Think Small - Win Big

Hey Brothers, 

Welcome back to the LenDentonThrive Letter. 

This week, I want to talk about obesity. Because American men are experiencing an obesity epidemic! Obesity rates among our friends and neighbors have tripled in the last 60 years. In 1960, approximately 13% of the male population was considered to be obese. Today, that number is nearly 40%! 

All of us know guys who are 20, 30, or more pounds overweight. (That might even be you!)

And being overweight isn’t just a cosmetic issue. It’s a major contributing cause of a host of serious chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and even dementia. 

This is serious stuff. And it doesn’t seem to be getting better. In fact, it's getting worse every year. Let’s take a deeper look at the reasons, and then a few practical solutions.

Losing The Battle of the Bulge

I think there are at least three practical reasons that American guys are experiencing this explosive growth in obesity:

1. The Standard American Diet is TRASH!  The typical diet most Americans consume is built primarily on ultra-processed foods. These are not the farm-raised foods our grandfathers grew up eating in the 1950s and 1960s. Rather, they are engineered factory foods that have become increasingly popular from the 1970s to today. These are the foods we grew up eating - things like Pop-Tarts, fast food, frozen pizza, and convenient foods. These are foods with their own brands and TV commercials. They’re popular because they are cheap, convenient, and taste good. But they are filled with hidden calories, seed oils  and artificial ingredients. The obesity growth rate tracks closely with the consumption rates of these foods.
   

2. Reduced Physical Exertion - the average American man gets a lot less physical exertion in their daily life today than in 1960. In 1960, half of all private-industry jobs in the United States required moderate-to-high intensity physical activity. Manufacturing, agriculture, and active transit were common. Today, fewer than 20% of jobs require moderate physical activity, while 80% are classified as sedentary or light-activity (desk or office-type jobs). That shift means that guys need much more non-job-related physical activity to compensate. This reduced exertion, coupled with the increased calorie consumption brought on by the abundance of ultra-processed foods, has led to significant weight gain across all age groups. This is reflected in the obesity statistics.
   

3. Big-Goal / Big-Energy Exercise Strategies - too often, guys opt for what I call the “go big or go home” goal-setting strategy that leads to injury, burnout, or other kinds of early exits. In other words - failure! A typical example of this approach is the New Year's resolution where we sign up for a new gym membership and set a goal of losing 40 pounds. The average success rate for this Big Goal / Big Energy approach is around 8-9% annually. That means that 90% of the guys who sign on to this highly-marketed approach are going to fail!
   
   So, these are the three reasons that I believe American guys are losing the battle of the bulge. 

We need a better approach!

Do This - Not That

So what if you know a guy who wants to lose 30 or more pounds - and wants to keep it off. (Let’s just say you’re asking for a friend…) Here are four things I’d tell you to start with.

1. Think Lifestyle instead of Project - No one is interested in short-term fitness. But most guys take a short-term, project-oriented approach to their fitness. Remember the New Year’s resolution example above. Almost any program works as long as you keep doing it. And it stops working when you stop doing it. So, the key to sustainable fitness is to focus on doing things that you can do forever. If it's not something that you enjoy doing and that fits your schedule and lifestyle, don’t do it.
   

2. Ditch the Trash Diet - Restructure your daily food consumption to eliminate the ultra-processed foods that are driving your obesity. Start by eliminating these six high-calorie foods from your diet: sugar, white flour, white rice, corn, white potatoes, and high-fructose corn syrup. Do this over a 3-4 week period. Learn more about Eating Smarter here and here. 
   

3. Move More - To rev up your fat-burning metabolism, start moving more throughout the day. Here are three ways to burn more body fat every day:

   1. Take a quick 5-10 minute walk after each meal. (This blunts the glucose spike that leads to fat storage.)

   2. Get up and walk for 3-5 minutes every hour. (This revs up your Basal Metabolic Rate, which consumes 60% of your daily calories)

   3. Take a 30-minute walk at a brisk pace. (This puts you into Zone 2 cardio, which is the most effective way to burn stored body fat. Read more about that here.)

4. Think Small and Set Small Goals - Instead of setting a goal to lose 30 or more pounds, start with a goal to lose 10 pounds and keep it off over a year. The smaller goal is easier to achieve and easier for your brain to accept. As you build the system of habits needed to lose the 10 pounds, you’re setting the system in place to lose much more weight… and keep it off. The habits are more important than the goals. The key is to focus on small daily habits instead of massive amounts of hustle.
   
   I used this system of habits approach to lose 70 pounds in 7 months. Your mileage might vary, but the system really does work. 

Figure 1 summarizes this strategy in a handy fridge-ready format!

Smarter, Not Harder

If you are interested in practical, sustainable fitness that fits your busy life, a system built on small, smart daily habits wins every time. The ThriveLife helps you develop your own, custom-tuned set of smart daily habits to help you lose weight and become forever fit

Remember, success is a process, not a destination. Our lives are the total of our daily habits. Better habits lead to better lives!

The ThriveLife is the smarter, not harder way to reach your forever fit goals. 

The best time to start your ThriveLife journey was years ago. 

The second best time to do it is TODAY!

Whether you are in your 20s, 50s, 60s, or beyond, NOW is the best time to start your journey to the ThriveLife!

Here are two ways I can help you build your own ThriveLife:

1 - Subscribe to the LDT Letter for weekly tips and strategies

2 - Join the wait list for my upcoming new book ThriveLife Transformation, where I’ll show you how to build a healthier version of YOU with 6 Smart Daily Habits that you can do in 30 minutes a day. 

To join the waitlist, just reply to this newsletter and say “Sign me up!” I’ll email you when the book is available.

Thanks for reading today.

And remember, God loves us. He wants us to thrive. 

All the best… Len

Healthy dads raise healthy families!

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