Reading time: approx: 5 minutes

LenDentonThrive Letter #37

Welcome to the LenDentonThrive Letter!

My mission is to help guys over 50 to build their ThriveLives!

The ThriveLife is a lifestyle designed for guys over 50 that maximizes health, fitness, and longevity...all while working smarter, not harder. The ThriveLife helps guys get lighter, fitter, and healthier faster!

The fundamental basis of any sustainable fitness program is both diet and exercise. And, these are essential parts of the ThriveLife.

The diet aspect of the ThriveLife is addressed through the concept of Eating Smarter. This involves eating in such a way that you can put food to work for you, instead of against you. This is accomplished by replacing bad calories with good ones. When you do this, you fuel your body while maximizing fat avoidance. You can read more about Eating Smarter here and here.

Exercise is a very popular, and controversial, topic. Every week, there are millions of words written about the best exercise approach to attain the ideal definition of fitness. I’ll address the ThriveLife approach to sustainable fitness next.

Fitness = Eating Smarter + Moving Smarter

The ThriveLife is designed to put a strong initial focus on sustainable weight loss because that’s why most guys begin a fitness program in the first place. To achieve the desired result, the Moving Smarter concept works hand-in-hand with Eating Smarter. By working together, Eating Smarter maximizes the avoidance of fat, while Moving Smarter maximizes the body’s ability to burn fat. Together, they can help guys lose weight and body fat faster than typical diets or gym routines working independently.

In the ThriveLife, there’s lots of room for you to define the ideal definition of fitness for yourself. Fundamentally, being fit means at least four things:

1. You are maintaining a healthy body weight

2. You do not have excess body fat

3. You possess the strength and agility to perform your preferred daily activities.

4. Your metabolic processes (blood pressure, cholesterol, kidney function, etc.) are under control.

Beyond that, everything else is rather optional. For example, some popular definitions of fitness call for you to have a lot of muscles. And, there’s nothing wrong with having lots of muscles. Increasing muscle mass is great for longevity and it looks good.

But, it’s not the fastest way to lose a considerable amount of weight and body fat to become healthier. (It’s also a lot of work!)

The ThriveLife is all about smarter, not harder. So, to help Over-50 Guys lose weight and get fit faster, the ThriveLife recommends three things:

1. Eat Smarter to avoid excess calories and replace bad calories (high on the glycemic index) with good calories (low on the glycemic index).

2. Do Zone 2 cardio exercise every day. This is Move Smarter Part 1.

3. Increase your NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis - a sciency way to describe calories burned during general daily movements). This is Move Smarter Part 2.

Moving Smarter Part 1 - Zone 2 Cardio

ThriveLife recommends Zone 2 cardio as the preferred exercise strategy for faster weight and fat loss. Zone 2 is defined as exercising at 50-65% of your maximum heart rate. The reason for recommending Zone 2 is that in this range, the majority of the calories being burned are being supplied from the body’s fat stores.

You might be wondering: “Couldn’t I burn more calories if I exercised at a higher intensity?”

The answer is: Yes, you could burn more calories. However, at higher intensity levels, the body shifts its energy sourcing from fat stores to its other sources, including muscle tissue.

So, exercising in Zone 2 keeps the body focused on using its fat stores as its energy source. This is the best way to shed excess body fat quickly. It’s a bonus that it's also an easier way to exercise! See Figure 1 below.

Ideally, you should do your Zone 2 cardio in a fasting state, meaning before food. Get 30-45 minutes of Zone 2 cardio every day for best results. Whether you walk, jog, or bike, focus on keeping your heart rate in Zone 2. For more on Zone 2 cardio, check here.

Moving Smarter Part 2 - Increasing Your NEAT

The second part of Moving Smarter is increasing your NEAT or Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. This is the combination of all of your daily movement and activity that isn’t associated with deliberate exercise. That includes things like walking around, standing, and even fidgeting. All of these are NEAT-related movements.

The importance and value of NEAT activities are related to how our bodies burn calories. Figure 2 below shows a chart of the four primary processes at work in our bodies that use calories throughout the day. This chart shows the percentage of total calories each process uses along with the amount of control we have over the process. Let’s do a quick examination of each process:

• Base Metabolic Rate (BMR) is our body’s basic operating system. It’s responsible for our autonomic processes like breathing, digestion, blood circulation, etc. It accounts for around 60% of the total calories used each day, and we have little to no control over this process.

• Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) is the percentage of calories used in the digestion of our food. This accounts for around 10% of the total calories our bodies use, and we have a high degree of control over this by the food choices we make daily. We discuss TEF in greater detail here.

• Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) is the percentage of our calorie use related to our non-exercise movements. It accounts for 15-30% of the total calories used and we have a considerable amount of control over this category, based on how active we are throughout the day.

• Exercise Energy Thermogenesis (EET) is the percentage of calories used in deliberate exercise activities such as jogging or working out at the gym. This accounts for around 5-15% of the total calories used. We have a high degree of control over this category based on how much we exercise.

Here is why NEAT matters for our weight loss efforts. NEAT consumes a high percentage of the calories we burn every day, and we have a good amount of control over that process. The more active we are throughout the day, the more calories we will consume through NEAT.

Most guys burn significantly more calories in their general daily movements (NEAT) than they do in their deliberate exercise (EET). So, while EET gets all of the attention, NEAT does most of the work of burning calories in our bodies.

This is why increasing our NEAT is a good return on our investment. Here are a few tips for increasing our NEAT:

• Spend less time sitting

• Take the stairs

• Walk every hour for at least 5 minutes

• Park further away and walk

• Hold walking meetings

• Take a 15-minute walk after your meals

• Get 10,000 steps a day

In Closing

The ThriveLife is the smarter not harder way to become lighter, fitter, and healthier.

Eating Smarter and Moving Smarter is a powerful combination that will help Over-50 Guys lose weight faster without relying on restrictive diets or spending hours in the gym. Instead, the ThriveLife offers plenty of healthy food, along with moderate exercise that you can actually enjoy.

Smart, not harder!

Thanks for your time and attention.

Thrive and prosper,

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.

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

Here’s a recent post from my X (Twitter) account: