The Foundation
A four-week strength, nutrition and habit reset for women over 35
You do not need another diet. You need the habits, structure and minimum effective actions that make any plan finally stick. Sixteen weeks: a four-week Starter — two short strength sessions a week, enough protein, and a rehearsed answer for the bad weeks — then twelve weeks of progression and support. That is the foundation everything else is built on.
For women who keep starting again
You are busy, capable and tired of the cycle: start strong on Monday, gone by Wednesday, guilt by Friday. You have done the slimming clubs, the bootcamps, the January diets. They were built on willpower and suffering, for someone with spare time and stable hormones. This is built for the life you actually have.
Inside the four-week Starter (weeks 1–4 of 16)
- Two full-body strength sessions a week, with an optional third. Every session comes in 15, 25 and 40 minute versions so a collapsing Tuesday cannot collapse the plan.
- Home and gym tracks. Start with bodyweight and a pair of dumbbells, or use your gym if you prefer.
- The protein starter system: roughly 1.6g per kg of bodyweight a day, made practical with real meals rather than powders and maths.
- A walking baseline that fits your current life, because daily steps are the most under-rated body composition lever in midlife.
- A weekly scorecard that measures consistency, not perfection.
- The bad week protocol: exactly what to do when life goes sideways, so you never miss twice.
- Personalised to your eating pattern. Your assessment result decides how you track (some patterns should not count calories at all), when you eat, and which habit to fix first.
Week by week
Baseline
Your minimum week: first two strength sessions, your protein starter and your walking baseline. Nothing extreme, everything repeatable.
Build
Sessions progress, protein becomes automatic, fibre joins the party. You start noticing the routine holding on ordinary days.
The bad week rehearsal
We plan for chaos on purpose: 15-minute fallbacks, the never-miss-twice rule, and restarting as a skill you practise.
Make it yours
Maintenance rules, your scorecard review, and a clear next step, whether that is a goal programme, the membership, or simply carrying on.
The Starter month above is weeks 1–4 of the full sixteen weeks. Weeks 5–16 build on it with progression, personalisation, disruption rehearsal and preparing you for life after the programme. The structure shown may be refined before the programme starts.
Built on evidence, not vibes
- Progressive strength training improves strength and lean muscle in women through and beyond menopause (Thomas et al., 2021 meta-analysis). UK guidance recommends muscle-strengthening at least twice a week.
- Protein benefits level off around 1.6g per kg per day (Morton et al., British Journal of Sports Medicine), which is why we aim there and no higher.
- Fat loss requires a calorie deficit, but no named diet overrides energy balance. Adherence decides the winner (Hall et al.), so we build the plan around why you normally stop.
- If-then planning measurably improves follow-through (Gollwitzer and Sheeran). The bad week protocol is that research, turned into instructions.
No hormone hype, no detox claims, no promises of a number on the scale. Just the fundamentals, personalised to the reason you normally fall off plan.
The medication gives you a window. This is how you keep the results.
More women than ever are using a GLP-1 medication such as semaglutide (Wegovy, Ozempic) or tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Zepbound). For many, it finally quietens a constant, exhausting hunger and makes losing weight feel possible, sometimes for the first time in years. That is a real and valuable window.
What the medication does not do is build the habits and the muscle that keep the results once your appetite returns or you come off it. A large share of the weight lost on these medications can be muscle, and muscle is what protects your strength, your energy and your shape for the long term. Lose it, and the weight tends to return, harder.
The Foundation is built to use that window well. While your appetite is quiet, you put the two things in place that make the change last: simple, repeatable habits, and short strength sessions that protect and build muscle. You come out of the window steadier and stronger, with routines that hold, not just lighter.
This is coaching, not medical advice. Your prescriber stays in charge of your medication. The Foundation looks after the training, the protein and the habits around it. A deeper companion programme for women on these medications is on the way, and you can join the waitlist for it once you are inside.
I have been teaching fitness classes and personal training for 28 years, and I don’t love training. That is exactly why The Foundation exists. More than 28 years of teaching has shown me that the most technically perfect programme is useless if it does not fit the person’s actual life. This one is designed to fit.
Asked and answered, honestly
Yes. Every workout comes in 15, 25 and 40 minute versions. If Tuesday collapses, you do the 15 minute version before dinner or move the session to Wednesday. You do not wait for Monday.
No. Building visible muscle mass takes years of deliberate, heavy work and a lot of food. What two to three short strength sessions a week actually do is protect the muscle and bone you already have, improve your shape and make daily life feel easier.
No gym required. The home track starts with bodyweight and a pair of dumbbells. There is a gym track if you would rather use one.
Only if it suits you. There are three routes: no counting, light tracking with a planned exit, or detailed macros. Your eating pattern decides which one you start with, and some patterns genuinely should not count at all.
You follow the bad week protocol: shrink the plan instead of abandoning it, and never miss twice. Restarting is a skill we rehearse on purpose in week three, because busy weeks are not the exception, they are the pattern.
Not a weight loss one, because honest coaching cannot promise you a number or a date. What I can promise: methods supported by published research, a plan built around your real week, and straight answers when you are stuck.
A note on safety. The Foundation is general fitness and nutrition education, not medical advice. If you have a medical condition or an eating disorder history, are pregnant, or take prescribed medication, involve your healthcare team first.
Join the waitlist
The Foundation opens soon. Join the waitlist to be first in line — and first to hear when doors open.
Enrolment is not open yet and no prices are published yet. The complete written programme, guides and worksheets will be available in your account from day one — every workout with its full written guide, exercise instructions, adaptations and a minimum version. All four essential workout videos (Full-Body Weights A, Full-Body Weights B, Cardio with optional light weights that counts towards your daily steps, and Core) will be available by the programme start date.
When you join, you will retain access to your purchased Foundation course materials and their updates for as long as The Foundation service operates, subject to the terms. Ending or declining the optional membership does not remove access to your purchased Foundation materials.
Support, when the programme runs: technical and billing help from purchase (replies within 2 UK business days); programme support from the programme start date to the end of week 16 (replies within 3 working days or the weekly answer batch) — educational and bounded, not personalised medical, diagnostic or clinical-nutrition advice.
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Not sure it is for you? Take the free 2-minute eating assessment first.