blood sugar and keep you out of the jam jar and helps you feel full
longer. Add in more fruits and vegetables
which are around this summer—challenge yourself to eating 7 servings a day and
try to find some fun recipes to create new ways of eating them.
1) Create a Vision and specific
milestones defined by time and goals.
2) Create a daily break plan so you have
a structure and plans to reward yourself in ways other than food.
3) Evolve a way of eating that includes
lots of healthy foods but allows for fun and flavor—and definitely protein to stabilize
hunger.
Have a great
4th of July and enjoy your freedom from Fat Thinking!!!oxoxRita
SUMMER SHIFT—SHIFT FROM HOME OR YOUR
VACATIONWant to keep focusing on weight release through the summer? The Shift-in-a-Box Home Study Process is available at a discount now through July 4th—want to find out what it’s all about?
Click Here http://www.shiftweightmastery.com/shiftboxinfo.htm
