by Rita Black
The Mind Skills give you a powerful communication system within yourself that keeps you focused on your goals, managing your thoughts and emotions, and keeps you motivated to keep releasing weight and then ultimately maintaining your weight. These skills put the “mastery” in weight mastery.
“Every day I used to wake up into a living nightmare of self-criticism about my body, about my out-of-control eating, and my out-of-control life. I now wake up to a different inner voice that feels more like the real me. This voice helps me plan for a winning day and makes me feel great about myself and my life.” Grant G. (Released 11 pounds in 30 days, maintaining for 2 years.)
Let’s get started with Skill 7, Communicating with Your Inner Coach.
CHAPTER 32
WEIGHT MASTERY SKILL 7
Communicating With Your Inner Coach
SKILL 7: Communicating with Your Inner Coach. This skill involves powerfully interacting with your Inner Coach to keep you thin thinking and moving steadily forward toward your ideal weight and weight mastery.
Welcome to my favorite skill of all! I hope that you will love the skill of Communicating with your Inner Coach as much as I do. Yes, the other skills are so powerful and open the door to steady weight release, but I am convinced this is the skill that allows you to soar into long-term weight mastery.
Fat Thinking And Communicating With your Inner Coach
What is missing from most Weight Strugglers’ thinking are the habits of planning, strategizing, and problem-solving. These communication habits are the cornerstone of thin thinking. Many of my clients know how to eat healthfully and work exercise into their days. But the long-term challenge for everyone is consistency—that is, sticking with healthy food choices and exercise over time.
“I am able to be good for a while, but then I get bored.”
“I always give in on the weekend.”
“When I travel, my discipline and I go to different destinations.”
“I am a victim of my cravings!”
“I forget to eat, and then I overeat.”
“I just forget…period.”
Often this lack of attention, continuity, and willpower doesn’t come from a lack of discipline or a character flaw but rather because Weight Strugglers have never had a consistent motivating, strategizing, and problem-solving voice in their heads. They haven’t had a voice continually communicating with them, driving them toward their Weight Mastery destination.
Thin Thinking and Communicating with Your Inner Coach
Research says adults check their digital devices 79 times a day on average. But how often do you check in with yourself? Weight Strugglers tend to spend most of their days directing attention outward and neglect tuning into their own needs. Put down that device and start checking in with your Inner Coach over the course of your day!
I will now begin guiding you through two types of communication that you and your Inner Coach can have with each other:
1. Proactive Communications. Thin thinking communications designed to move you toward your ideal weight goal/vision.
2. Defensive Communications. Thin Thinking communications designed to intercept fat thinking and move you immediately back on track toward your goal/vision.
1-Proactive Communications
Right now, you have begun your journey to weight mastery and your mind is shifting to thin thinking. The next step will be for you to begin to build specific times into your life—weekly and daily—for you to communicate with your Inner Coach in order to stay on the path of weight release and mastery. You and your Inner Coach will create:
Clear weekly weight release visions.
Specific weight release goals.
Plan exercise sessions and healthy meals.
Think through stimulus control, support, tracking, and troubleshooting challenges
By focusing the brain in this way at key times, you will not only leverage willpower from your conscious mind but add the creative power of your subconscious to it. This will help you have more:
Focused motivation and drive.
Consistent healthy actions to meet your goals.
Confidence in yourself and your abilities to release weight.
Sound good? It should. These “huddles” with your Inner Coach can be life transforming and are at the heart of lasting change. During your 30-Day Thin Thinking Practice, these huddles will become a habitual part of your new Weight Mastery lifestyle.
The Five Key Inner Coach Huddles
There are five main proactive huddles that you and your Inner Coach can begin practicing daily and weekly:
The Weekly Planning Huddle
The Morning Meditation Huddle
The Shift Breath Huddle
The Afternoon Refocus Huddle
The Evening Planning Huddle
The Weekly Planning Huddle
The first huddle for you and your Inner Coach to practice is the Weekly Planning Huddle. I consider this huddle to be your Inner Coach’s overall plan for you to win the game—staying on track for weight release each week. I cannot tell you how important a part of my week this session has become for my own weight mastery. During this weekly meeting with yourself (Sunday is usually the best day for most), you:
Create a vision of ending the upcoming week masterfully.
Set your specific weight-release goal for the week.
Schedule exercise sessions on your calendar.
Plan food prep for the week (meal ideas, shopping list, etc.).
Troubleshoot upcoming weight-related challenges and create a plan for success.
“I like to wake up Sunday morning before the rest of my family is up and do my weekly huddle with my Inner Coach over with a steaming cup of coffee. It’s a nice time with myself, and I have become organized with the rest of my life as well.” Shane T. (Released 25 pounds, maintaining for 1 year.)
NOTE: During your 30-Day Thin Thinking Practice, you will be guided through the steps of your Weekly Planning Huddle every seven days. You can also use the Weekly Weight Release Planner-Calculator online at www.FromFatToThinThinking.com or the one at the back of the book to guide you through the steps.
