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LenDentonThrive Letter #3 - Boost Your FoodIQ

Part 2A of the 4-Part ThriveAge ‘Simple Rules’ Series

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

In last week’s newsletter, I explained Simple Rule #1 - and why it’s imperative that we take ownership of our own health and fitness. I also shared how we can do that through making incremental changes in our behavior - because fitness is behavior! If you haven’t seen it, be sure to check that out when you have a few minutes to spare.

In case you aren’t yet familiar with the Four Simple Rules, here’s a quick summary:

• Simple Rule #1 - Take Charge

• Simple Rule #2 - Boost Your FoodIQ

• Simple Rule #3 - Remain in Motion

• Simple Rule #4 - Measure What Matters

Now, on to today’s Big Idea.

There’s a lot to cover here, so for the sake of brevity, I’ll cover FoodIQ Food Zones in this week’s edition. Then, I’ll finish the discussion by covering the FoodIQ Action Levels in next week’s edition.

Here’s the quick overview of this week’s edition of the LenDentonThrive Letter:

• The Big Idea - This week, we tackle Part 1 of Simple Rule #2 - Boost Your FoodIQ by exploring the three FoodIQ Food Zones.

• Tip of the Week - this week, I’ll share six Red Zone foods that I avoid to effectively manage my weight.

• 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 - some additional insights from the halfway point of James Clear’s Atomic Habits book.

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 - ThriveAge Simple Rule #2

Gentlemen, we have a problem.

Obesity is at an all-time high among American men, and it’s getting worse every year. It is the underlying cause of most of the health conditions that are afflicting men at record levels. This includes serious, life-shortening diseases like Type-2 diabetes and heart disease, which is the #1 killer of American men! And, according to the CDC, 1 in 3 cardiac events will occur among men aged 35-64.

(As a side note, I lost both my dad and my little brother to heart attacks in their 30s!)

The primary culprit in America’s current obesity epidemic is what I call the Standard American Diet or S.A.D. As a population, we are consuming too many sweets, too much fast food, and too many highly-processed foods. Furthermore, sugars and unhealthy industrialized sweeteners (like high fructose corn syrup) are hidden in almost all of our food. This is done to make the foods taste good, but it also makes them addictive!

However, there is good news! The CDC says that up to 80% of cardiac events are preventable through lifestyle changes.

It means that we have a great degree of control over whether we will have to deal with heart attacks or strokes. And, one of the most important things that we can do to reduce our risks of heart attack or stroke is to maintain our weight at healthy levels. But, we also know that losing weight and keeping it off for the long term can be really difficult. That’s where Simple Rule #2 comes in.

Simple Rule #2 is Boost Your FoodIQ. 

Fact: The best way to lose weight is not to work harder or eat less. The best way to lose weight (and keep it off) is to eat smarter!

The first thing we need to do to start to lose weight, is to improve our diet. The old saying is true:

You gain strength in the gym, and you lose weight in the kitchen.

The Big Idea in this week’s edition is Simple Rule #2 - Boost Your FoodIQ.

ThriveAge is a fitness approach for food lovers. Thriveage is also a food-first approach to fitness. That’s because science shows us that the single greatest factor in our weight loss efforts is our diet. (Note: intentional exercise accounts for only around 10-15% of our daily calorie burn.)

As the name implies, Simple Rule #2 is all about helping Over-50 Guys to develop smart and effective eating strategies that enable them to lose weight and keep it off.

The ThriveAge FoodIQ system is comprised of two parts:

1. Three FoodIQ Food Zones (Green, Yellow and Red)

2. Four FoodIQ Action Levels (Baseline, Red-Zero, Yellow-Twenty and Calorie Setpoint)

Here’s how the two components work together to help you to transform your diet and improve your health.

First, the FoodIQ Zones are designed to help you make the right food choices on a daily basis to fuel your body’s needs while satisfying your tastes with foods that you love to eat.

All foods can be evaluated based on two science-based criteria:

1. Glycemic Index (GI) - this is a measure of a food item’s impact on your blood sugar levels. Foods with low glycemic indexes have little impact on your blood sugar, while those with high glycemic indexes spike blood sugar and result in weight gain and excess fat storage. Foods with low GIs are more desirable.

2. Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) - this is a measure of the amount of energy a food requires to be digested, and how quickly our bodies convert the food to calories. A low TEF means a food is quickly digested, while a high TEF means a food requires more time and energy to be digested. For example, an ounce of cake has a low TEF and is quickly digested. An ounce of steak has a high TEF and requires much more energy and time to digest. Foods with higher TEF ratings are more desirable.

