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On August 7, 2008 Nick Cafardo, Sports writer for the Boston Globe wrote an article about the Redsox’ all-star second baseman, Dustin Pedroia. If your a baseball fan or live in New England you probably have seen some of his incredible feats on the field and at bat, but really what does that have to do with losing weight or getting fit and staying the course?

Adopting Pedroia’s Attitude = Keys to Success

He loves playing the game.

If you don’t already, learn to enjoy healthy food and how your body feels when you take care of it.

He gets to the ball park early and goes through his regular routine.

I call this getting prepared and a technique my friend and colleague, Bobbie, coined “rehearsal of the mind” See in your mind’s eye how you can successfully handle situations, picture yourself choosing healthy foods when eating out or during holidays. See yourself in control and, in your mind, experience the rewards of how you will feel afterwards.

He’s the first to arrive at the ballpark before a game.

I can’t say enough about the value of being prepared, whether it’s going to a summer cook out or handling a very stressful situation at work. Pre-plan what you will do, how you will overcome obstacles. If you don’t know what to do, hire a weight loss coach.

He practices everything, batting stance, hitting, fielding, etc.

Don’t leave anything to chance. Keep track of your food intake and activity and circumstances around your eating events so you can identify positive and negative patterns. Reinforce the positive and brainstorm ideas to change negative patterns.

“I’m not on these trips to go sightseeing – I am here to play AND WIN”

Make conscious decisions about eating and exercise. “Ask Yourself “Does this behavior move me closer to my goal?”

“You’re not a baseball player very long in life, so I am going to make sure that I am doing everything I can.”

This reminds me of my philosophy that life is not a dress rehearsal and that every day is a blessing. You only get one body and it is your packaging -how you present to the world. Ask yourself how you want to look and feel?

“I have a routine, I stick with it”

Once you get a routine down that is aligned with your goals, don’t let little blips or set-backs get you off track for long. #1, accept the fact that you are human and not perfect. Beating yourself up about mistakes or slip-ups is counterproductive.

“If I didn’t do it this way, I wouldn’t feel ready to Play”

That about sums it up. I have been successfully managing my weight for over 25 years. I have a formula and it works. No, it’s not always easy, but years ago I made a choice about how I wanted to look and feel, how I wanted to walk through this life – to be able to do the things I want to do, to wear the clothes that I want to wear and look good, to be healthy and energetic and to enjoy life to its fullest.

I was reading the weekly newsletter from Coach Training Alliance and although it was about careers, I thought it was apropos to dieting. Here it is paraphrased:

“Embrace the plateaus of accomplishment. These can be natural resting spots. Do not confuse your current location on the path with your intended destination. This will only cause unnecessary stress because you are not there yet. Keep moving in the direction of goals, and enjoy the journey. You will be there before you know it!”

So you’ve been going along pretty successfully losing weight every week, moving along quite nicely with your exercise program and then wham, the ball stops rolling, the scale won’t budge and/or you can’t seem to go that extra mile. You may have been there before. You know how frustrating it can be, in the past, you may have quit at this point. BUT, this time know that this is a CHOICE you can make! You can choose to stick it out, reinforce your VISION, evaluate what and how you doing each day to move in the direction of your goals. Take a good hard look at your patterns. If you stop using kj’s daily food and activity tracker, start using it again, now. Shake up your program a bit to jump start your metabolism. For example, cut out refined carbohydrates and reduce your overall carbohydrate intake, while boosting protein and water. Change your exercise routine. If you’ve been walking every day for 40 minutes, next time every five minutes, walk at a faster pace for two minutes. Start lifting weights to boost your calorie burning capacity and/or join a Pilate’s class.

There is research that shows that taking a break from weight loss after a period of time may not be a bad thing. During this break maintain your new healthier habits. A conscious plateau may help stabilize your metabolism, give your body and mind a chance to adjust to this new you and help you get ready to embark once again on your journey to losing weight and reaching your destination.

This morning, while having a conference call with my colleagues, my assistant said, “sitting at the computer all day makes me fat.” This is what happens when you get 3 women together to discuss business matters around my weight and coaching practice; we inevitably get off on personal issues related to the topic. After all we are real people too and have our own daily challenges managing weight and fitting in healthy eating and exercise into our busy work and family life.

I do a lot of sitting in front of the computer too. In fact, over the past year, I have spent a good portion of my work week, researching nutrition and fitness issues, writing articles and web content which is rather sedentary activity. BUT I haven’t gained any weight. Since I am not naturally thin and gain weight easily, what is my secret?

This is what works for me (this list is not all inclusive - just some of the tops 3 strategies):

1. Every half hour or so I get up and do some stretches and/or exercises with dumbbells on the stability ball or some jumping jacks
2. I eat breakfast and follow it with a snack mid morning, lunch and another small snack in the afternoon. Many of the meals and snacks are pre-plannedto remove the mindless eating that can happen when you work at home or an office where there’s always food [cues] around.
3. I go for a 2-4 mile walk with Buddy (my beagle), in the middle of the day. This not only boosts my metabolism (calorie burning), it always clears my mind, leaving me refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of the work day with more energy and creativity.

Reaching and maintaining a healthy weight means more than a few weeks on the latest diet. Rather, it’s a lifelong commitment, and for most people, a complete lifestyle change. First, you have to identify your goal and get a strong sense of who and how you want to be. I call this VISION. Live your life in concert with your Vision. In other words, your thoughts and actions must be aligned with who and how you want to be. This doesn’t mean you have to be perfect, but focused on constantly moving forward toward your goals. This is an area where I can help you learn how to manage thoughts, feelings and actions when you think you’ve had a setback. One thing I do and recommend, is an exercise that can really help you get in touch with your thoughts and feelings so you can make conscious decisions about your actions. This exercise is writing down what and when I eat and exercise and record that conditions around those eating and exercise events. You will discover productive and non-productive patterns. You will also garner enough awareness that you can begin the process of asking yourself beforehand “Does this behavior move me toward my goals?” You can make choices and you can take control of you behaviors. It takes practice and a great coach to support you along your journey to transform your body and transform your life.

Low-carbohydrate diets result in greater weight loss compared to Mediterranean and low-fat diets, according to a new two-year study published in the July 17 issue of New England Journal of Medicine.

Those following the low-carbohydrate higher protein diet experienced a mean weight loss of more than 10 pounds, which was 40% greater than those following the low-fat diet and about 7% greater than those following the Mediterranean diet.

This is not the first study to have similar findings. Check out my other article KJ 7 Keys to a healthy diet in which I recommend “lean toward protein”. There are several plausible reasons for the extra weight loss: 1) Replacing some carbohydrate with protein and fat increases satiety, you feel full longer, 2) consuming more protein when you are cutting calories helps preserve your calorie burning lean muscle mass.

So what’s the best formula for weight loss? There is no one formula for everyone.* There is a trend materializing in the research that points toward choosing more protein, moderate fat (with your fat choices coming from unsaturateed sources such as fish, avocado, olive oil, canola oil and nuts), include some high fiber, complex carbohydrates such as whole grains and drink plenty of water. This, of course works, a lot better when you couple you new healthy diet with exercise and adequate sleep.

* Low carbohydrate diets are not recommended if you have specific health conditions such as gout or if you are on medications that may be affected by dietary intake. Consult with your health care provider before making major dietary and activity level changes.