[00:00:00] Jenn Trepeck: Welcome to Salad with a side of Fries. I'm your host, Jenn Trepeck, talking wellness and weight loss for real life. We're here to clear up the myths, misinformation, bad science and marketing to teach you how to eat and how to cheat. Are you ready? I'm having salad with a side of fries. This week we're talking about capacity.

[00:00:26] Now, one of my business coaches talks about this concept all the time. She talks about capacity in terms of a company and its growth. According to Forbes, capacity is the maximum amount that something can contain. So think of the capacity of your water bottle, right? It can only hold so many ounces. By definition, capacity is a finite amount.

[00:00:52] When I talk about this with my clients, it's about understanding our capacity and creating goals, [00:01:00] plans, or expectations aligned with our capacity. Because what usually happens is we create the goals, plans and expectations aligned with our capabilities. So capabilities, again, according to Forbes, is the ability or potential to do something.

[00:01:18] Key to capability is that the skills can be learned or developed. So go with me on this one. When it comes to health and habits, or frankly anything we wanna do. We write the goal or create the expectations for ourselves based on our capabilities, you are 1000% capable of doing absolutely anything you wanna do, because even if you don't in this moment, know how to do it.

[00:01:46] Remember, fundamental to capability is that you can learn the thing. So what we overlook. Our capacity. Each of us only has a finite amount of hours in the day, or so much additional [00:02:00] support, or so much bandwidth or energy. So consider what you're expecting of yourself, especially this time of year. We have the holidays, extra tasks, more on our to-do list, extra events in the calendar, things that frankly just take up our time.

[00:02:16] Or maybe it's not even about this time of year. Maybe you're in a phase of life where you have young kids. Maybe you're not sleeping much because they're not sleeping much, or you're taking care of kids and aging parents, which requires more and more of your time. The thing I want everyone to recognize is that these are real factors to consider.

[00:02:38] What I see so often is that we still expect ourselves to have all of these things going on, plus have a stock pantry, a beautifully balanced meal on the table at six 30 on the dot, or the 60 minute workout that you had in your head. So when our expectations are not aligned with our capacity, we're left frustrated.

[00:02:57] Like the reality that we kind of just went through of [00:03:00] having extra things, maybe picking up dinner from the diner, even if it's something that you could have made. That's what you can handle tonight. Maybe it means a 10 minute walk, a couple times a day while you're on a phone call or going back to what I call DWDS drink water, do squats, right?

[00:03:20] We have a nutrition nugget on that, right? But if that's the movement that you could fit, awesome. It's about the reality of our capacity. Because remember, it's not that you're not capable of doing more or not capable of making dinner. It's your capacity in the moment. That doesn't allow for it. It's simply a reality.

[00:03:40] Now, think about this too. When it comes to comparison, we see people on social media or celebrities, especially when we look at a lot of the biohackers, a lot of the tech bros, right? Their capacity. Is very different than yours. Maybe because they have resources for a chef or other [00:04:00] things. Fine. Let's just align our expectations with our capacity versus expecting theirs to be ours.

[00:04:09] Right? So there's one more piece to this As we think about capacity and capability, and that's, we already talked about that we can increase our capabilities, right? We can learn new things, we can work with a coach who helps us. We can also increase our capacity while it's finite in the moment, it's not fixed forever.

[00:04:32] So what does it look like to increase our capacity? Or at times decrease our capacity, right? Because it can move in both directions. So certainly at times, right? Maybe you don't have kids, then you do, right? There's a decrease in that capacity potentially. But this time of year we have holiday parties and holiday shopping and travel and you know, like the example we gave, this may be a time of contracting capacity.

[00:04:58] There are also times of [00:05:00] increasing or expanding capacity. So how do we increase our capacity? It might be a different phase of life. It might be increasing our energetic capacity, potentially recognizing that 10 squats is what we can do. The 10 minute walk that we did do. Simply recognizing everything we are doing actually increases our energetic capacity instead of feeling frustrated.

