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LenDentonThrive Letter #35

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

New Year’s Day and 2024 are just a couple of days away. This is the 6th and final installment of my 6-part series to help you build your own custom-tuned ThriveLife in 2024.

Here’s where we’ve been so far:

• In Part 1, I explained what the ThriveLife is, and why you need your own personal ThriveLife.

• In Part 2, I laid the foundation for your ThriveLife with ThriveLife Principles 1 & 2.

• In Part 3, I showed you how to fuel your ThriveLife by Eating Smarter, which is ThriveLife Principle #3.

• In Part 4, I showed you how to Move Smarter by adding fat-killing exercise to your ThriveLife. That’s Principle #4.

• In Part 5, I explained how your ThriveLife was built using smart daily practices.

In today’s edition, we’re going to put these principles we’ve been talking about to work to help you launch your own version of the ThriveLife in 2024.

So, if you’re ready…let’s go!

Let’s Launch Your ThriveLife!

Launching a new fitness program in the new year doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, starting your own ThriveLife is probably less complicated than signing up for that new gym membership that most guys never fully use!

The ThriveLife is a lifestyle designed to help Over-50 guys attain sustainable health, fitness, and longevity. To accomplish this, we focus development of our individual ThriveLives across three phases:

1. Get Lighter and Leaner

2. Get Stronger

3. Live Longer

The initial focus of the ThriveLife is getting lighter and leaner. Most of us Over-50 Guys need to lose weight in order to become healthier and more fit. And, greater longevity then becomes an additional benefit of our enhanced health.

Recall from an earlier edition that the building blocks of our unique ThriveLives are our daily practices. To begin building a ThriveLife, any Over-50 Guy simply needs to begin to adopt smart and healthy daily practices, while retiring their unhealthy practices. By doing this, we can change our behavior and habits, which leads us to the healthier life that we’re looking for. And, choosing the right daily practices will accelerate the process.

So, here are five tested and proven daily practices that will help you successfully launch your ThriveLife.

Practice #1: Manage Your Medical Conditions.

Lots of Over-50 Guys have conditions that shouldn’t be ignored. If you have a medical condition, don’t ignore it. Manage it.

I’ve battled high cholesterol for years. I manage to keep it under control with diet and exercise, and I check in with blood tests every quarter.

If your doctor has prescribed medication, then be sure to take it. And, if you haven’t had a physical exam in 12 months or longer, schedule one with your doctor. The key to beating disease as we age is early detection and treatment. (This is Principle #1 - Take Charge.)

Practice #2: Daily Weigh-in Ritual

Weigh every day. I recommend first thing in the morning… before any food or drink. This is powerful in 2 ways:

1. We are working to modify our behavior, and this practice allows us to link today’s weight to yesterday’s activities. This allows us to monitor our health and fitness-related actions, and to modify them if we need to. If you weigh infrequently, you can’t make this connection.

2. Recording your weight in an app allows you to see a weight loss graph like the one shown in Figure 2. Look at it every day. This engages our minds at a subconscious level. This, in turn, influences our decisions and actions to make the curve bend in the right direction. It’s science!(This is a Pro Tip, and is part of Principle #2 - Measure What Matters.)

Practice #3: Exit the Red Zone (Begin Eating Smarter)

The weight loss battle is won in the kitchen, not the gym! Your daily nutrition practices are the single most powerful thing you can do to influence your weight and fat loss. That’s why the ThriveLife is a Food-1st approach to health and fitness!

(It’s also a fitness approach for food lovers…like me!)

It will take some time to completely revamp your diet so that your food choices are working for you instead of against you. The first step to do this is to Exit the Red Zone! To do this, you eliminate the 6 Red Zone foods from your daily diet. See Figure 3.

Then, replace those Red Zone foods with Green Zone alternatives. Don’t worry about calories or cutting back for now. Just make the transition away from these foods with high Glycemic Index values.

This is going to jump-start your weight loss!

There’s much more to say about Eating Smarter, but this is an excellent way to get started. When you’re ready to take a deeper look, check here and here for more. (This is Principle #3 - Eat Smarter.)

Practice #4: Daily Meal Planning

It’s much easier to avoid calories than it is to work them off with exercise.

With this in mind, I suggest that you take 5 minutes every morning to think through the day’s schedule and how it will affect your eating. Are you planning a lunch meeting at an unfamiliar restaurant? Or, is there an occasion when you need to take a healthy lunch from home? By thinking through these scenarios in advance, you can avoid putting yourself in a situation with bad food choices. I do this every day during my morning walk, so it doesn’t cost me any additional time out of my busy schedule. (This is also Principle #3 - Eat Smarter.)

Practice #5: Move Smarter

The ThriveLife is a balanced system of diet AND exercise. The exercise that I recommend when beginning the ThriveLife is moderate cardio. (Zone 2 is typically 60-70% of your maximum heart rate.) This has been proven to be the most effective way to burn body fat because, at this exertion rate, your body is burning energy almost exclusively from its stored fat.

For most Over-50 Guys, this will be brisk walking. And it works even better when you do it in a fasting state (before eating). To learn more about the benefits of this form of exercise, read this.

I recommend getting 30 minutes of Zone 2 cardio (while fasting) every day. (This is Principle #4 - Move Smarter.)

But, wait! What about lifting weights as a preferred weight-loss exercise?

That’s a good question. Here’s my response:

Lifting weights is a great exercise approach for building strength and muscle mass. However, its not the most effective way to lose weight or body fat. The Zone 2 cardio is superior for faster weight and fat loss. And, since the initial phase of the ThriveLife is about getting lighter and leaner, I recommend cardio over weight training initially. Strength training is a key aspect of the 2nd phase of the Thrivelife.

To summarize, here’s your ThriveLife Launch Formula:

5 Daily Practices in 30 minutes a day for 30 days.

That’s it! Work smarter, not harder!

In Closing

Over the last 6 weeks, we’ve laid out a blueprint and simple plan to help any Over-50 Guy launch his own personalized version of the ThriveLife.

The ThriveLife is a healthy and sustainable lifestyle for Over-50 Guys that maximizes health, fitness and longevity.

Our ThriveLives are built on smart daily practices that we can fine-tune to align with our specific needs and preferences.

If you need to lose 20, 30 or more pounds in 2024, you will need more than a goal or New Year’s resolution. You need a goal attainment system that will deliver the results you need and deserve.

The ThriveLife can be that system. It worked for me 10 years ago. It works for me now.

It will work for you, too!

I hope you’ll give the ThriveLife a try.

Happy New Year to you and your family!

Thrive and prosper in 2024!

Len

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.

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