Shift Weekly: Spring Break Mindset Survival Quiz

Shift Community Announcements:

Intro to the Shift Free Video Training Series: will debut in early May—date TBD—please sign up to get on the emailing list—it’s free—what the hay? Also think of family and friends who may benefit from this training series that gets you going on making the SHIFT from Fat to Thin Thinking.

Shift Weight Mastery Online Party May 20^th (mark your calendar): a free and fun, fun, fun online event with strategies for the upcoming spring summer season—holiday and parities and body image—as well as drawings for prizes etc.

Shift-in-a-Box Official Launch MAY 2012: The long awaited and widely anticipated Shift-in-a-Box Process is almost here—we will be kicking off the official launch in MAY. We will be performing another beta test of this powerful process in April –if you are interested in this 30 Day Home Shift Course at a discounted “tester” rate—please let Rita know—323 988-4574.

Dear Shifters,

It’s easy to get out of the practice of weight management over the spring holiday and vacation season. There are a lot of old habitual tapes playing in our head. Think about it—even the term SPRING BREAK brings to mind the idea that you are going to take a rest from it all. When we are in dieter FAT THINKING mindset that may mean a “spring break” from the diet and an excuse to go wild with the Cadbury Eggs. The point of Shifting during the upcoming spring holidays is not to be perfect but to make the holidays work for you –this may mean turning down the volume on the “Shafting” (thoughts that lead to weight gain behavior—FAT THINKING) thoughts and turning up the volume on the “Shifted”(thoughts that promote weight release behavior—THIN THINKING) ones.

Here is a pre holiday quiz to see how you rate on the Shifted Spring Break scale. Please note which of the following are shifted thoughts or shafted thoughts.

1) I hope that I do okay at that Easter/Passover Party.

2) I am going to buy these candies but not eat them myself—I am just going to keep them on my desk right in front of me for passer bys.

3) I have to bake for everyone this year—they expect it of me

4) I will bake one holiday favorite and eat a bit—staying within the size of my gas tank—and the get rid of the rest.

5) I did badly at that party—I may as well wait until Monday—then I will be good.

6) 3 holiday/Passover events/ Easter egg hunts in a row—it is too hard to stay focused—I’m going to wait until the end of the month and start over.

7) Feeling good and lean on May 1st will be way more of a treat than eating more than my body needs.

8) Everyone else gets to eat what they want—why shouldn’t I?

9) There is just too much going on to exercise

10) There is coconut in macaroons—so they are kind of healthy—right?

11) The calories don’t count if I am eating off of someone else’s plate

12) I am going to commit to drinking only one glass of wine at the party—that will put me in the spirit but not be too much.

13) I’ll bring a veggie tray to her party—she never has one and I can eat from that.

Okay now the moment of truth—here are the results:

1) I hope that I do okay at that Easter/Passover party. SHAFT! Hope is not a method my dear shifters—we need a plan—think situations through and have a strategy in mind before going to holiday events.

2) I am going to buy these candies but not eat them myself—I am just going to keep them on my desk right in front of me for passer bys. SHAFT! The old buying one for the kids or the co-workers is a thin veil for your inner rebel’s true intentions—do not give in—stimulus control is 80% of weight management—if it ain’t there you can’t eat it.

3) I have to bake for everyone this year—they expect it of me. SHAFT! Oh really? Seems like your friends and family may need to know that you are now staying within the size of your gas tank and that may mean less holiday baking and treats—but more fun time with you because your head isn’t stuck in the oven all season. Limit the baking and you’ll be also doing everyone else a favor because they are all coming into my office saying they got fat over the spring holidays because you brought out all the spring holiday treats and they ate them so you wouldn’t feel bad—end the gak legacy!

4) I will bake one holiday favorite and eat a bit—staying within the size of my gas tank—and the get rid of the rest. SHIFT! Okay so finally a little sanity. Keep it real. You don’t have to eat celery all Spring break I am just saying choose a few key treats and then leave the rest for the Easter Bunny—he’s been Shafting for years. He maybe joining us for the May 15th Shift Weight Mastery Process.

5) I did badly at that party—I may as well wait until Monday—then I will be good. SHAFT SHAFT SHAFT! The most weight gain happens between the thought you did badly on one day and the following Monday. Save the calories and just keep on shifting—there is no problem that can’t be solved!