[00:05:25] You can increase your energetic capacity by choosing energizing foods, minimizing the energy, zapping foods, right? Quality nutrition over the choices that create blood sugar spikes and drops. Maybe increasing capacity, looks like support. So maybe that's a significant other. A sibling, a friend saying to someone, Hey, I need you to be here when the kids get home from school because that will allow me to, and then fill in the blank with what you're gonna do with that time.

[00:05:54] We have tools. To increase our capacity in any moment if we decide [00:06:00] to use them. But fundamentally, it's about managing our expectations to meet our current capacity and just recognizing that that is where we're, so, I hope this is resonating. I think it's an important conversation, perfect for this time of year to remind ourselves about our capacity to set our goals and plans and expectations in line with that as it is in this moment.

[00:06:23] So Ben, our featured expert of the week, thoughts, anything you wanna share?

[00:06:28] Ben Tzeel: I think the biggest thing is with capacity to make sure that you were mentioning, you know, hey, having someone, for example, be there when your kids come home from school, getting rid of things. People don't think about how much you can cut out.

[00:06:39] And almost consider if you're willing to spend the extra, you know, 15 minutes to do it. Doing like an audit of your schedule. A hundred percent nonsense. Because there's many times where you realize, you look back and you're thinking, I spent 90 minutes scrolling. I could have done so much stuff, and maybe it was 10 minutes here and 20 minutes there, but there's a lot of things that you could cut out that suddenly you didn't have [00:07:00] time for, fill in the blank, important thing for your health, but now you do because you cut out a bunch of the nonsense and the noise.

[00:07:05] That to me is the biggest thing. And when people tell me, oh, I don't have time, that's always the first thing I have them do is, okay, let's see what time you truly don't have. And there's usually. 20 minutes in there where you can sneak in some sort of activity or meal prep or something easy.

[00:07:19] Jenn Trepeck: Yes. A time audit Maybe that we should do an episode on how to do a time audit because it is real and enlightening.

[00:07:27] I love that. Thank you. It's

[00:07:28] Ben Tzeel: scary. Yeah, scary enlightening,

[00:07:29] Jenn Trepeck: right? But

[00:07:29] Ben Tzeel: also very important. I feel like I, I honestly think everyone should do it once a year, at least

[00:07:34] Jenn Trepeck: for sure.

[00:07:35] Ben Tzeel: And maybe every day you have a different schedule, but you have roughly the same idea and going from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed instead of just during the day when you're at work.

[00:07:42] Or you're at school or wherever. That also is very telling.

[00:07:45] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah, a thousand percent. And I think it's also worth repeating. You are a million percent capable. The limiting factors are capacity. Yep.

[00:07:55] Ben Tzeel: So boost that capacity and you'll be very happy with what happens next.

[00:07:58] Jenn Trepeck: For sure. [00:08:00] Well, as always, everybody, I'm your host, Jenn Trepeck Connect with the on Instagram or all social media.

[00:08:04] I'm at Jenn Trepeck, J-E-N-N-T-R-E-P-E-C-K. Website is a salad with the side of fries.com. Pick your platform, send a message hearing from you is the highlight. Of my day. I love hearing your takeaways, your ideas, your questions. This is also the easiest way to learn more about working with me as your health coach.

[00:08:23] Ben Zeal, thank you again for joining us.

[00:08:26] Ben Tzeel: Thank you for having me. This has been a blast.

[00:08:28] Jenn Trepeck: Absolutely. And friends, if you are not already join us in the Happy Healthy Hub, you'll go to a salad with the side of fries.com/membership. This shows your support for this podcast, this community, and your health. On top of this week's episode and full video with Behind the Scenes content, your 24 7, ask Me Anything, you'll get this week's recipe for the Easy Beef Chili.

[00:08:50] Well Friends, that's it for today's episode of Salad with a side of Fries. Congratulations for making yourself and your health a priority. Thanks so much for joining us. Be sure to [00:09:00] click subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast platform. Share us with a friend and we'll be back next week. Always remember you deserve it and you are worth it.

[00:09:09] Happy, healthy.