Core Area 1:
PHYSICAL CAPACITY
Supporting the Body You're Asking to Support You
When we think about losing weight, we tend to focus heavily on what we need our body to do.
We want it to lose weight.
Burn fat.
Have more energy.
Move more.
Respond to the changes we're making.
And when it doesn't respond in the way we expect, or we struggle to consistently do the things we believe we should be doing, the answer we're often given is to try harder.
Eat less.
Move more.
Be more disciplined.
Get back on track.
But there's a question I rarely stopped to ask throughout all those years I spent trying to lose weight.
I rarely stopped to ask, 'What does my body need from me in order to support what I'm asking from it?'
Because your physical capacity matters.
Your body doesn't exist separately from your weight-loss behaviours.
How well nourished you are matters.
How hungry or satisfied you feel matters.
Your energy matters.
Your sleep matters.
Your recovery matters.
The amount of physical stress you're carrying matters.
And the demands you're placing on your body through the way you're trying to lose weight matter too.
Because sometimes, without realising it, the way we're trying to create weight loss can begin reducing the very physical capacity we need to sustain it.
Not because any one of those things automatically determines whether you will lose or regain weight.
But because they can influence the physical conditions in which you're trying to consistently make the choices and maintain the behaviours that support it.
Think back to what we've already learned about capacity.
Consistency isn't simply something you either have or don't have.
It requires something from you.
And when your physical capacity is being depleted, some of the things that felt relatively manageable when you were well rested, well nourished and feeling physically good can begin requiring far more effort.
You may feel more tired.
Your appetite may change.
You may experience stronger cravings or find yourself thinking about food more often.
Cooking the meal you planned can feel like far more effort than ordering something.
Going for the walk you intended to take can feel harder.
Planning ahead can become another job you don't have the energy for.
And if the way you're trying to lose weight is itself leaving you hungry, exhausted, deprived, constantly thinking about food or feeling as though you have to organise your life around maintaining it, weight loss can begin taking from the very capacity you need in order to sustain it.
That was something I didn't understand for a very long time.
I spent years asking how much more I could do to lose weight.
I didn't spend nearly enough time asking whether the way I was trying to lose it was something my body and I could realistically continue doing for life.
And there is a difference.
Because we're not just trying to create another period of successful weight loss here.
We've already established that you know how to lose weight.
We're trying to change the conditions that have contributed to you having to keep losing it again.
Understanding Your Physical Capacity
Now that we’ve started looking at your body through the lens of capacity, I want to spend some time exploring what actually contributes to that physical capacity.
Because physical capacity isn’t one thing.
It’s influenced by many of the physical conditions you’re living within while trying to lose weight.
How well nourished and physically supported you are.
How much energy you have available.
How well you’re sleeping and recovering.
How much physical stress your body is carrying.
How you’re moving your body and what that movement is asking from you.
And how your body itself is responding and adapting to the process of losing weight.
None of those things exist separately from the rest of your transformation.
They interact with your mental capacity, your emotional capacity and the reality of everything else happening in your life.
But for now, we’re going to slow things down and look specifically at the physical side.
Not because I want you to start monitoring every signal your body gives you or trying to create the perfect conditions for weight loss.
And certainly not because I’m about to give you another enormous list of things you need to get right.
Quite the opposite.
I want us to understand where your physical capacity may already be well supported, where something may be asking more from it than you realised and where relatively small changes could potentially make some of the things you’re already trying to do feel more manageable.
We’ll begin with food and nutrition.
But rather than simply asking what you should eat to lose weight, we’re going to look at food from two different sides.
We’ll explore the relationship you’ve developed with food and how that relationship can influence the way you eat.
Then we’ll look at nutrition itself and what the way you’re eating is providing your body while you’re asking it to lose weight.
Because being able to lose weight eating a certain way and being physically supported by that way of eating are not necessarily the same thing.
From there, we’ll look at movement.
Not simply how many calories exercise burns or how much you should be doing, but what movement looks like when we stop viewing it as something we temporarily add to our lives for weight loss and begin considering what we can realistically sustain beyond it.
We’ll explore sleep and recovery, and why what happens when you stop doing things can matter just as much as everything you’re trying to fit into your day.
We’ll look at physical stress, energy and fatigue, and what happens to the demands of weight-loss behaviours when your body is already using significant resources elsewhere.
And we’ll talk about something that caused me an enormous amount of frustration throughout my own journey.
Plateaus.
Those periods when you’re doing everything you believe you should be doing and the bloody scales still refuse to move.
We’ll look at why weight loss doesn’t always happen in the predictable straight line we would quite like it to, how your body can respond and adapt as you lose weight, and why a change on the scales doesn’t always tell us everything about what is happening inside your body.
As we move through each of these areas, I don’t want you looking for another collection of problems you need to fix.
I want you to become curious about your own physical capacity.
What supports you?
What physically drains you?
What does your current approach to weight loss ask from your body?
And are there places where you could support your body differently, so that maintaining the behaviours involved in losing weight doesn’t continually require quite so much from you?
Because once again, our goal isn’t simply to create the physical conditions in which you can lose weight.
You’ve done that before.
We’re interested in the physical conditions that can help support your capacity to keep going, so that this time we’re not only thinking about the loss.
We’re thinking about what comes after it too.