6) 3 parties in a row—it is too hard to stay focused—I’m going to wait until the end of the month and start over. SHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!Okay people we all know that when we shift we don’t start over. There is no mastery or wisdom to be found in starting over. There is no skill building in starting over. You should laugh loudly at yourself every time that old useless saying pops into your head—hahaha good one—you’re funny—try again—I am shifting thank you very much—I can do anything. Three parties?--- not a problem—bring em on—I can have fun and release weight over Spring Break just you watch!!!.

7) Feeling good and lean at May 1st will be way more of a treat than eating more than my body needs. SHIFT—nice one—who is brilliant now? You make me smileJ

8) Everyone else gets to eat what they want—why shouldn’t I? SHAFT! Just because everyone else is hypnotized into eating gobs of gak why the heck should you? Don’t you know they are going home and feeling like crap, waking up the following morning praying for the Easter candy madness to be over so they can get out of this sugary fatty salty food fog. Darling shifters, don’t you know they are looking at you thinking how you’ve got it together eating lightly and still having fun. Boy do they wish they were you! Lead the pack don’t follow—the world is watching you shift! Lead the crusade for health through the Easter/Passover season.

9) There is just too much going on to exercise. SHAFT—Stress is the word during the spring holidays and tax season, now more than ever is the time to make exercising a priority—even if its power walking around the mall a few times before you shop. Instead of a holiday party—get together with you friends for a spring hike or beach walk.

10) There are coconuts in the macaroons —so it’s kind of healthy. SHAFT—who let the freak in this party?

11) The calories don’t count if I am eating off of someone else’s plate. SHAFT this must be the friend of the freak.

12) I am going to commit to drinking only one glass of wine at the party—that will put me in the spirit but not be too much alcohol or calories. SHIFT! Nice one—will you drive me home because I am allotting myself 3 glasses—but within the size of my calorie gas tank—okay! But seriously—when you think ahead to how much booze you need in order to have a good time it can make it easier to follow through once you are in the midst of a party.

13) I’ll bring a veggie tray to her party—she never has one and I can eat from that.SHIFT—Bringing something to a party you can eat is a shifters good time insurance policy—people are always grateful for healthy choices—really—there is a star in the heavens twinkling down on you and your veggie tray.

Okay Shifters now there is now excuse—you can enter into the spring break season full of confidence ready to stand on the scale May 1st and weight less than you do today. Hold that vision in your mind. Make it real. See you there!

Happy Shifting!!!

Oxox Rita

Shift Weekly: Break on through to the other side–Plateaus Part 3

Shift Weekly: Break  on through to the other side–Plateaus Part 3

Greetings Shifters!

Welcome to week three of the Plateau Buster series.  Plateaus have a nasty reputation in the dieting world.  In the dieting world a weight loss plateau is a hated, feared, and cursed because it represents a stopping of success, the glamorous loss on the scale, it means that your weight loss is stagnant and you are unsuccessful.  In the dieting world plateaus often lead to us giving up on our plan and gaining the weight back.   Sorry plateaus-- that’s a tough gig over there in the dieting world.  

When we make the Shift and learn how to use our minds more effectively—to think, strategize and assess as a weight release master we can have a much more powerful relationship with a weight plateau—in fact often plateaus are opportunities to learn more about ourselves and our relationships to ourselves; our thought processes, our eating patterns and our environments.  When we Shift take back our power from just needing to see the loss on the scale and learn that long term permanent weight release is more about cultivating a powerful and lasting foundation within ourselves where the number on the scale is only one indicator of the progress we are making.  When we Shift we can see a plateau not as a scary force but a natural part of a weight release journey—therefore we can Shift and create not only on the scale but in our relationship to ourselves.

Over this three week series we have explored the nature of weight loss plateaus.  Week I focused on the mental game of mastering and busting a plateau—because once your mind can SHIFT around and through a plateau your body will follow.   Last week I explored the physical part of mastering and busting a plateau.  This last week I will focus on how our environment may be contributing to our weight plateau and I will ask your Inner Coach some leading questions that may help you to drill down and find some en”light”ening answers..

ARE YOU EATING UNDER THE RADAR?

Often when we begin a weight release journey we are focused and our vision is strong.  We easily track our foods, tune into portions amounts and are very clear on what is going into our mouths.  But over time as we get further down our journey and further down the scale it is easy to lose the focus that we had in the beginning.  Sometimes not every calorie gets written down.  Am I right? 

