Fitness For Too-Busy Guys

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Hey Brothers,

Welcome back to the LenDentonThrive Letter. This is where I write every week about the ThriveLife - my food-first, gym-optional approach to lose weight, get fit and stay fit for life!

This week's edition of the Letter is Part 2 of my quick two-part series on effective weight loss for super-busy, overweight guys who want to lose 20, 30 or more pounds… all without doing crazy diets or spending hours every week in the gym.

In Part 1, I talked about two big takeaways: 

1. Research shows that the real cause of obesity is an excess of calories (due mainly to ultra-processed foods or UPFs); and NOT a lack of exercise.

2. Three things you should stop doing now to combat further fat-building and weight gain are: 

   • Skip calorie-restrictive diets

   • Stop eating ultra-processed food

   • Stop drinking your calories 

If you missed Part 1, you can read it here. 

In today’s edition, I want to share six smart, but simple habits you can use to build a healthy, long-term lifestyle that doesn’t rely on diets, will-power or how much you can bench-press. And, I’ll keep it short, but provide references so you can deep dive when time permits.

So, here are six things (listed in priority order) to start doing to create a fat-burning lifestyle that will become the foundation to enable you to become forever-fit!

Start Doing This

1 - Exit the Red Zone 

The Red Zone is a group of foods that you should eliminate from your everyday nutritional plan. These foods all have a HIGH Glycemic Index (GI) (meaning greater than 70). This means that Red Zone foods spike your glucose levels, which triggers fat storage and insulin resistance. These industrially-engineered Red Zone foods are the primary reason for the current obesity epidemic. They’re not just highly caloric, they are also addictive! 

Find these Red Zone foods in your diet and eliminate them:

• Sugar

• White flour

• White rice

• White potatoes

• Corn

• High-fructose corn syrup

• Ultra-processed foods (UPFs)

Replace these foods with healthier alternatives (with lower GIs) like fresh meats, vegetables and fruits. I call this Eating Smarter and you can learn more about this here and here. 

Remember, once you get your food right, everything else gets easier!

2 - Move More 

Motion is medicine… and more is better.

Your body burns more energy resting throughout the day than you’ll burn in an exercise session. The key to faster weight loss is to ramp up your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), accounting for 60-70% of your daily calorie burn. So, if you can increase your BMR, you’ll burn more excess calaories than any exercise you can do.

To boost BMR, I follow two strategies that have proven to be very effective for me:

Zone 2 Cardio - this is the single most effective fat-burning exercise available. In Zone 2 (60-70% of your max heart rate), your body uses fat stores as its energy source, burning off excess fat. At higher levels of exertion, your body switches to a combination of fat stores and muscle as its source of glucose. (This is why body builders shy away from cardio as it tends to diminish their muscle gains. But, if you stay in Zone 2, you’ll get the max benefit without muscle loss.) I focus on getting at least 25-30 minutes of Zone 2 Cardio every day, preferable before food to amplify the fat-burning effects.

Move Hourly - Men spend too much time sitting these days. So, I set my fitness tracker to remind me to move at least 5 minutes every hour from 7AM to 8PM every day. This helps boost BMR and is an easy way to get extra steps every day.  

3 - Weigh-in Daily 

What gets measured gets managed (and gets better)! That’s especially true when it comes to your weight. 

I weigh myself every day, first thing in the morning, before any food or drink. Knowing your daily weight helps to influence your decisions throughout the day. 

Recording your daily weight in an app (I use the Fitbit app) allows me to link today's weight to yesterday's activities and creates a weight loss graph to track the trend line. This engages your mind to make the curve bend in the desired direction. This practice is powerful for behavior modification, and I recommend every guy do it. You can learn more here.

4 - Daily Meal Planning 

It’s easier to avoid excess calories than it is to burn them off exercising. That’s why just a few minutes of planning a day could make the difference between losing and gaining weight.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. Every morning ask yourself two quick questions:

Q1: What am I doing today (what’s my plan)?

Q2: Where/what will I eat today?

By asking these two quick questions, you can decide how you’ll meet your nutrition needs for the day while avoiding the Red Zone Trap (finding yourself with no options other than eating bad food). 

Here’s a quick example:

Q1: What am I doing today?

A1: It’s a normal work day. Having lunch with a client at Claire’s Bistro. Then, the kids have a ballgame after work.  

Q2: What will I eat today?

A2: A healthy breakfast at home. A chef salad at Claire’s for lunch. Then, a quick, healthy dinner at home before the game. 

This is a simple exercise that I do every day while on my morning walk. It usually takes me less than two minutes. Make it work for your own schedule so you can avoid the Red Zone Trap every day.

5 - Train Smarter 

Strength is an important part of any fitness strategy. But, you can build strength without spending endless hours at the gym. While we begin by focusing on fat loss through better eating, you’ll want to incorporate strength training as you begin to experience regular weight loss.

I suggest a ‘gym optional’ approach to strength training. If you are a ‘gym guy,’ then feel free to go to the gym. If you don't like the gym, or it's inconvenient to your schedule, then create your strength training around alternative approaches. Do whatever works for you and whatever you’ll take the time to actually do!

My strength training routine involves doing body weight exercises and using dumbbells at my home gym three days a week.  The key is to follow an approach that you can actually do and that works for you.  

6 - Get Better Sleep

Sleep really matters for weight loss, fitness and cognitive health. Most of us don’t get enough quality sleep. This is my #1 fitness focus area these days. My goal is to get 7 hours of quality sleep every night. 

Sleep affects our bodies and brains in a number of important ways. Better sleep helps us regulate ghrelin, a hunger hormone that affects our digestion and fat storage. Less sleep actually causes us to be hungrier and store more fat. Sleep also helps us manage cortisol, the fight-or-flight hormone. Better cortisol management leads to better weight loss outcomes. Finally, better sleep has been shown to improve cognition and alertness scores. 

To improve my sleep, I’ve adopted a nightly routine I call my night-time ritual. The goal is to help me slow down and relax before bed. You can read more about my night-time ritual for better sleep here.

Bringing It All Together

So, this is the road map to better health and fitness for busy guys who want to lose weight, get fit and create a lifestyle for ‘Forever Fitness.’ 

You don’t need crazy diets, gruelling workouts or obscene levels of self discipline to do this.

All you need are these six simple steps. Make these your daily habits and you’ll be on your way to a healthier future. 

I’ve been following these same six habits for 12 years. These habits helped me lose 70 pounds in 7 month. And, they’ve helped me to stay at my goal weight for 12 years. 

This simple approach has worked for me, and it can work for you, too. 

I hope you’ll join me on this journey to a healthier future. 

And remember, God loves us. He wants us to thrive. So, let’s go!

Thanks for reading this week.

I write this newsletter to make a positive impact on the lives of men and their families. If you found this information useful, please consider subscribing to receive new editions each week. And, please share this with friends or family that would benefit from the ThriveLife!

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