The Morning Meditation Huddle
Instead of jumping out of bed with a head still in fat thinking, this meditation only takes a few minutes and allows you to set a thin thinking roadmap for the day. While you are still in bed or in a quiet moment before your day begins, practice your morning meditation huddle to prime your mind for the day’s weight-release success. I think of this as the “locker room session” before the game.
Take a deep Shift Breath, close your eyes, and connect with your Inner Coach.
Create your End of the Day Vision. How do you want your body to feel tonight as you go to bed? Imagine the wonderful feeling of lightness you are going to have from making healthy and light food choices all day. Imagine feeling good in your body because you exercised.
Think your day through from start to finish. Think about what you might eat and when you will exercise, including how you will respond to the day’s different food and exercise challenges. You may be reminded to set out exercise clothes or to bring food with you. This mental roadmap is key for being prepared.
Visualize weight-challenged areas in your day. Think through how you can overcome the challenge. For example, instead of coming home and heading to the kitchen, imagine putting on your sneakers to go for a walk instead.
Take another breath and open your eyes. That’s it! You are much more prepared for a masterful day!
“As a caregiver for my elderly parents, I always rolled out of bed and got going to the one that needed me first. There was never any thought of how I was taking care of me. My morning meditation has made a huge difference. I’m finally showing up for me first.” Bonnie M. (Released 18 pounds, maintaining for 6
months.)
NOTE: You will have access to the Daily Vision Meditation mp3—a short, guided meditation that takes you through this morning huddle. You can either download it at the Online Resource Center at www.FromFatToThinThinking.com or receive it daily in your 30-Day Thin Thinking Practice email program.
The Shift Breath Huddle
How many times in your day do you stop and connect with yourself and ask “How am I?” In our fast-paced, super-charged world, the idea of taking a little breather seems like a joke. Use your Shift Breath for momentary reboots in the day when you are:
Overwhelmed.
Bored.
Hit by a craving.
Mindlessly reaching for a snack even though you aren’t hungry.
Eating so quickly you barely taste your food.
To take your Shift Breath break:
Close your eyes and take a Shift Breath.
Allow you Inner Coach to check in. “How are you doing? How are you feeling?”
Ask yourself, “Do you need anything?” A longer break? Some healthy food? Some water? Many strugglers forget to eat, because they don’t tune in to their body until it’s too late.
Eliminate items on your To Do list. Your expectations can often overwhelm you.
Give yourself what you need and get on with your day!
“I used to overeat halfway through helping the kids with their homework. Now when I start to feel the stress coming on, I escape to the bathroom and do a Shift Breath Huddle instead of eating goldfish crackers. There are days when I may need three huddles during homework, and I take them. It’s far more relaxing and far less fattening than stuffing my stress down with food.” Carrie R. (Released 40 pounds, maintaining for 3 years.)
The Afternoon Refocus Huddle
The afternoon is when willpower starts to nosedive. This quick huddle allows you and your Inner Coach a moment to refresh your evening goals as well as make any adjustments that you need to stay on track with your plans. It is basically the same meditation as the Morning Meditation Huddle and can be done sitting at your desk, in your driveway before you head in for the night, or on the subway. It only takes a few moments.
Take a deep Shift Breath and close your eyes.
Refocus your End of the Day Vision. How do you want your body to feel tonight as you go to bed—remember that light feeling.
Refresh/adjust your plans to stay on track. Think about what you might eat and when you will exercise. You might have to adjust from this morning’s plan, which is fine. Now is the time to do that!
Visualize weight-challenged areas in your night. Think through how you might overcome the challenge. For example, you might put your dinner plate in the sink instead of going for seconds.
Take another breath and open your eyes. That’s it! You are ready for a masterful evening.
“I have been using this huddle every day for 30 days. I used to keep eating after dinner and into my night of television. During my huddle, I visualize finishing dinner and being finished with food. I call it ’Food free in front of the TV.’ Getting prepared mentally in the afternoon has made breaking the night eating habit much easier!” Stanley F. (Released 7 pounds in 30 days, maintaining for 2 years.)
NOTE: You can use the Daily Vision Meditation mp3 in the afternoon as well…many of my clients use the recording in the afternoon instead of the morning. Some use the mp3 for both the morning and afternoon—you choose!
The Evening Learning/Review Huddle
Give yourself a few minutes at night to review the day. What went well? What didn’t? This review enables your mind to make the necessary changes where they are needed and also reinforce what is going well. In addition, it gives you time to set yourself up for the next day.
Find a quiet place to give yourself a few minutes to huddle.
Review the day’s food and exercise tracking. What behaviors and thinking patterns are serving your weight release? Also, notice the eating, exercise, or other habits and beliefs that are especially challenging.
Think through your schedule for tomorrow, and plan your exercise time and food needs.
