Hi, guys it’s Paige here and today’s Facebook Live kicks off my new series, The Belly Fat Solution Episode 1: Why You Need to Stop Losing Weight to Lose Weight.

If any of y’all are new here, I’ve been talking about this subject here in the group and on my FB Page, email (if you haven’t signed up for my newsletter, you get extra stuff there), social media…pretty much for the last 3 or more years.

And just a quick note about me, I actually gained almost 25 pounds when I got into my 40s, a LOT of it in my belly, and it took me a couple of years of trying different things and experimenting before I was able to finally lose the weight.

With that experience and knowledge, I’ve created a variety of belly fat programs that incorporate everything that I did to lose weight.

And I want to share the information behind those programs, because these programs, which involve different approaches with the same underlying concepts, could be what you need to get results.

But I want you to understand how I got there so that you can decide if one of these programs is something that might work for you.

So, for our first installment, we’re talking about:

Why You Need to Stop Losing Weight to Lose Weight

I know…that seems like it doesn’t make sense, but it does.

So, as I mentioned, I was inspired by a story sent to me by Jamie, one of the members of The Bye Bye Belly Fat Group – She gave me permission to use her name and story.

And her story had me looking back through all the content I’ve written about belly fat and I thought, now would be the perfect time to take that information and put it together in a series so you can get the full impact of what really causes belly fat and, more importantly:

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO GET RID OF???

Belly Fat is a special kind of fat, and not in the ‘good’ kind of special but in the why is this happening and what the hell am I doing wrong kind of ‘special.’

I want to start with Jamie and use her as a case study of sorts. She was kind enough to message me her story and I think this will sound really familiar to a lot of you.

In fact, except for some minor details, this could my story.

Now, Jamie started gaining weight as she got into her late 30s and, as she put it, “I started gaining weight overnight but now am steadily gaining weight in the belly.”

For the record, she does regular workouts of cardio and strength and eats a healthy diet.

Frustrated, she ended up going to different doctors and specialists – She got her hormones checked (thyroid being the main one), but everything checked out as normal.

And it’s a good idea to see your doctor if you’re gaining weight and you haven’t changed anything (that’s a key factor that we’re going to talk about). Your thyroid could be involved, medication you’re taking and then, of course, there’s that other important hormone which regulates appetite and weight gain:

Estrogen. Yes, peri-menopause, menopause, etc.

But that’s for another day.

So, back to Jamie.

She want from 100 lbs to 140 lbs, a lot of it in her belly.

That is almost exactly what happened to me a few years ago, so I totally get it. 

Here’s where I really identify with Jamie: “I think being honest with my Journey is something that will help me not be silenced. I have felt ashamed.”

And, I think a lot of people in this group feel the same way and that may be why everyone is so quiet in here.

I felt the same way and, for a long time, I tried to hide it. But when I finally decided to be honest with myself and with everyone else, I came out of the belly fat closet and that’s how this group was born and how I overcame.

We all know that feeling. Our failure is right out there for everyone to see. It’s not a private shame, but public, right? You can’t hide it, right?

I mean, you can try by wearing big, blousy clothes, but it’s like putting a target on you that says, ‘I’m wearing big blousy clothes because I gained weight.’

She went on to say that every day started to feel like groundhog day – Wake up, promise to eat better, to write everything down, only to fall back into old habits,

There are so many reasons we go back to those familiar habits, even if they’re destructive – another topic for another day.

One of Jamie’s groundhog day habits is:

Grazing.

Especially at night.

Haven’t we all been guilty of this? I know I have.

In fact, last week I kept putting off going to the grocery store, which left me and my husband without anything decent for lunch. So we scrounged and ate a little bit of this and a little bit of that and, in the end, we ended up coming to the kitchen about every hour to find something to eat.

Being at home during the virus, your kitchen is always, always there.

Always.

We never actually made a proper meal or snack that would be satisfying. Instead, we ended up grazing all day and never feeling like we got enough food. But we probably ate many more calories than we would have if we’d just made proper meals.

And then, we felt guilty.

I know better than this. Jamie knows better than this. We all know better than this.

Yet, we still do it.

As Jamie puts it, “[I am] working on my diet but still doing the wrong things so basically I have learned I can change things…BUT it’s hard for me to not graze now. I’ve tried to fast but ultimately end up overeating.”

Here’s something else that resonates: “as a single person I feel like it’s such an emotional comfort to eat late at night, even a little but all those little bites add up…I swear I am barely eating but not so…”

Emotional eating. Another topic we could go on and on about. Think about it – how often do you eat when you’re not actually hungry?

Maybe you’re bored. Tired. Need a pick me up. Lonely. Feeling isolated….so many reasons we reach for the comfort of food when we really need something else.

Yep. Been there.

And then there’s this, which really hits the mark: “It’s just so very real. I get motivated but then Groundhog day happens all over again despite my best efforts.”

Yep. Again. Been there. Done that.

I want to stop for a sec and talk about what Jamie mentioned: motivation. This topic is fraught.

I say that because we often say that to ourselves: “I’m just not MOTIVATED to get up and workout or to plan my meals or to go to the grocery store or pull weeds when I could be catching up on Ozark.”

