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LenDentonThrive Letter #10

7 Steps to Start Your ThriveLife

Happy Saturday! I’m Len Denton, and I’m glad you’re here!

I’ve written extensively about the ThriveLife since the beginning of this newsletter. In today’s edition, I’ll be sharing 7 steps that anyone can take to get started on building their own custom-tuned ThriveLife.

It’s easier than you think, regardless of where you are on your health and fitness journey. The sooner you begin, the sooner you’ll begin to enjoy the rewards of building your ThriveLife!

But first, here’s a quick overview of this week’s edition of the LenDentonThrive Letter:

• The Big Idea - This week, I’ll share the 7 steps to start your ThriveLife.

• Tip of the Week - This week’s tip shares a simple way to start tracking your results to help you maximize your outcomes.

• What I’m Eating - a quick look at a typical ThriveAge-compatible meal or snack. (Warning - non-professional food photos below!)

• What I’m reading - I’ll share two useful news items that you can benefit from!

I’m really glad that you’re here! We have a lot to cover in ten minutes or less, so let’s get started!

1. The Big Idea - 7 Steps to Start Your ThriveLife

The ThriveLife is something that I’ve been talking about for a long time. But, if you’re new to this newsletter, you may be wondering, “What, exactly, is the ThriveLife?”

I wrote about the ThriveLife extensively in a previous edition, which you can see here. You might think of the ThriveLife as a destination, like reaching your goal weight or a similar achievement. But, the ThriveLife is more than that.

The ThriveLife is more like a style of travel than any actual destination. It describes a lifestyle of thriving. And, the good news is, thriving happens long before you actually reach your goal. You begin to thrive more as you progress down the path toward your goal. And, the thriving increases as you get closer to your goal.

There’s one more thing about the ThriveLife that bears emphasizing. It’s actually YOUR ThriveLife or MY ThriveLife. That’s because each person will build a version of the ThriveLife that is custom-tuned to their desires, appetites, and aspirations. It’s a framework, not a formula.

So, with this concept of the ThriveLife as a personally customized lifestyle in mind, let’s dive into the 7 steps I recommend for you to build YOUR Thrivelife.

Step 1 - Take Charge

Step 1 is to take charge of your own health and fitness. In America, we are experiencing an obesity epidemic. More than 2/3 of American men are either overweight or obese (based on Body Mass Index or BMI).

When it comes to our personal health and fitness, we are the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of our health and fitness. That’s because health and fitness are essentially Do-It-Yourself projects. Your doctor can help you get well if you get sick, but it’s on us to become fit and healthy.

You’re the Boss! Nothing happens unless you decide. So, make the call to start the journey to your ThriveLife!

Step 2 - Check Your Health

As you get started, it’s important to touch base with your doctor for two reasons. First, it’s always a good idea to check with your doctor before you begin any new fitness activity. Second, the key to living a long and healthy life is early detection and treatment of diseases. Regular annual exams are the key to early detection.

If you haven’t seen your doctor in a year or more, make an appointment and get an exam.

Here’s a suggestion: in the future, request copies of all of your medical test results, and store them (in a file or online) for future reference. I’ve lost access to most of my medical records due to my previous doctor’s offices being acquired or shut down due to retirement. However, I have test results dating back to 2013. I’ve referred to these many times.

Step 3 - Avoid Shortcuts

When building your ThriveLife, choose your tools wisely. The fitness world is filled with quick fixes that come in all kinds of forms - fad diets, pills, shakes, powders, gadgets, programs, etc.

It’s important to remember that the benefits any approach provides only last as long as you continue to do that approach. You can’t build a lifestyle on quick-hit, short-term results.

Here’s my suggestion: avoid shortcuts. Only choose approaches that you can do every day for the rest of your life. That’s how you build a lifestyle. This is what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years. It works, so why stop?