“I had a running conversation in my mind about how I didn’t have time to exercise. After reviewing my days a few times with my Inner Coach, I realized that I could go for a walk at my son’s baseball practice while he was on the field. I started walking every time my son practiced, and I broke the plateau that I had been experiencing. It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t taken the time to problem-solve in the evening.” Gary P (Released 68 pounds, maintaining for 3 years.)
NOTE: You will find there is an Evening Review guide in the Index and in the Online Resource Center at www.FromFatToThinThinking.com that you can print out to keep in your journal. It is also a part of the daily email program.
2-Defensive Communications
Now, Apprentice, as you and I both know, the communications that you have with your Inner Coach are not only about weight release. Some of the most important communications are about getting back to releasing weight as quickly as possible should we get off track. (By the way, there will be times when you will get off track!)
The more you strengthen the habit of immediately getting back on track, the easier it is to continue releasing and then maintaining your ideal weight for good. Here are some ways that we can get off track:
Fat thinking for a moment. You eat something you didn’t intend to, and your Inner Critic says “You blew it!”
Fat thinking for a day or two. You have company in town and your Inner Rebel takes over. You spend the weekend overindulging.
Fat thinking for a week or more. You go through a period where you have been bored, stressed, or on vacation, and your fat thinking takes over. You know you’ve slipped back in that “being good or being bad,” on-or-off Weight Struggle Cycle.
In the past, if you found yourself going off track, you may have given in to the “start over tomorrow” impulse. Starting over gives you permission to eat more until the day you get back on track. That kind of thinking puts you on that “being good or being bad” Weight Struggle Cycle very quickly. It goes like this:
Get off track.
Decide to start over tomorrow or Monday.
Start over Monday but fall off again on Thursday and decide to start over next Monday.
Start gaining weight back.
Inner Critic gets louder with negative self-talk, saying “Pull yourself together!”
Inner Rebel wants to escape with food, saying “Dieting is hard. I need a reward.”
Fat thinking mind is back and Weight Struggle Cycle resumes.
Now the steps back into fat thinking might not always look like this exactly, but you get the picture, right? When you go off track and make the decision to start over tomorrow, you are setting in play a series of beliefs and habits that quickly take you out of thin thinking and back into fat thinking and the Weight Struggle Cycle.
The S.H.I.F.T from Fat to Thin Thinking Technique (Huddle)
Apprentice, as a Weight Master, your number one job if you go off track is to get back on track AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. How do we do this? The S.H.I.F.T. back into Thin Thinking Technique, of course.
We walked through the S.H.I.F.T. huddle earlier when you and your Inner Coach were introduced. Now, we revisit it because now you and your Inner Coach have learned some skills that will help you use the technique masterfully.
The S.H.I.F.T. to thin thinking huddle is a powerful defense to fat thinking. This mental interception stops the emotionally driven Inner Critic/Inner Rebel “you blew it, so screw it” mode and shifts you back into rational, problem-solving communication with your Inner Coach.
Let’s use an apprentice named Mary as an example of using the SHIFT technique.
Mary has been releasing weight by shifting from fat to thin thinking. She
has been releasing one pound a week by steadily burning 3,500 calories a week. She stays within her daily calorie budget of 1,400 calories and burns an extra 700 calories a week by walking 20 minutes at lunch time. She is banking those 700 exercise calories for the weekend and using it for dessert and a glass of wine when she goes out with her family.
One afternoon, Mary has a stressful meeting at work. Afterward, when she goes into the staffroom, she sees pizza leftovers from a birthday party on the counter. Without thinking, Mary grabs a slice and eats it. It tastes good for a few bites, but she eats the rest mindlessly without even enjoying it. On the way back to her desk, Mary impulsively grabs a few chocolates from the jar on her coworkers desk. She hadn’t done that since she had started releasing weight.
Now, all of a sudden, the voice of her Inner Critic wells up in her. “Why did you eat all that crap? You really pigged out and fell off the wagon!” This stresses Mary even more, and now there is the voice her Inner Rebel of welling up inside her. “Since you blew it, you may as well eat more candy and pizza. You can start over tomorrow!”
Mary feels the urge to give in but recognizes that this moment calls for the S.H.I.F.T. technique and she begins:
S—Shift Breath. Mary takes a deep inhalation and intercepts her fat thinking “start over and be perfect tomorrow” impulse.
H—Harness the power of your Inner Coach. In that moment of pause, Mary reaches for her Inner Coach to begin thin thinking.
I—Insert thin thinking and get the facts. Mary rationally assesses what has happened from a nonjudgmental place of curiosity. “What happened? I got stressed and ate a slice of pizza and two chocolates I hadn’t intended on eating.”
F—Forgive yourself and find a solution.Forgive. Mary forgives herself right then and there. “I forgive myself for eating crap!” She immediately feels better.
NOTE: Remember, no matter what has happened, no matter how much food you have eaten, or how many days or weeks you have been off track, forgive yourself and get on your own team.