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LenDentonThrive Letter #42

Welcome to the LenDentonThrive Letter!

My mission is to help Guys over 50 to build thriving, healthy lifestyles. I call it the ThriveLife!

The Too Busy Guy’s Guide To Health and Fitness (Revisited)

Are you too busy to take care of yourself? Are you pouring all of your energy into your job or your family?

I know lots of busy Over-50 Guys who know they need to work on their health and fitness. They know it’s the key to having more strength and energy today. They know it’s a requirement for better aging in the future. But, they feel that they just don’t have the time it takes to get into better shape.

I get it!

Ten years ago, I was an overly busy 55-year-old business guy trying to live the corporate edition of my best life. 

I had all of the outward signs of success: a well-paying job at a Fortune 50 company with an impressive title. 

But my doctor told me that I was a poster child for a heart attack or stroke. 

I was outwardly successful but inwardly failing!

Well, that was then. Now, at age 65, I’m lighter, leaner, and healthier than I was at 40! And, I’m still a busy, active guy running a company, enjoying life, and writing a newsletter on the side.

I found a way to bring health and fitness into my already busy life. I created an approach that I call my ThriveLife. Following this approach, I lost 70 pounds in 7 months and got into great shape without having to reorganize my life around the gym.

You can do it, too.

Even if you’re super busy, you can build your own version of the ThriveLife. To help you do it, I created the 5-30 Plan. It’s 5 smart daily practices that you can do in as little as 30-35 minutes a day!

The 5-30 Plan

I think of the 5-30 Plan as The Too-Busy Guy’s Health and Fitness Guide. I originally wrote about the 5-30 Plan last year. You can read it here. Today’s version contains a few updates.

The 5-30 Plan is based on five daily practices (habits) that I’ve used to lose weight and stay fit over the last ten years. Best of all, these habits can be done in 30-35 minutes a day. The focus of the plan is quick reductions of weight and body fat. It will help you to become lighter and leaner quickly.

Now, let’s look at the 5 daily practices:

Daily Practice #1 - Get a Check-up - Practice #1 isn’t actually a daily activity, but it’s so important to a healthy lifestyle that I’m including it here. One of the best tools to help you achieve a long, healthy life is an annual check-up.

Here’s why:

First, it’s always a good idea to get checked out by your doctor before starting any fitness program.

Second, the risk of death for any reason (called All-Cause Mortality) rises exponentially as we age. The primary killers of over-50 men in America are chronic diseases like heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. The best defense against dying from one of these chronic diseases is early detection and treatment.

If you haven’t seen your doctor in a year or more, make the call and get a checkup.

Time required: 30 minutes one time per year, then 0 minutes per day.

Daily Practice #2- Eat Smarter - Food choices are the secret to losing weight. A smart guy once said: We lose weight in the kitchen and build strength in the gym. Said another way: “Your weight loss battle is won in the kitchen, not the gym!”

As American men, most of us have been consuming the Standard American Diet (aka SAD) for our entire lives. The SAD is filled with hidden sugars and excess calories. Coupled with the large portion sizes that are so common today, it’s no surprise that the rates of obesity and diabetes have exploded among American men. The SAD is slowly killing us.

But, the antidote to the SAD is NOT to simply eat less. The secret is to eat smarter. Eating smarter will enable you to avoid the most damaging aspects of the SAD. Here’s a quick two-step process to immediately begin eating smarter in 5 minutes or less per day.

Step 1 - Daily Food Planning - Here is an important fact to keep in mind. It’s easier to avoid consuming calories than it is to burn them off through exercise. With a little planning, you can avoid hundreds of calories every day. Five minutes of planning can save you an hour and a half of exercise!

For example, let’s say you have a business lunch on your schedule. Check the restaurant’s menu online to choose a healthy meal before you arrive. This way you can know what to order before you get there. No good choices on the menu? Then, I’d change the restaurant. Using the same planning approach, you can also ensure that you’ll have access to quality foods throughout your day.

Planning helps you to avoid calories. It’s a perfect strategy if you’re a Too-Busy Guy.

Time required: 3-5 minutes a day

Step 2 - Avoid Red Zone Foods (Glucose-spiking foods) - The single most important action that we can take to eat smarter is to eliminate sugars and foods that spike our blood sugar (glucose) levels. This spiking of glucose leads to all kinds of bad things like excess fat storage, insulin resistance, obesity, and disease (including diabetes and cancer). I refer to these as Red Zone foods. Hint: we need to stay out of the Red Zone!

