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Building A Bridge To Your Longevity

LenDentonThrive Letter #54

Hey Brothers!

Welcome to the LenDentonThrive Letter!

I’m on a mission to help guys over the age of 50 get lighter, stronger, and live longer. We do that by building healthy, sustainable lifestyles. I call it the ThriveLife! And, I write this newsletter to share strategies and tips to help you build your own, custom ThriveLife.

We’re all getting older! But, how well are we aging? How healthy and active we’ll be in 10, 20, or even 30 years depends only partially on our genetics. More important are the actions and decisions we make every day. 

I believe we’re moving into an era of unprecedented advancement in human health and well-being. In the next 10 years, I believe that we’ll see new breakthroughs in medications and therapies that will give us the upper hand over many of today’s fatal diseases, enabling us to extend our healthy lives (our healthspans) by an additional 20 years, or even longer. A healthy (and vigorous) 100 may even become an everyday reality for some of us. 

The trick for us Over-50 Guys will be to stay healthy long enough to experience the benefits of these breakthroughs. I call this the bridge to longevity. The goal is to stay healthy and vigorous enough to take advantage of these life-extending breakthroughs.

Here are 9 things (in priority order) that we can all do to build bridges to our improved longevity:

1. Take Action - Understand that your health and fitness is a Do-It-Yourself project. No one is coming to save us, but we can save ourselves! Our health and fitness are largely a result of past decisions that we’ve made. So, if we don’t like our current situation, we can change it by changing our minds. Then, we can change those unhelpful decisions and take healthier actions.

2. Partner with a Good Doctor - Work with a doctor who is willing to become your longevity partner. If you have only a transactional relationship with your current doctor, find a new one who you can work with more effectively. If your doctor is older than you, or overweight, consider finding a new doctor. You own your health and fitness, but your doctor will be your primary medical consultant, so choose wisely. 

3. Get Your Medical Conditions Under Control - with the help of your doctor, get any medical condition you have under control. Things like high blood pressure or high cholesterol left untreated lead to major problems later. Most Over-50 Guys have some kind of condition that needs to be monitored or actively addressed. Don’t ignore these.

4. Get Your Diet Under Control -  If you can change the way you think about food, you can change the way you look, the way you feel, and how long you’ll live. The best way to lose weight is NOT dieting. Rather, a better approach is to make better food choices. I call this approach Eating Smarter, and you can learn more about it here. 

5. Start Moving - (or move more!) Get more physical activity every day. Set yourself a daily step count, and grow it to at least 7,000 steps a day. Guys who get at least 7,000 steps per day have a 50% lower risk of all-cause mortality! And, Zone 2 cardio (heart rate at 60-70% of max heart rate) is the best way to burn excess body fat. Get more details about Moving Smarter here.

6. Get Stronger - add resistance training to your routine to help you build muscle mass and functional strength. You can do this at the gym, or use a gym-optional approach as noted here.

7. Get More Sleep - Sleep is the super drug of longevity, but most of us Over-50 Guys operate at a sleep deficit (meaning we get less than the recommended 7-9 hours per night). Lack of sleep can lead to poor cognition, poor memory performance, stress, weight gain and even dementia. The good news is that we can improve our sleep with better habits. Learn to sleep better here.

8. Build Your Community - People with strong ties to a community (friends, clubs, church, etc.) live longer and healthier lives than those living in isolation. Loneliness is a major health problem for older Americans. Start now to build the community that you want to grow old with.

9. Be Optimistic - People with an optimistic view of the future will outlive those who are pessimistic. I call this a longevity mindset. We all know Guys who have retired their minds as they retired from their careers. They’ve lost interest in learning new things or making plans for the future. Don’t let that be your fate. Build a future you’re looking forward to as you age. Make your future bigger than your past.  

None of us are going to live forever. But, shouldn’t we all be working to maximize both the quality and length of our lives?  We can do that by building our own bridges to longevity.

I hope you have a long, healthy, and adventurous life!

Thanks for reading this week.

I write this newsletter to make a positive impact on the lives of Over-50 Guys and their families. If you found this information useful, please consider subscribing to receive new editions each week.

If you’d like to share a thought, a question or comment with me, you can simply reply to this email. I’d love to hear from you!

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