Step 4 - Eat Smarter

Food is the single most important aspect of losing weight, getting into shape, and becoming more fit. Most of the major diseases plaguing American men today (hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, even cancer) are closely related to our food. Most of us are daily consumers of what I call the Standard American Diet (aka SAD), which is filled with hidden sugars and chemicals. The SAD is the source of the explosion of obesity and is slowly poisoning us!

The antidote to the SAD is to eat smarter. I’ve developed a simple approach called the ThriveAge FoodIQ System to help guys to eat smarter without resorting to counting calories. You can read more about it here.

Here’s my suggestion for how you can start eating smarter today: simply eliminate these six food items from your daily diet:

1. Sugar

2. High-Fructose Corn Syrup

3. White flour

4. White rice

5. White potatoes

6. Corn

All six of these foods spike your glucose levels and cause your body to store excess energy as fat. These are all considered to be Red Zone foods by the FoodIQ System.

Step 5 - Start Moving

Motion is medicine.

If you are not currently exercising, I recommend that you begin doing so. If you don’t have a regular exercise routine, I suggest that you begin by walking.

All forms of exercise are useful to help us become more fit and healthy. However, if you need to lose 25 or more pounds, I highly recommend that you prioritize cardio exercise over strength training - at least in the early stages of your ThriveLife. This is because cardio burns calories more effectively than strength training. This, in turn, will help you establish a calorie deficit, which is essential for weight loss. You’ll be able to add strength training in the future as your weight begins to drop.

It’s important not to overdo the exercise component in the early stages of the ThriveLife. Start with what is comfortable and build from there. There is no such thing as “no pain - no gain” in the ThriveLife. Consistency is more important than intensity.

Here’s my suggestion to start moving: start wherever you are. If you are not exercising, just start walking for 5, 10, or 15 minutes per day. Build up to 30 minutes per day when you can. (Note: In 2014, I lost 70 pounds without running a step. It was all walking. Walking is a very underrated form of exercise!)

Step 6 - Get Better Sleep

Sleep is a secret superpower of health and fitness. Most of us aren’t getting enough quality sleep. Over-50 Guys like you and me need between 7-9 hours per night. Anything less is considered to be a sleep deficit. Long-term sleep deficits can lead to all kinds of undesirable health outcomes including obesity, hypertension, and even Alzheimer’s Disease. I recently wrote an entire newsletter on this topic here.

Here are two suggestions for how to start getting better sleep now:

1. Create a sleep-conducive environment - comfy bedding, dark and quiet room, cool temperature, no disruptions (phone notifications, pets, etc.).

2. Develop a personal night-time ritual that allows you to gradually slow down and prepare your body and brain for sleep. One example of this is the 3-2-1 approach: no food 3 hours before bed, no drink 2 hours before bed, and no screens (phones, laptops, TVs) 1 hour before bedtime.

You’ll want to create your own version of the night-time ritual.

Step 7 - Track Your Results

The final step to building your ThriveLife is to track your results. The key reason for tracking our results is simple - to see if we are progressing or improving. As Peter Drucker, the famous management guru once said:

“What gets measured, improves.”

The converse of this is also true…if we don’t measure, we don’t improve.

Tracking doesn’t have to be complicated. In the Tip-of-The-Week, I’ll share a simple idea for how you can track your important metrics.

Summary

The 7 steps I’ve described will help you jumpstart your efforts to launch your own ThriveLife. Use them as a roadmap to a new and healthier lifestyle.

Each of these 7 steps is valuable as an independent action. Each would help you to improve your overall health and fitness. However, when you apply all of these steps as a unified system, they reinforce each other and amplify your outcomes. The result is a compound effect that helps you to reach your goals more quickly.

In his popular habits book, Atomic Habits, author James Clear says:

“Winners and losers share the same goals. Winners have better systems.”

These 7 steps form the basis for a better system to help you build your own personal ThriveLife.

I hope this empowers you to start your journey today!

Want to Go Deeper?

