Metabolic and Mental Health
7 Lazy Steps to Lose Fat and Boost Health After 70
Insights from the protocol of a 71-year-old friend who lost 30 kg, reversed metabolic syndrome and improved his health with simple lifestyle changes
My Assurance for This Story
Promise, this story does not ask you to lift heavy weights, have cold showers, cut too many calories with vegetable juices, eat beef liver, buy expensive supplements, or get bariatric surgery to lose fat and stay healthy.
Instead, this story introduces relatively more straightforward and viable practices based on lifestyle changes that might make a massive impact on our metabolism and improve mental health. They can be seen as fine-tuning our body and mind holistically.
The ideas are backed up by scientific studies. I substantiated them in my previous articles. After reading this story, you might feel inspired to redesign your life with simple lifestyle choices.
Purpose of the Post
This story briefly introduces seven easy steps that can contribute to fat loss, lower the risks of metabolic syndrome, and improve overall health using a case study of a mature man who became captivating to his wife. The practical protocol (aka lazy man’s regimen) is principle-based and can be customized by others.
Brief Background of Richard
When I met Richard at a conference organized by sensible biohackers, he was 71 years old and overweight. He had signs of metabolic syndrome lowering his energy and mood. He also lost his intimacy with his wife.
After my presentation, Richard approached me and wanted to have a conversation. He was articulate and friendly. I listened to his concerns.
He said, “doc, I loved your speech and read your book reflecting on your transformation. They are all good and make sense. You sold me the ideas. But honestly, they are too difficult to implement for me. Do you have a cheat sheet for lazy folks like me?”
When he said cheatsheet, I thought he wanted a summary or a checklist. Then I understood that he found exercise, a ketogenic diet, and cold showers too difficult, so he wanted easier steps that could impact his fat loss, health, and fitness journey.
After understanding his unique requirements, I told him about the possibility of some low-hanging fruits in my protocols. He humorously said he loved fruits, especially Aussie mangos and Kiwifruit.
We clicked well and exchanged contact details. I told him I would create a few pages of cheat sheets in a few days. He was grateful. So I created a seven-step summary with action points and emailed him.
He adored the content but needed clarification. So he invited me to dinner in his luxurious home to discuss the items in the customized document. He was a retired sales executive with a wealthy retirement portfolio.
He kindly offered to pay for my time to help him, but I declined as it was a friendly contribution. My goal was to share my experience, which might hopefully contribute to his well-being.
In the following section, I extracted key points from our conversations under seven headings and provided a brief explanation of my points so that these powerful items make sense to you and you might customize them for your needs.
Five years after our meeting, Richard lost 30 kg of visceral fat, reversed metabolic syndrome, and had a better mood, as confirmed by his wife and grown-up children.
1- Removed one single food group.
Richard hated dieting. He tried many in his younger years and felt awful after each. Therefore he concluded that diets didn’t work for him. He tried eating less but did not enjoy hunger either.
After reviewing his diet, I asked Richard how he would feel about cutting specific food types. As you might guess, I asked him about the possibility of cutting refined carbs. He heard the term but had no clue what they were.
After giving him some examples, he said, “I could give up everything you say but not desserts.” He humorously stated, “Please don’t tell me to cut my sweet food.” His favorite was fruity-flavored ice cream with chocolate.
As soon as I heard about cream, I knew I had a solution for Richard. I introduced him to creating his own ice cream with ketogenic ingredients without compromising taste. The formula was created by one of my dietician friends. He loved the recipe. His wife did it for him once a day.
After a few months, Richard said he craved those foods he stopped eating. When I offered him a teaspoon of Manuka honey each time when he had a craving, he loved the idea. It worked for him without giving him too many calories from refined carbs.
In addition, I introduced him to my dietician friend, who adjusted his food choices slightly. The key addition was more proteins from eggs, poultry, beef, and fish and healthy fats from avocados, olives, and macadamia nuts.
I also introduced the lazy way to a fast-mimicking diet to Richard, but it did not resonate with him as it made him hungrier than before. However, it worked for some other people.
Refraining from refined carbs and adding more protein and healthy fats stabilized his blood glucose levels and lowered insulin resistance making his body more insulin sensitive. He lost significant fat after a year.
This was the most challenging item in this lazy protocol list. But he managed it well. He humorously gave me 7 out of 10 points for this solution, as he had difficulty cutting his fancy desserts when he visited his friends.
He had no issues with the following items in his lazy protocol.
2 — Meditated regularly.
Richard loved this item as it suited his lifestyle. But he did not know how to meditate even though he had heard much about it from his clients when working.
He even lied to his clients by saying he loved meditation too much on those days, even though he had never tried it. Later he tried once or twice and got bored and gave up.