Let’s face it we forget often what we eat 15 minutes after eating it.  There have been days when I have not been on top of my tracking and I will get to the end of my day and my calories seem a bit low and then I will realize that I had conveniently forgotten half a cookie that I had eaten.  Sometimes if I have not been on top of it, I could have consumed up to 300 calories more than what I had written down.  I call this “under the radar eating” and this is often what is going on when someone is experiencing a plateau. Brian Wansink, in his book “Mindless Eating” discusses the fact that most overweight people underestimate the amount of food they eat by up to 100%.  If you are not writing it down, chances are you are making yourself a victim of distorted, under the radar thinking.

“But I am not eating anything!” my client will say.  But when I have them write down EVERY lick, bite and nibble the light bulb will go off, “Ooooohhh now I get it” and they see that those extra little “bits and bobs” can add up fast and fill in any sort of deficit hole that they may have thinking they were creating.

I recently had a new client who was eating only about 900 calories a day in “real food” and was baffled by why she had been gaining weight.  She however admitted to eating a little chocolate here and there over her work day. “How many calories are in the chocolate” I asked  “I am not sure but it can’t be much”.  She called me the next day having checked the chocolate wrapper and said she had been eating about 650 calories a day in chocolate!!!  She was shocked and relieved at the same time—because now she had her answer.  We had done her Metacheck and given her low metabolism we discovered her “eating nothing” was actually taking her about 250 calories a day over her body’s needs.  Mystery solved and plateau—broken!!  She still eats chocolate every day BTW, but just a lot less!!

Question for your Inner Coach: Are you absolutely clear on the number of calories you think that you are eating per day??

WHEN YOU “ASS”UME YOUR “ASS” COULD GET BIGGER!!

Another environmental issue is that as we lose focus we also start assuming calories in portions.  This is fine—I don’t think you need to weigh and measure everything that goes in your mouth your whole life—that would be a little excessive.  This point is, if you are experiencing a plateau you could be under assuming the calories in the portions you are serving yourself.  Once a month I get out my Kitrics Scale and weight portions of chicken, vegetables and fruit—just to keep my eyes honest.  I crack up at how, even though I have been maintaining my weight for fifteen years, my estimates of what 150 calories of chicken is grows to about 250 calories every month!!!

Question for your Inner Coach:  Are you sure that the energy values of the foods you are putting in your mouth are really what you are assuming that they are??

ARE THERE FOODS IN YOUR ENVIRONMENT THAT SHOULD NOT BE THERE??

As I say again and again, and again and again, and even again—weight management is 80% stimulus control.  Having helped thousands of people release weight and seen many weight release journeys the main thing I hear over and over when trouble start brewing is—oh yeah that “thing” appeared on my plate or my desk or in my fridge and I just had to eat it.  The other one is “well I thought I could have it in my house” or “I just bought it for the kids”. If you are stuck on a weight release plateau it is time to take charge of your environments and get rid of any foods that may lead you to taking those extra bites, licks and nibbles.

Restaurant eating is also a plateau creator because we are really not on top of the butter that the crazy ego maniac chef in the back wants to put on our food so that we will think it taste yummy and declare him a god.  When eating out we could assume that salad is 350 calories and it is really over 1000!!  That is what happened to a client of mine who was stuck on a plateau for 2 months until she discovered his innocent salad at lunch was 850 calories—no wonder the spin classes weren’t allowing her to release weight!  If you eat out a lot and are experiencing a plateau—the best thing to do is find out calories from the internet ahead of time or to order food, prepared simply so that you know how many calories are in them.  This doesn’t have to be forever—just until you break through your plateau.

Question for Your Inner Coach: Are you allowing disempowering foods to enter your environment and sabotage your weight release efforts?  Why?  How can you Shift those foods out of your life for now?

I hope you have enjoyed this series on plateaus as much as I have.  Here is the exercise we have been focusing on over the last few weeks.  Now you can create a powerful vision using all of the mental, physical, and environmental components that we discussed in order to create an amazing breakthrough on the scale and with yourself.

Exercise for Plateau Busting:

1)    Create a vivid representation of the way you are right now in your plateau (your present state) with all of the challenges the plateau represents.

2)    See yourself the way you would want to be when you get through all of the challenges.  Be clear on the specifics—how you would be behaving, how much would you be eating and exercising, what do you look like, how do you feel??