Do you want to dive deeper into ThriveAge and what it can do in your life? If that sounds like a smart move for you, then consider subscribing to the LenDentonThrive Letter. It’s totally free!

As a bonus, new subscribers will receive a free .pdf version of Chapter 1 of my upcoming new book, The ThriveAge Way (The Over-50 Way To Lose Weight, Get Fit & Stay Fit For Life).

ThriveAge is the roadmap to your custom-built ThriveLife!

2. Tip of the Week: A Simple Idea For Tracking Results

This week, I’m sharing a simple idea that can help you to overcome concerns you may have about tracking your ThriveLife results. Here’s my suggestion for how to start a simple, but helpful tracking process as you begin your ThriveLife journey.

Create a simple daily checklist to track:

• Weigh-ins (mornings, before meals, coffee, or getting dressed)

• Red Zone food consumption (Yes/No with notes)

• Minutes or Steps walked

• Sleep (lights-out and wake-up times)

This daily checklist might be on your phone, a spreadsheet, or even a good, old-fashioned paper journal. Whatever works best for you.

Over time, your tracking process will likely become a bit more detailed as you further develop your ThriveLife activities. I personally rely on my Fitbit fitness tracker and accompanying app to do my exercise and sleep tracking. It makes this part of my ThriveLive really simple, and provides me with historic data going back to January 2014.

3. What I’m Eating

ThriveAge is a food-first approach to health and fitness. I call it '“fitness for food lovers!” So, each week I’ll be giving you a quick insight into one of my typical meals. No crazy diets, just real food.

This week’s entry is my Shrimp Stir Fry, one of my favorite quick meals.

Here’s the break-down:

This is my own recipe, based on 8 Green Zone ingredients:

• Shrimp

• Basmati Rice

• Broccoli

• Onions

• Matchstick Carrots

• Olive Oil

• Soy Sauce

• Seasonings (Black pepper and garlic powder)

   

• This is a total of about 300 calories. But, more important to ThriveAgers, this is a 4 Greens, 0 Yellows, and 0 Reds meal with a FoodIQ of 300. It’s quick and easy to prepare, and it tastes great.

Email me at [email protected] for the recipe.

Enjoy!

4. What I’m Reading

Here is some “news you can use” from this week’s reading stack. I hope you find these two items to be helpful:

1. Walking Could Save Your Life - This USA Today article from September 2022 highlights how walking helps to reduce mortality by up to 70%. Who knew?? (Hint…I did!)

   https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2022/09/22/exercise-tip-10-000-steps-day-could-save-your-life/10432516002/

2. Coffee Is Actually Good For You?? - This 2022 article from EverydayHealth.com reveals what us committed coffee lovers already knew…coffee is good for you!

   https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/daily-coffee-associated-with-lower-risk-of-early-death/

I’m Writing A Book!

I’m a busy Over-50 Guy who has spent the past ten years building a practice of personal health and fitness that relies on real food and smart exercise instead of crazy diets and killer workouts. This process, called ThriveAge, helped me to lose 70 pounds and keep it off for going on ten years. Now, I want to share what I have learned with other Over-50 Guys. So, I wrote the book!

In The ThriveAge Way (The Over-50 Way To Lose Weight, Get Fit & Stay Fit For Life), I share everything I’ve learned about the principles and practices necessary to create and sustain a healthy lifestyle. I call it my ThriveLife.

New subscribers to the LenDentonThrive Letter will receive Chapter 1 of my new book for free. To get your free copy of Chapter 1, just subscribe to the LenDentonThrive Letter.

Upcoming Topics

Here’s a quick look at some of the topics I’m working on for upcoming editions of the newsletter.

• Ten Years into the ThriveLife

• Taking Thriveage Out to Dinner

• Beating Your Sugar Addiction

• Develop a Longevity Mindset to Add Years to Your Life

Thanks for your time and attention. Have a great weekend. See you next Saturday!

Thrive & Prosper,

Len

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See you next Saturday!