I shared my simplest method based on focusing on breathing and observing thoughts. He found the technique doable. So he got used to it in a few weeks’ time and wanted to continue. He also tried zen meditation.
In a few months, he became proficient and made meditation a habit. The most significant contributor to meditation was improving his sleep and lowering his agitation. His BDNF seemed to increase as his focus heightened.
He did not know why he felt so anxious even though he had had no financial or relationship issues before. Meditation calmed his amygdala and strengthened his neocortex. Thus, meditation got a 10 out of 10 on his lazy protocol list.
3 — Rested and got restorative sleep.
When I mentioned the importance of sleep and rest, Richard said he knew the idea, but he couldn’t get refreshing sleep even if he stayed over 10 hours in bed sometimes.
When I mentioned I had a restorative sleep in eight hours, he wanted to know more. Then, I reviewed his sleep regimen and a few comments his wife said. One of Richard’s biggest mistakes was to drink half a glass of whisky before going to bed. He thought alcohol helped him to sleep better.
I couldn’t tell him to quit alcohol as his friend, but I proposed he see a sleep specialist. After the first session, he called me and thanked me as the specialist identified sleep apnea which he had no idea about.
Having sleep apnea for a long time was one of the reasons he got a metabolic syndrome, according to the specialist.
He was upset as his family doctors never detected this condition, even though he mentioned his sleep issues to them. They only gave him temporary sleep-aiding pills he hated.
Sleep deprivation was causing excessive stress and elevating his cortisol levels. When this hormone is high, it is impossible to tap into belly fat even if one exercises a lot and eats less.
The specialist referred him to an endocrinologist who confirmed his hormonal imbalance and helped him to optimize his cortisol levels.
The specialist trained Richard in excellent sleep hygiene, which gave him restorative sleep and lowered his cortisol. With meditation and sound sleep, Richard lost significant fat as his cortisol and insulin hormones got normalized. As a bonus, his testosterone levels increased.
His bulging belly almost disappeared. He was delighted with the progress. His mood was upbeat. His wife was happier than him, as his pessimistic mode concerned her in the past. Richard wanted to take his health and fitness to the next level. Sleep got a 10 out of 10 on his lazy protocol list.
4 — Skipped one meal with pleasure.
The next item on the list was intermittent fasting. Fasting equated to starvation in Richard’s old memories. He tasted starvation in his childhood in a country before migrating to Australia. He never wanted to experience it as it was traumatic even for him.
Then I reframed fasting to skipping a meal every now and then. In fact, he unintentionally skipped meals multiple times when he was a sale executive in exciting client meetings when he won big commercial deals. He felt no hunger after eating no meal for the entire day.
This was music to my ears. So he had the experience of the flow state with natural euphoria. I wanted him to re-experience those special moments. His meditation skills helped him to live mindfully and enter a flow state quickly.
The easiest meal to skip for him was lunch. He loved to play with his young grandkids until their parents came from work. He forgot about eating lunch, so it worked well for him.
A few weeks later, he said his mood further improved, and he felt more energetic. I asked him to check his pee humorously.
First, he did not understand. Then I bought some ketone strips from the pharmacy and checked the ketones in his urine. He got ecstatic when he saw the purple color on the stick. He was in deep ketosis, just like Amy, without doing a ketogenic diet.
Cutting refined carbs, skipping a meal per day, and lowering stress put him into ketosis. A substantial amount of BHP in his bloodstream increased his physical and mental energy and boosted his mood.
He never saw intermittent fasting as starvation anymore. He did it with pleasure. So intermittent fasting got 10 out of 10 scores on his lazy protocol list.
5 — Had more fun and focused on hobbies.
Another easy item on Richard’s list was fun and hobbies. When I met him, he did not have many hobbies.
Later I found out that he always wanted to play golf but never had anyone to help him. As I had many mature-age friends who loved this hobby, I wanted Richard to try it.
So, I introduced Richard to my favorite golf club. It was expensive, but he did not worry about the cost. The club also has a fitness center attached. But I did not mention the fitness center as he hated exercising.
He had no clue he could exercise for fun. As he was wealthy, he afforded golf lessons from a professional. He became proficient in a few months.
He loved playing golf for several hours as he made numerous friends around his age in the club. It became a new daily ritual for him. This fun activity took his health and fitness to another level.
Amazingly, golf also got 10 out of 10 scores on his lazy protocol list. He was grateful for this new hobby which became a lifetime ritual for him.
6 — Had self-talk and did expressive writing.
In earlier days, when I mentioned the psychotherapy option, Richard said he had no intention of paying someone to listen to his problems. He did not believe in paid therapy. He found it unnatural. I respected his thoughts.