3)    Place one image in each of your hands outstretched in front of you with a space separating them.  This space represents the unexplored territory and unspecified steps that lie between the plateau state and the plateau busted state.

4)    Begin to make a series of images or movies of the logical steps from one state to another, adjusting each frame until each is a fully representational stage of the process of change.

5)    When you have between 5-8 stages in front of you, begin slowly to close your hands, collapsing all of the stages into a single process.

6)    Bring your clasped hands toward your body and pull the new state into your body, making a new feeling that represents action and success—PLATEAU BUSTING!

7)    Spin that feeling faster and faster. Intensifying it and allowing it to spread throughout your body so that it saturated every muscle, every organ, every nerve, every cell.  As you do this, look at what you need to do (or think) first. Then see yourself taking the second step and then the third etc. and keep spinning and intensifying that feeling until you feel excited and energized and ready to make the mental and/or physical adjustments and go bust that plateau!

Have a great breakthrough week!!

Oxox Rita

Shift Weekly: Plateau Buster –Part 2

Greetings Shifters!

Coming Soon:

Free Video Training Series--coming in April

April 29th (Sunday) our first Shift Weight Release Party--Online Webcast!

May 19th Saturday--The Shift Weight Mastery All Day Intensive Process and 30 Day Process

Welcome to week two of the Plateau Buster Series.  We ran this series last year and now it is back by popular demand.  Why?  Because no matter how we try and hope to avoid them weight loss plateaus are a frustrating yet inevitable  part of the successful weight “release” journey.   When we are focused on releasing weight and the scale isn’t moving we can feel a whole gamut of emotions: disappointed, angry, sad, bored frustrated and powerless.  As Shifters we want to look at a weight release plateau in a way that gives us power rather than takes it away from us.  We want to see a plateau as an opportunity for deepening our mastery of long-term permanent weight release.

Last week in Ground "Head" Day, I focused on the mental game of mastering and busting a plateau—because once your mind can SHIFT around and through a plateau your body will follow.  This week I will explore the physical part of mastering and busting a plateau.

A PLATEAU IS OUR ULTIMATE GOAL

We cannot explore the physical aspects of a plateau without looking at how the mind interacts with them. 

The Oxford Study, a cognitive behavioral approach to weight loss in England has subjects stop dieting and maintain their weight for three to six month after starting.  You can imagine this self-imposed “plateau” is met with protests.  Their reasoning for this extended time of no weight loss is a good one—“practicing maintenance”.

What most dieters neglect to see in their haste to go down the scale is that, at some point, they will want to stop the focus on losing weight and begin the focus on maintaining their weight.  If you have never practiced maintaining your weight this can actually be a challenge—especially when the only positive feedback you give yourself is when the scale is showing a loss.

Ultimately, what we all strive for in a journey to long term permanent weight release is a lifelong plateau that will occur at our ideal weight.  This plateau maybe called maintenance, but mark my words it is a plateau none the less.  So any plateau that occurs during your journey that is not at your ideal weight can be embraced as a practice session!!!  Yippeeeeee!

Another way to view a plateau is that it is a resting spot along the journey—a place where you actually may need to tread water and let go of the focus of releasing for a short while.  Research shows that most successful masters of weight release experience one or more plateaus along the way.

THE FOCUS OF RELEASING WEIGHT

Releasing weight requires some focus.  The physical requirement for the body to burn excess stored energy (aka “fat”) tunes us into paying attention to how much energy in coming in and going out.  We are also tuning into our hunger and making sure our food choices will not only nourish our bodies but allow enough of a energy burn for us to achieve a weekly weight release.

What is happening when the scale refuses to show the release?  A number of things could be going on.

1)    You owe the scale weight from a recent water loss or big weight drop.

There is a lot to be learned still about how the body actually stores and releases fat.  It still takes 3500 burned calories for the body to release fat.  If you lose water weight up front the body will catch up on the scale eventually.  If you are not aware of how much energy you have officially burned and how weight release actually happens it is easy to get on the scale and think the lack of loss is a plateau—it isn’t—your body is actually catching up to the scale. 

Remedy: Track your calorie intake and expenditure and to know what your daily calorie budget for weight release actually is—this way you empower yourself to at least know where you truly stand with the scale.  When you join the Shift Community you get this number during the registration process.  The Shift Calorie and Exercise Tracker will allow you to see on both a daily and a weekly basis how much energy you are burning and therefore how much weight you are actually releasing—even if the scale is not reflecting it at that  moment. (See link to join below this blog)

           2)    You may need to eat less or exercise more or a combination of the two.

