Reading time: approx: 7 minutes

LenDentonThrive Letter #31

Welcome to the LenDentonThrive Letter! My mission is to help Over-50 Guys Get Lighter and Leaner, Get Stronger, and Live Longer. We do that by building our ThriveLife!

This edition is part of my 6-step process to help you build your own custom-tuned ThriveLife in 2024.

Building Your ThriveLife From the Ground Up

This week, we continue building on the concept of the ThriveLife. In last week’s newsletter, I explained what the ThriveLife is, and why you need your own ThriveLife. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing a detailed blueprint that can help any Over-50 Guy (like me) build their own version of the ThriveLife.

If you’re new to the ThriveLife idea, here’s a quick overview:

• The ThriveLife is a sustainable lifestyle, composed of smart daily practices that promote health, fitness, and longevity for Over-50 Guys.

• Smart daily practices are simple, repeatable daily actions that we use to build healthy, long-term habits that result in the ThriveLife.

• The best daily practices are those built on solid, science-based principles like the ThriveLife Principles.

Figure 1 below shows what it looks like when you put it all together.

The Foundation of ThriveLife

The building blocks of the ThriveLife are smart daily practices that are built on the ten ThriveLife Principles. For a quick overview of the ten ThriveLife Principles, check my X (Twitter) post below:

The foundation of the ThriveLife is composed of ThriveLife Principles 1 and 2. Together, these two principles underlie and support everything we do to build our health and fitness.

Let’s take a deeper look into each of these two principles to see why they are so important to the construction of the ThriveLife.

Principle 1 - Take Action

Take Action is the first principle because nothing happens until YOU decide to make a change! You are the owner of your personal health and fitness. Not your doctor...it's You!

To build your ThriveLife, you’ll need to take action every day. With the right planning, those actions will be a good fit with your personal needs and preferences, making the actions feel natural and enjoyable.

Here are a few ways that I take action to build (and maintain) my ThriveLife daily:

1. Being clear on my WHY - the WHY is my over-arching reason to become healthier and more fit? In my case, it was so I could be there for my family for many years to come.

2. Staying current on my medical situation - I get regular medical check-ups every 12 months. While my doctor isn’t in charge of my health (that would be ME), he is my valued partner in managing my medical conditions. The best way to beat a medical problem is to detect and treat it early! If you haven’t been to your doctor in more than 12 months, you should schedule an exam.

3. Prioritizing my daily practices that lead to better health and fitness. These daily practices are the building blocks of your ThriveLife. Taking action means that my day is scheduled to ensure that these fit into whatever I’m doing.

Taking action will look different for every guy. But, every guy must TAKE ACTION!

Principle 2 - Measure What Matters

If you aren’t measuring it, you’re not managing it!

That is true for almost everything in our lives. We track our checking account balances, our airline points, and the fuel levels in our car’s gas tanks. Why? Because it matters!

Nobody wants to bounce a check or run out of gas. And those airline points are part of a future vacation plan.

In all of these cases, if you aren’t measuring it, then you’re not managing it. If you’re not measuring, then you’re just guessing. You wouldn’t do that with your bank account or gas tank, and you shouldn’t do that with your health and fitness either.

Measure What Matters is built into everything we do in the ThriveLife. It’s the key to helping us to know if our daily practices are moving us in a healthy direction, or not. If we’re winning or not!

Our daily practices are the building blocks of our ThriveLife. And, every daily practice needs to have a measurement component built into it.

Most guys hate the idea of measuring because they think it’s hard or time-consuming. But it doesn’t have to be. I spend less than 5 minutes a day measuring, even though I measure everything throughout the day and night.

That’s because technology is our friend when it comes to tracking our ThriveLife. Fitness trackers and apps take the majority of the work out of tracking our fitness progress. And research shows that guys who track their fitness have better results than those who don’t. (Note 1)

Here are a few things that I do to measure what matters in my daily life:

1. Daily Weigh-in Ritual - I weigh myself every day in the same way. For me, that means first thing in the morning, after a bathroom break, and before coffee or breakfast. I also record that weight in my app. This has become a simple process that helps me to connect today’s weight with yesterday’s activity. This helps me to monitor my weight and make corrections quickly.

2. Step Tracking - Walking (Zone 2 cardio while fasting) is my dominant form of exercise, so it makes sense to keep track of that daily. I use my fitness tracker to count all of my daily steps, including those outside of my specific exercise time. This was my first daily practice starting in 2014.

3. Sleep Tracking - Getting quality sleep is my newest health priority. Therefore, I track my sleep every day to see how well I’m doing in implementing my new daily practice to improve my sleep. I use my fitness tracker and app to do all the hard work.

4. Quarterly Blood Tests - High cholesterol has been an issue for me for many years, so I work closely with my doctor to manage it. Twice a year I get blood tests at his office. Then, in the ‘off-quarters,’ I do a pin-prick blood test with Everywell. I track the results to ensure that this important issue remains under control.
   

   (Note: doing blood testing is something I do based on my specific needs and is not recommended for everyone. This is a customization of my personal ThriveLife that other guys probably don’t need.)

Measure what matters. Because if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it!

In Closing

The ThriveLife is a better system for attaining your health and fitness goals. If you’re an Over-50 Guy who is looking to lose 20 or more pounds, then developing better daily practices based on the ThriveLife Principles will help you to build your sustainable, healthy lifestyle that I call the ThriveLife.

Our unique versions of the ThriveLife are built on these two foundational principles:

• Principle 1 - Take Action

• Principle 2 - Measure What Matters

In this series, we’re building a step-by-step blueprint for your ThriveLife in 2024. Next week, we’ll discuss how to Eat Smarter with ThriveLife Principle 3.

Thanks for your time and attention. Happy holidays! See you next Saturday.

Thrive & Prosper,

Len

Notes

1. This British study demonstrated the effectiveness of fitness trackers as a means of improving fitness progress: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(22)00111-X/fulltext

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

Follow me on the socials for daily tips and strategies for living your ThriveLife:

7