DAY 26: Thin Thinking Practice

TODAY’S SHIFT FROM FAT TO THIN THINKING:

I can begin to truly take risks and live life now, before I have achieved my ideal weight. I am releasing fear as I release weight.

Welcome to Your Thin Thinking Practice Day 26

Life beyond the scale is what I believe is at the heart and soul of the Shift Weight Mastery Process. Whatever that vision of our life is what lies under our desire to “lose weight.” When we start connecting powerfully with our Inner Coach, our relationship with ourselves and the world begins to elevate and take on new, deeper, and more enriched meaning.

At the end of the day, what we really want is to find serenity within our own skin, to communicate effectively with ourselves, and to feel good about ourselves at all times. We think that the perfect number on the scale will give us this, but we really know (from past experience) that it does not. I believe what we actually are seeking is sanity over vanity. Love over fear. This is a concept that is hard to grasp at first, but I think you are probably beginning to understand the importance of this now that you have been practicing Weight Mastery for almost 30 days.

Today’s coaching: Don’t Wait to Dream Until You Reach Your Dream Weight (below) really takes a look at what lies under our desire to “lose weight.”

Today’s Shift From Fat To Thin Thinking: I can begin to truly take risks and live life now, before I have achieved my ideal weight. I am releasing fear as I release weight.

Rita’s Coaching Day 26: : Don’t Wait to Dream Until You Reach Your Dream Weight

Is there life after we reach our ideal weight?

Is it better, dreamier, more fulfilling?

Do the heavens open up and size 4 angels float down and strum harps the moment the digital scale readout lets you know—YOU’VE WON! You’re skinny! You’re one of us! You’re in the in-club! You’ve made it to that place where life is sweeter, the clothes fit nicer, the sex is better, the jobs are more interesting, and people are always pleasant to you.

Hmm…that ideal weight scenario depends a lot on how, and who you are, and when you get there.

Skinny Does Not Mean Happy

As I have mentioned, before I made my Shift, my weight often neared, or was even less than what I weigh now as I dieted and deprived myself for years. But I was far from a success. I was miserable, and I still hated myself and had zero trust in myself as a person who had any skills to maintain whatever weight loss I had achieved. In fact, whenever I hit my “goal,” I got scared. The diet was over, the obsessive goal attained—now what? I have to live with myself? Yikes! I can’t do that! Even though I was skinny, my Inner Critic and Inner Rebel ran my show. Where was the real Rita in all of this mess? Who the hell knew!

All of a sudden, I would get very hungry and that void that I had been filling with icky diet food hollered out for cake and hamburgers and whatever was fattening. “Don’t even think about anything with a vegetable in it!” the void would spew at me. “Fill me up or else!” And I did. Rather than have to face the life I avoided while trying to get skinny, I would comply eagerly –even though my heart was breaking knowing I would get on the scale tomorrow and the trip back up the digital readout would have begun yet again.

Why Losers aren’t Necessarily Winners

I have, in my years in the weight release biz, worked with some poster children for other weight loss plans. These “success stories” lost all the weight they wanted on Lindora, Michael Thurman, Slim Fast, Jenny Craig, etc. They even had their pictures plastered over the papers and advertisements for these programs. When they came to me, these pictures of the thin them were a mere memory—the weight had come back once the plan had been discarded or the weight loss goal achieved.

One client brought such a picture in to show me–an ad in the Times for one of these “programs.” There he stood, smiling from ear to ear in his “after” pose, all toned and skinny, the washboard abs rippling under his tight t-shirt. He told me that the moment that photo session was over, he went out and began to eat himself back up the scale 50 pounds. “I just didn’t know what else to do, a voice in me said, “Okay you’re done now, eat!—and so I did.”

When our weight loss is only about reaching a number on a scale—we lose—but not in a good way. We lose the opportunity to really live our lives and to learn how to love and trust ourselves so that when we do reach that day when our ideal weight appears on the scale, it is only a small part of a celebration that has been happening all along. This celebration really begins when you started your journey to weight mastery and finally began connecting to your true wants and needs.

Can You Give Yourself Permission?

The journey to Long Term Permanent Weight Release isn’t about “before and after.” It’s about NOW—about loving yourself NOW. Showing up for yourself–NOW. Staying connected to yourself–NOW. Living the life of your dreams–NOW. Not letting some number on a scale give you permission to be okay or pretty or sexy or love-able or smart. Your key to releasing the weight permanently is giving yourself the permission slip to be your dream–NOW.

So that when you do reach your ideal weight, it will be a story more similar to a client of mine named Laura. Laura struggled with her weight all of her life. She had dieted and had been successful a number of times, but the success was short-lived—she always gained it back. Her life had been pretty dedicated to losing weight, so much so, that she had few true friends, and other than work, not much of a life.

When we started working together ,I asked her, “What is your dream?” She told me she wanted to study art in Italy for a summer. I asked her why she never pursued this dream. She said she never felt like she looked good enough—in her fantasy when she went to Italy she was thin. So then I asked her, “if she were thin right now, what would be stopping her from signing up for art school in Italy right this very second?”.

“Well, I am not good at languages-my Italian sucks,” she replied. “I am shy and kind of scared to go there all by myself.”

“So it really is more than your weight?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, “I guess I use my weight as an excuse to not put myself out there.”

“Maybe part of your weight release is to learn Italian and join an Art Club,” I suggested.

Laura balked at the idea—“I have to be thin first then I’ll do that.”

I pressed her “But if you do these things now as you are releasing the weight you will build your confidence and expand your life. You would be loving yourself down the scale by living your dream NOW.”

She got the point and began to take it to heart.

Now, Laura was one of those people who would starve all day and eat all night. As we worked out a food plan that served her, she began to find ways of working her dream in with her weight release, which also helped her avoid night eating—problem solving at its best!

She joined an art club on Tuesdays and worked out 4 nights a week—something that she always considered a chore—but now looked forward to because she had the idea to listen to Italian lessons on her phone!

She found that the trance state of exercise made her brain more receptive to learning. As she released weight, her Italian got better and her social network increased. As she grew thinner, her confidence increased and she finally made her dream a reality and signed up for her summer abroad.

The day she stepped on the scale in my office, she was in a hurry because she had to get to the passport office before it closed. She glanced at her ideal weight on the scale and said, “I thought it might be that—gotta go! And thanks—I’ll send you a postcard from Rome and it won’t have any meat sauce stains on it! Ciao!”

She had become so alive in her life that the number on the scale was a mere afterthought. Even after her return to the states, Laura continued to live large without the large and was able to maintain her weight release. She told me that living her dream even before reaching her ideal weight was key for her. She learned that fat or thin, she was worthy and capable of living a full life—so that making it “all about being thin” didn’t frighten her, nor did she make the number on the scale the reason to give herself permission to love herself.

I am not saying you have to learn a language or learn to paint in order to lose weight. But the opportunity is yours to use this weight release journey to really step into your dreams. Use this time to focus on what you truly want out of life and to really honor yourself by making that a part of your journey down the scale as you continue beyond these 30 days.

Have a Shifted Day 26!

ox Rita

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