Then I introduced him to self-therapy. Initially, he found the idea of self-conversations crazy. Later he learned that self-talk was not crazy but clever, as I documented my experience in a personal story.
He learned to embrace himself when looking in the mirror after so many years. His wife noticed his emotional maturity and improved intimacy after a while.
Furthermore, when Richard learned about expressive writing, he got hooked on it. He wrote beautiful pieces. Then I encouraged him to write an autobiography. He loved the idea and started writing his life story as far as he remembered.
His wife and children got impressed. His wife said that she learned a lot about her husband’s background. They self-published it and shared it with friends and relatives. They donated the earnings from the book to the children’s hospital in Melbourne.
Self-talk and expressive writing scored 10 out of 10 on his lazy protocol list.
7 — Joyful walks, planks, and sweat in a Sauna
After Richard’s body became fat-adapted, he wanted to exercise leisurely but did not want to go to the gym.
In addition, he had no interest in resistance training, weightlifting, calisthenics, or high-intensity training. But he did them unintentionally without being aware of them.
However, he was keen to improve his fitness to prevent cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disorders as he got older. His father died from heart disease, and his mother from dementia.
Thus, he loved walking on the golf course and with his wife after dinner. Golf kept him fit. Then I introduced Richard to Audrey, who was even older than him.
I knew Audrey, whom I mentioned in a previous story, would convince him to do planks better than me. Audrey did not take long to encourage Richard to get started with planks. They teamed up.
Later, I also introduced him to my friend Mark and Lucy, who were similar in age to Richard. As I mentioned in a previous story, this mature age couple reversed type II diabetes with healthy lifestyle choices.
With support from Audrey, Mark, and Lucy, Richard started walking more and doing more planks. He even started doing a few push-ups a day. His grandchildren made him a horse jumping his back on the sandy beach. So he naturally did weight lifting without noticing it.
His cardiovascular health improved as he bought a blood pressure monitoring device and heart rate variability application attached to his smartwatch. His progress was noticeable visually in the graphs.
Then, I slowly took him to the fitness center adjacent to his golf club one day. He fell in love with the premise in the first meeting as he met several like-minded people who welcomed him. Then, a few centenarian friends inspired him to do the dry saunas.
He wanted to live a hundred healthy years like them. He enjoyed sweating in the dry sauna and swam afterward in an outdoor swimming pool with Epsom salts which relaxed his muscles. He got addicted to the fitness center after his golf sessions and invited his friends to join him.
He did not want to try cold showers and ice baths. I did not emphasize them. But considering his progress, I believe he might try them one day. Long walks, planks, and saunas got 10 out of 10 scores on his lazy protocol list.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Richard is now 76 years old, but he feels like he is in his 30s. He had a defined body and an incredible sex drive compared to his other friends around his age who live with metabolic syndrome.
By following easy and simple steps, Richard transformed his health and fitness. Since he saw the value, he also shared his customized protocol with other friends. He always gave me credit when sharing his protocol.
But I was only a catalyst in his transformation and gave the credit back to his bespoke model and his persistence.
His willingness to change and determination helped him achieve his health and fitness goals after 70. As a result, he is happier than ever with his family, especially spending quality time with his three young grandchildren, who keep him active daily.
Richard did not need any medication, expensive supplements, or surgery to lose visceral fat and reverse his metabolic syndrome. The most significant impact of this success was his grandchildren.
Grandkids encourage him not to eat lunch as they don’t want it either. All they want is to keep playing around the beach until their parents come and pick them up in the evening.
Joyful movements on an empty stomach sustainably burned his visceral fat and strengthened his muscles. This new lifestyle modification with joy was the cornerstone of his success.
After each play session with the grandkids, he started sleeping like a baby and waking up like a teenage boy every morning.
Even though Richard called this the lazy man’s protocol, he still made a substantial mental effort to implement it.
He gained self-discipline with commitment and persistent rewiring of his brain for joy, calmness, happiness, passion, and optimism.
I shared many more inspiring stories like this, compiled in a collection titled Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.
I also wrote around 70 stories related to fat loss and muscle gain from different angles. I hope you may find some relevant and inspiring stories from this list.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
As a new reader, please check my holistic health and well-being stories reflecting my reviews, observations, and decades of experiments optimizing my hormones and neurotransmitters. I write about health as it matters. I believe health is all about homeostasis.
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As part of my creative non-fiction writing goals, I’d like to share a few stories that might warm our hearts with a bit of humor into weighty topics.
Sample Humorous Stories
Finally, After Burning Her House, Georgia Found Enlightenment
Hilarious Tips to Prevent Brain Atrophy and Keep the Gray Matter Giggling
8 Psychological Points I Had to Unlearn and Relearn the Opposite
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