To begin eating smarter, eliminate these six glucose-spiking foods from your diet:

1. Sugar

2. High Fructose Corn Syrup

3. White Flour

4. White Rice

5. White Potatoes

6. Corn

Time required: 0 minutes a day

These two simple and effective steps will help you to start eating smarter and will help you lose weight quickly.

Daily Practice #3 - Daily Weigh-In Ritual - If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

If something is important to us, we track it. We track our bank balances, golf scores, and fantasy football stats. Tracking your weight is even more important!

Weighing daily and writing it down creates a feedback loop in your brain. It also tells your brain that THIS is important. Once that happens, you’ll subconsciously begin to make decisions and take actions that reinforce the importance you’ve placed on your weight loss.

It’s not magic. It’s neuroscience.

Create your own daily weigh-in ritual where you do it the same way, at the same time every day. I weigh first thing every morning before I get dressed or consume any food or fluids. Being consistent is important. That’s why I call it my weigh-in ritual.

Time required: 1 minute a day

Daily Practice #4 - Get Your Daily Steps - There is power in motion (exercise). Exercise is an important component of any healthy lifestyle. First, exercise helps to strengthen your bones, muscles, and heart. Second, it can help you develop a calorie deficit, which is essential to weight loss.

In the beginning, prioritize Zone 2 (Z2) cardio over strength training. (Zone 2 cardio is the range of activity where your heart rate is 60-70% of your max heart rate.) Z2 cardio burns body fat faster than any other exercise approach, which helps with weight loss. You can add strength training later on. Walking is a great way to start Z2 cardio.

How much cardio is enough? In this beginning stage, I suggest that you walk 20-25 minutes a day. Over time, I suggest that you set a goal of 7,000 total steps every day. This includes your planned exercise sessions, as well as routine steps you take as part of your daily routine. (Any fitness tracker can help you keep track of your total steps.)

Why 7,000 steps? Recent research from the UK shows that when people walked or ran a minimum of 7,000 steps daily (including moderate walking), their overall risk of death declined by 50-70%! That is like a Do-It-Yourself life extension program. Sign me up!

This is such an important benefit (with so little effort required) that I recommend that every guy should get “7K Every Day.”

But, what if you aren’t able to walk or run 7,000 steps a day? No problem. Start wherever you are, and make 7k your goal. Whatever your current capability, start moving! Read more about 7K Every Day here.

Time required: 20-25 minutes a day

Daily Practice #5 - Get Better Sleep - Most of us aren’t getting enough quality sleep. Over-50 Guys need 7-9 hours per night. 

We’ve learned a lot about the importance of sleep over the last decade. Sleep determines how well we process incoming information; our memory performance; how well our bodies recover from stress and illness; and even our brain health.

Sleep experts recommend two key steps to get better sleep:

Step 1 - Good Sleep Planning - Good sleep planning involves making sure that your bedroom is conducive to sleep. Things like comfortable bedding, proper levels of darkness, a cool temperature, and quietness are fundamental to getting a good night’s sleep.

Step 2 - Create a Night-Time Ritual - Create your own night-time ritual to help you gradually slow down from a busy and hectic day to allow your mind and body to prepare for sleep. I have found this ritual idea to be extremely useful in my effort to improve my sleep.

I’ve written extensively about the benefits of sleep and how to improve your sleep here.

Time required: 0 minutes a day

Finding The Time

The 5-30 Plan packs major health and fitness benefits in a small amount of time. But, if you’re super busy, you still need to find the time. So, here are 5 ideas from my own experience to help you find the 30 minutes per day that you need to put the 5-30 Plan to work:

1. Reduce time spent consuming media like TV, Netflix, social media, or surfing the Internet.

2. Get up earlier to create some workout time.

3. Take fitness breaks during the day, like during lunch.

4. Add bonus steps to your day by doing the following:

   1. Park further away from the entrance to the office, restaurant, etc.

   2. Walk during breaks

   3. Hold walking meetings where possible

5. Get 200-300 steps every hour. (This is especially useful if you have an office or desk job.) Most fitness trackers can help you with this.

In Closing

Being too busy to get healthy is a real problem for many men. The 5-30 Plan can help you build health and fitness into even the busiest schedule. Its maximum health benefits in minimum time. Most importantly, it’s an investment in your healthy future.

Health is the first wealth…Ralph Waldo Emerson

See you next week!

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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