When we release weight eventually our metabolism does slow down simply because there is less of us to move around and the body has to work less—how wonderful!!  The down side is—is that if the scale stops showing a loss after three weeks or so this may be what is happening and you may need to adjust your food intake and exercise to match your new lower metabolism OR just expect to release less quickly (which is definitely a viable shifted option).

Remedy: Taking your calories lower or getting more of a workout in may be a no brainer—if so-- great!  Make the adjustment (you can enter you new lower weight in the “Settings” area of the Shift Community and it will re-adjust your calorie budget accordingly) but make sure to check that you are not depriving yourself or pushing yourself too hard in order to live life with less calories or more exercise.  There are other options like expecting to release less per week on the scale.

 If you want to keep releasing at the same pace  but aren’t quite ready it is also okay to take an official “rest” for a few weeks before you take your calories lower or up your exercise.  Official breaks are a healthy part of any Shifted weight release journey.  Remember this is a love story with yourself and not a punishment.  Love yourself and honor your own instincts with keeping your eye on the winning skills of weight release—this is what mastery is about.

3)    You are underestimating (or your calorie counter or body bug or heart rate monitor)the amount of calories that you are eating or over estimating the amount of calories that your exercise is burning.

We wildly underestimate the amount of calories that we eat--most of the time, in my clinical practice, this is the most common cause of a plateau.  We can easily start “guestimating” that a 200 calorie piece of bread or meat is “just a 100 calories”.  Also I have seen body bugs, heart rate monitors, and exercise machines that overestimate how many calories are burned during a typical workout.

Remedy:  Return to tracking and weighing your food more closely.  Also recognize that food manufactures will undercut the amount of calories that list on a package (up to 25% by law) and therefore if you eat a lot of packaged food—bear this in mind.  Many Shifters overestimate their food calories a bit to make up for this.  If you hit a plateau you may want to add a 200 calorie “handicap” or what I call “contractor calories” to your day before you start to make up for the discrepancies in the  calorie amounts.

4)    You are doing everything right but you body just may need to re-adjust what you are eating or how much water you are drinking and just keep focused on the other more empowering aspects of your journey.

Sometimes you can be doing everything right but your body just is taking its sweet old time letting that weight go.  One client encountered a nearly three month plateau and then dropped 10 pounds in a few weeks.  Fortunately that client had a good “Shift Head” on and knew if she kept plugging away that the weight would come off eventually.

Remedy:  Keep your Shift Head on by focusing on the other aspects of your weight release journey—eating healthy foods, exercising, keeping yourself a priority, Shifting out of limiting and Fat Thinking.  Sometimes drinking more water helps as does upping your protein intake and decreasing the amount of starchy carbs that may be causing insulin spikes and causing your body to store any excess calories as fat. 

Most importantly during a plateau—recognize that you keep your power when you stay focused on problem solving and solution seeking rather than feeling sorry for yourself or victimized by that cold piece of metal.  Stay connected to your Inner Coach and keep on Shifting.  Ask others for help and help others on their journey—often you may see yourself in them and create a breakthrough where you were sure that none existed.  And above all—KEEP ON SHIFTING!!!

We will explore more how the mental and physical and environmental aspects of a plateau work together next week.

Last week I presented this mental exercise for plateau busting.  This week you can now add some of the physical elements to the visual part of this exercise.

Mental Exercise for Plateau Busting:

1)    Create a vivid representation of the way you are right now in your plateau (your present state) with all of the challenges the plateau represents.

2)    See yourself the way you would want to be when you get through all of the challenges.  Be clear on the specifics—how you would be behaving, how much would you be eating and exercising, what do you look like, how do you feel??

3)    Place one image in each of your hands outstretched in front of you with a space separating them.  This space represents the unexplored territory and unspecified steps that lie between the plateau state and the plateau busted state.

4)    Begin to make a series of images or movies of the logical steps from one state to another, adjusting each frame until each is a fully representational stage of the process of change.

5)    When you have between 5-8 stages in front of you, begin slowly to close your hands, collapsing all of the stages into a single process.

6)    Bring your clasped hands toward your body and pull the new state into your body, making a new feeling that represents action and success—PLATEAU BUSTING!