Based on the above criteria, all foods can be categorized into one of the three following Food Zones:

• Green Zone - Foods that have a combination of Low GI (less than 55) and a High TEF (greater than 24%). Foods in this category are highly preferred and should make up the bulk of your daily diet (80% or more). Recommendation: Eat This!

•  Yellow Zone - Foods that have a combination of Medium GI (between 56-69) and a Medium TEF (between 19-24%). Foods in this category should be given a closer look before consuming and should be limited to no more than 20% of your daily diet. Recommendation: Check this!

• Red Zone - Foods that have a combination of High GI (70 or more) and Low TEF (less than 16%). Foods in this category should be avoided entirely! Recommendation: Avoid this!

Here is a quick summary of the three food zones to give you an idea of what types of foods are contained in each zone:

The purpose of the FoodIQ food zones is to help you make smarter food choices about what to include in your diet, and what to avoid. The smartest nutritional plan is one that prioritizes Green Zone foods (80% or more) while completely eliminating Red Zone foods from the diet.

So, now that we know what we should be eating, we need to discuss how we move away from a diet full of harmful foods to a better diet that fuels our fitness and vitality as we build our way to the ThriveLife.

In next week’s edition, we’ll pick up from here with a discussion of the four FoodIQ Action Levels and how they provide a step-by-step roadmap from wherever you are now to a fat-burning diet that drives your weight loss. All done while eating real food, with no crazy diets!

Summary

The S.A.D. approach to nutrition has wrecked the health and fitness of millions of American men. The FoodIQ approach is designed to help you to make smarter food choices. Choices that make food work for you and your weight loss goals instead of against you.

ThriveAge is a food-first approach to fitness that puts food to work for you! That’s how ThriveAge helps you to lose weight, get fit and stay fit for life!

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: Six Red Zone Foods I Avoid

Here are six Red Zone foods that I avoid in my daily nutrition planning.

1. Sugar

2. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS)

3. White flour products (bread, pasta, pastries, etc.)

4. White rice

5. White Potatoes (Russet and similar potatoes)

6. Carrots

They are all high in glycemic index (GI) with low thermic effects (TEF).

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 one of my favorite quick and easy dinners.

Here’s the break-down:

• 2 Air Fryer-roasted chicken legs with BBQ seasoning

• Fresh green beans sauteed with onions and soy sauce

• Len’s Own broccoli salad (recipe coming soon)

This is a total of about 450 calories. But, more important to ThriveAgers, this is a 6 Greens, 0 Yellows and 0 Reds dinner with a FoodIQ of 300. It’s a perfect ThriveAge meal - tasty, nutritious, and super easy to prepare.

Enjoy!

4. What I’m Reading

This week, I’ve reached the halfway point of Atomic Habits by James Clear. There is so much useful information in this book that I’m finding it difficult to summarize it in a small space.

Remember from last week’s edition that we discussed the four steps that our brains use to create habits: Cue - Craving - Response - Reward. James uses these four steps to identify The Four Laws of Behavior Change that we can use to either create useful new habits or to break bad habits.

For example, here’s how to use the Four Laws of Behavior Change to create useful new habits:

• The 1st Law (Cue) … make it obvious.

• The 2nd Law (Craving) … make it attractive.

• The 3rd law (Response) … make it easy.

• The 4th Law (Reward) … make it satisfying.

Interestingly, you can also invert these basic laws to break bad or undesirable behaviors or habits:

• The 1st Law (Cue) … make it invisible.

• The 2nd Law (Craving) … make it unattractive.

• The 3rd law (Response) … make it difficult.

• The 4th Law (Reward) … make it unsatisfying.

And, here’s the big takeaway from this. Whenever you want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself:

1. How can I make it more obvious?

2. How can I make it more attractive?

3. How can I make it easy?

4. How can I make it satisfying?

These are useful ideas that we can all apply to build healthy and productive new habits in our own lives. I’ll be including a lot of James’s wisdom in an upcoming course that is currently in development. More on that later. I’ll also be sharing a complete summary review of Atomic Habits in an upcoming edition.

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 newsletter editions.

• Simple Rule #2 - Part 2

• Simple Rule #3

• Simple Rule #4

• The ThriveAge FoodIQ System

Please let me know if you have a particular preference in how I prioritize these for publishing, or if there’s a topic you’d like to see in future editions.

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!