But, real quick, I want to put an idea in your head about motivation and here it is:

Motivation is not something that just happens. It is something that YOU create. You create it. You cultivate it. And you use it as just ONE thing you need to make a change. There are many other things involved when it comes to making changes and losing weight.

Motivation? Is just one and may not even be the most important one.

More on that later.

Okay, so with all of that said, how many of you could be Jamie right now? I WAS Jamie – I WAS Jamie, but I’m a little luckier because, as a fitness pro, I have access to resources that not everyone may have.

In fact, tackling this belly fat issue involves so many different aspects, you would have to be a dietician, a personal trainer, an epidemiologist, heck, even a psychic to figure this out.

That’s why I had to experiment using science-based research as well as, well, human-based research since humans don’t always follow the logic of science, right? If we did, we would never overeat.

The struggle is real, y’all.

One thing that doesn’t work: The groundhog day approach.

Wake up Monday, promise a brand new day, do well for awhile…revert to old behaviors.

I was there for awhile before I got off the hamster wheel…Here’s how it worked for me…the hamster wheel I mean:

You become aware of your weight for some reason.

You see it

You feel it

You bend over to pick something up and that belly is in the way

Sit down (I remember having to pull my pants OVER my belly to sit down so my belly wouldn’t flop over my pants)

Pull on a pair of pants and feel how tight they are…whatever it is, it’s a trigger.

You feel frustrated, ashamed, angry…like you just want to hide under the bed where no-one can see you.

You vow to make a change… to really focus on your diet this time, or to finally start exercising. If you already exercise, you vow to exercise even more, right?

And maybe you stick to that for a bit and…either something interrupts your newfound motivation or you do the work and nothing happens. You don’t see results, you get frustrated and you quit.

Whatever motivated you to try again falls into the background as real life takes over —The thousands of tasks we have to do in a day, most of which probably have nothing to do with losing belly fat.

Okay, so let’s go back with Jamie and her situation.

We’ve gotten older, we’ve gained belly fat, we’ve tried All the Things, we’ve maybe seen a doctor or specialist to find out if there’s a medical reason for this weight gain and there doesn’t seem to be…

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

There are plenty of paths to choose from…so many that it’s paralyzing, isn’t it? You could try a new diet, maybe Weight Watchers. You could try some new workouts. You could try to fast, as Jamie did, only to come back to food with a vengeance…

Starving yourself, by the way, is one of the worst ways to lose weight.

Which brings me to the title of this series:

Why You Need to Stop Trying to Lose Weight to Lose Weight

Here’s what I want to share with you today…A road you can follow, an outline of what I did to finally start to lose belly fat and a focus, at the beginning, that doesn’t include the scale.

WARNING: Nothing I’m about to say will surprise you. Not. One. Thing.

Knowing that…here’s where you start:

Forget about the belly for now!

I know, you can’t totally forget it, but let’s take the goal of losing belly fat and put it to the side. Why?

Because losing the belly actually comes LATER in your weight loss to-do list.

It’s like doing homework: Once you do the homework, then you get to have the fun.

With belly fat, once you follow the steps, the belly fat starts to come off. And focusing on the Belly Fat from the get go leads to a lot of frustration and hopping back onto the hamster wheel.

So, today I’m going to share the first step I took when I finally figured out that what I was doing was NOT working.

Go back to the basics.

I mean, all the way back to the ABC’s, to a place you’ve been before but maybe haven’t visited in a while.

Here’s what you ask yourself:

What Is MY Goal?

Now, before you roll your eyes and say, DUH – I want to lose belly fat, we need to get really really clear on what you actually want. Yes, losing belly fat makes , but why? What does that get you in the long run?

Why do you want to get rid of the belly fat? I know…we all want to do that, but WHY?

This is when you sit down and really think about what you actually want so you can set a serious goal. Not just ‘I want to lose belly fat.’ That’s a goal, but But something specific, something tangible, something you can actually measure on a regular basis.

When I sat down to do this brainstorming exercise, It struck me that it wasn’t so much how I looked, but how I FELT about myself. That was what was so miserable – Hating how I looked, hating how my body moved differently with that extra weight, how much workouts changed, my wardrobe, my down deep feeling about myself.

When I thought about it, this is what I wanted:

—Feeling good about myself

—Feeling/looking sexy

—Feeling good in my body

—Feeling good in my clothes

—Not avoiding my own reflection in the mirror

—Wearing flattering clothes that make me feel confident

And then I had to go back and think about my goal, to lose belly fat and make it much more specific. You’ve probably heard about setting SMART Goals…

Goals that are:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic

Time-Based

And that’s exactly what you’re going to do.

I have a Goal-Setting Workbook for you that will walk you through the entire process, step by step. Take your time with this. The deeper you go, the more you succeed. Trust me…I stayed on the surface of my goal and that kept me trapped on the old Hamster wheel.

Once I actually thought about where I was, what I wanted, my perspective changed for the better.

This Goal-Setting Workbook is part of the belly fat program that I created for myself and now I’m giving this first step to you because I want you to start off on the right foot. I don’t want you to waste time like I did…or at least anymore than you already have.

This is how you do it.

So, are you in? Leave a comment!

Download Your Free Goal-Setting Workbook to get started right now.