7)    Spin that feeling faster and faster. Intensifying it and allowing it to spread throughout your body so that it saturated every muscle, every organ, every nerve, every cell.  As you do this, look at what you need to do (or think) first. Then see yourself taking the second step and then the third etc. and keep spinning and intensifying that feeling until you feel excited and energized and ready to make the mental and/or physical adjustments and go bust that plateau!

Have a great breakthrough week!!

Oxox Rita

Link to Shift Community and Calorie and Exercise Tracker

Shift Community

Shift Weekly: Ground"Head" Day : Breaking Through a Plateau

Ground ‘”Head” Day: Breaking a Plateau

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: The date of the next Shift Weight Mastery Process (and Re Shift) has been changed to Saturday May 19^th—sorry for any inconvenience.

Greetings Shifters!

March is the month of the year where I seem to get more grumbles about plateaus than any time of year.  Weight loss plateaus, like death, taxes ( something else we face in March) are pretty much guaranteed.  During the many years of my practice as a clinical hypnotherapist specializing in long term permanent weight “release” and helping thousands of clients in that time period I can pretty assure you that most everyone hits a plateau at some point during their journey to their ideal weight.  The difference in who is successful breaking through this perceived barrier and who is not is based entirely upon how the person deals with it mentally, physically and environmentally. 

As Shifters we want to look at plateaus in a way that gives us power rather than takes it away from us.  We want to see a plateau as an opportunity for deepening our mastery of long-term permanent weight release.  These next three weeks I would like to explore the nature of weight loss plateaus and offer you some coaching on how to master them. 

This week I am going to focus on the mental game of mastering and busting a plateau—because once your mind can SHIFT around and through a plateau your body will follow.

FAT THINKING ABOUT PLATEAUS

First of all, let’s be clear on what our definition of a weight loss plateau is.

Definition: A weight loss plateau is a period of time where your weight does not change.

Hmm, a period of time where our weight does not change?  Well that seems innocent enough.  So why do those three strike such fear, anger and frustration in the heart of many??? 

Let’s look at our FAT THINKING around weight loss plateaus.

I don’t deserve this (plateau)

This is unfair

My body is broken

I will be fat forever

I am working so hard and nothing is happening

Nothing works

Plateaus suck

Plateaus are hard

If I was better, smarter, richer, prettier, this wouldn’t be happening

BTW, “Fat Thinking” is the term we use at Shift to define the all or nothing, good or bad, on or off a diet thinking that we get into when trying to LOSE weight.  Fat Thinking includes the negative beliefs that keep us stuck in our struggle with weight.  When we SHIFT we are Shifting our mind into “Thin Thinking” which comes from a vision of what we want to achieve, which is not only weight “release” (because we never want to find that weight again) but a vision of finding a way of connecting and communicating with ourselves in this area of our lives that allows us to feel nourished, vibrant and masterful. 

As a dieter stuck in Fat Thinking we hate and fear plateaus because they keep us from our main dieter goal—seeing results on the scale. 

Diets focus us on the external—the results on the scale—following the diet “plan” perfectly-- but usually never focus us on making the changes internally that keep us struggling with weight in the first place. So plateaus form a huge threat to a dieter because all the positive feedback they are receiving for restricting themselves on the diet is gone. 

When we start a diet there is a daily loss on the scale.  It’s great!  It’s fun!  It’s glamorous and cool—sexy!!  But what happens when the scale stops dropping and there is no more positive reinforcement on the outside—only the diet plan and restriction with no apparent pay off? 

We start to get upset.  Our inner mindset which has not been altered at all by the diet and which is still stuck in fat thinking begins to come back full force. Our Inner Critic who has been lying dormant while the scale dropped now wakes up and begins to analyze the scenario—

“What’s wrong with you?  Why aren’t you losing?  You are doing something wrong!  You picked the wrong diet.  The scale should be lower now.  Your body is broken. Your head is broken.  This plateau equals failure.  You are a failure.”   Yikes—not so fun now –right?

As the days pass and the Inner Critic continues the rant about the flat line scale we feel another Fat thinking part of us kick in.  Yes—it’s our friend the Inner Rebel.

“Weeeeelll since you aren’t losing any weight maybe you can just eat that cookie.  This diet sucks, obviously.  You worked so hard, let’s just take a break—maybe we can start another diet—the best diet—next week?”

The Inner Critic and the Inner Rebel—those parts of us that drive our Fat Thinking-- love to come out and play during a plateau and usually what happens is we give up, we become a victim of our limiting beliefs about the plateau, sabotage the diet, abandon the plan, and with no internal Shift having occurred, gain the weight back.

SHIFTING INTO THIN THINKING THROUGH PLATEAUS

When we Shift we make the decision to begin to use our mind differently about how we approach our weight.  We recognize that the mental thought systems and strategies that we operate from will need to be “Shifted” in order to have lasting, long term permanent weight release.  Success comes not from a diet on the outside but from engaging the Inner Coach within you, (and at Shift we use hypnosis and cognitive techniques to help us) to unravel the faulty wiring that keeps us struggling and to re-wire ourselves with a powerful mental foundation that supports our living our life at our ideal weight.

So a weight release plateau to a Shifter is not so threatening because we understand the physics side of weight release (to be discussed next week) and we also know that a plateau can be an opportunity to connect with our Inner Coach and grow from the experience.  Just because there is no movement on the scale externally, does not mean there can be no movement internally.  Often many a Weight release Master will say that their biggest mental breakthroughs came during their weight release journey plateaus—because they were forced to turn within—to learn to stretch themselves past where their current thinking was stopping them (which was being reflected on the scale).

The best coaches create a powerful vision and ask powerful questions that help keep one focused on moving forward with your power towards mastery, rather than becoming a victim of the perceived plateau on the scale. (We will also explore “perceived plateaus” next week)

If you are experiencing a weight release plateau right now try engaging your Inner Coach and ask yourself these questions.

-Is my vision of what I want to achieve with my weight release journey as powerful and visceral as it was when I began?  If not, how can I up the stakes and power of what I want to achieve until I feel reinvigorated and engaged again?

-Do I really believe I am going to be successful?  If not, what are the limiting beliefs that keep me from feeling 100% certain?  I can begin to get conscious that these beliefs are a block and need to be Shifted and move towards that—(seek support, hypnosis CDs, reframe the belief in a positive way)

-Do I need to sharpen our focus my efforts externally?  (If the answer to this is yes we will be exploring this in the next 2 weeks)

-Am I at a mental plateau? Do I need to shift my thoughts more—are there thoughts that are holding me back such as:

 “I am afraid to be seen or be seen as attractive to others”

“I am afraid to feel vulnerable and small”

 “I am not willing to exercise more or focus on calories, or write down my food.”

--there are many other thoughts or beliefs that may be mentally keeping you at a plateau—can you get curious about them and then begin to get conscious about them and then begin to Shift them?

With the dieter Fat Thinking, mindset when a plateau occurs we assume something is wrong and this DISCONNECTS YOU FROM YOURSELF and takes your power away.

When you SHIFT and a plateau occurs, you still may feel a bit bummed but you can keep your power and still move forward (even though the scale may not be)—and STAY CONNECTED to yourself by engaging your Inner Coach and turning within.

We will explore more how the mental and physical aspects of a plateau work together next week.

Please use the following mind exercise to get you Shift forward within.

Mental Exercise for Plateau Busting:

1)    Create a vivid representation of the way you are right now in your plateau (your present state) with all of the challenges the plateau represents.

2)    See yourself the way you would want to be when you get through all of the challenges.  Be clear on the specifics—how you would be behaving, how much would you be eating and exercising, what do you look like, how do you feel??

3)    Place one image in each of your hands outstretched in front of you with a space separating them.  This space represents the unexplored territory and unspecified steps that lie between the plateau state and the plateau busted state.

4)    Begin to make a series of images or movies of the logical steps from one state to another, adjusting each frame until each is a fully representational stage of the process of change.

5)    When you have between 5-8 stages in front of you, begin slowly to close your hands, collapsing all of the stages into a single process.

6)    Bring your clasped hands toward your body and pull the new state into your body, making a new feeling that represents action and success—PLATEAU BUSTING!

7)    Spin that feeling faster and faster. Intensifying it and allowing it to spread throughout your body so that it saturated every muscle, every organ, every nerve, every cell.  As you do this, look at what you need to do (or think) first. Then see yourself taking the second step and then the third etc. and keep spinning and intensifying that feeling until you feel excited and energized and ready to make the mental and/or physical adjustments and go bust that plateau!

Have a great breakthrough week!!

Oxox Rita

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