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Moses Lyons just wanted to get back into shape.

So the then-24-year-old went to Bob Kerr's boxing gym in Michigan Center to start working out and learn a bit about the sport he always found interesting.

Two years later, Lyons is the USA Boxing Michigan state champion and on his way to compete for a national championship and a shot at making the Olympics.

"After graduating college and being with my girlfriend for three years, I started to get comfortable and gaining a lot of weight," Lyons said. "I said, 'It's time, I gotta back in shape. I want to be able to run around with my son.' I didn't get into boxing thinking I was going to be some world champion."

In addition to slimming down to 175 pounds from 250, Lyons, who attended Amy Firth and Northwest alternative schools, has quickly climbed the amateur ranks. 

And while he has only been in eight fights (8-0, five TKOs), Lyons has gone toe-to-toe with nationally renowned opponents and left the ring with arms held high.

"I ended up fighting the 2010 and 2011 Michigan Golden Gloves champion, and I beat him in my fourth fight. That was a shock," Lyons said.

On Jan. 22, in the Michigan state tournament in Chelsea, Lyons won the championship by defeating an opponent with 60 wins in over 70 matches and ranked No. 3 in the country.

"He is just a natural, and he has a lot of punching power, too," said Lyons' trainer, Bob Kerr.

"He is just an exceptional boxer. I've been around boxing since I was 8 years old. I'm 77 now and he is one of the best I've had, and I've had fighters win all sorts of national championships."

Lyons is on to Colorado Springs, Colo., to compete in the USA Boxing National Championships from Feb. 27 to March 3.

If he wins in Colorado, Lyons will go to Brazil in May for the Americas Olympic Qualifier, where the top eight boxers will earn a trip to the Olympic games in London.

"I've always told myself, it's never too late to follow a dream, never too late to do something you want to do and you love to do," he said.

Paying the price

That dream begins daily at 5 a.m. followed by a five-mile run before breakfast. Lyons then works as a computer technician from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Stanton and Associates, a franchisee of Wendy's and Bigbee's restaurants. After work, he trains at the gym for two to three hours.

Committing to his boxing dream has meant limiting the time with his fiancé, Trisha Carpenter, and son, Moses.

"There's not much time for anything else," Lyons said. "The weekends, we spend as a family, and the time I'm not at the gym. But it's really hard when you have a family, to dedicate that much time to things and not always be here at home, but she has been very supportive of me."

And given what he has sacrificed to pursue his dream, Lyons is going to Colorado with every intention of winning despite being older and less experienced than most of his competition.

"Like I always tell my trainer, they have to want it more than me and I want it really badly," Lyons said. "It's hard for me to see in my mind, anyone beating me.

"I don't know how to lose."

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Unbeaten boxer Moses Lyons got back into boxing to lose some weight

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If you’ve ever followed a weight-loss diet, you might be familiar with the 3,500-calorie rule.

It’s pretty simple: Since there are 3,500 calories in a pound of body fat, eating 500 fewer calories each day – or burning them off exercising – will lead to a slow and steady weight loss of a pound a week. (The math: 500 x 7 days = 3,500)

More related to this story

According to U.S. researches, this ubiquitous weight-loss rule is overly simple and overly optimistic. And it can lead to unrealistic expectations about how quickly you can achieve a weight-loss goal.

The rule contends that cutting 200 calories a day from your diet would lead to a loss of 20 pounds over the course of a year and the weight loss should keep on going. But in reality that doesn’t happen. Weight loss slows and eventually comes to halt despite the drop in calorie intake.

This past weekend, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Vancouver, an international team of researchers unveiled a new formula to better predict how people will lose weight on a diet.

The 3,500-calorie assumption doesn’t account for how metabolism changes during weight loss.

Your metabolism is the rate at which your body burns calories, and it’s largely determined by how much muscle you have, since muscle burns more calories at rest than body fat. Ultimately, it’s your metabolism that dictates how easily you will lose or gain weight.

As the body slims down, metabolism slows, causing it to burn fewer calories at rest. A smaller body also burns fewer calories during exercise. The net result: a sluggish rate of weight loss that can frustrate dieters and cause them to abandon their plan.

Now health-care professionals and researchers have a tool to more accurately predict a dieter’s expected weight loss over time, based on changes to metabolism. Having a more realistic sense of what to expect can help people stay motivated over the long term.

The new formula and accompanying web-based model were developed by researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, Columbia University and Harvard School of Public Health,

The online tool – called the Body Weight Simulator – requires people to input their age, gender, body weight, height, activity level and weight goal (bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov).

It then simulates what diet and exercise changes are required to reach the goal weight and what changes are necessary to maintain it over time.

Using this model, the researchers found that people’s bodies adapt slowly to dietary changes.

For example, the average overweight person needs to cut 100 calories from their current intake per day to lose 10 pounds over three years.

Half of the weight will be lost in one year and then you’ll reach a plateau, slowly losing the remainder by three years.

In contrast, for the same calorie reduction, the 3,500-calorie formula predicts you’ll lose 10 pounds in one year – and 30 pounds by three years.

The Body Weight Simulator isn’t aimed at consumers. It’s intended to be used as a tool for doctors, dietitians and researchers to re-evaluate client goals and identify necessary diet and exercise changes to achieve a weight loss goal at a realistic pace.

The online tool also highlights a salient point: Even though weight loss slows down over time, you will continue to lose weight if you stick to your plan. That’s a positive message for anyone trying to lose weight.

It also emphasizes the need to abandon our quick-fix mentality. Permanent weight loss takes time and requires persistence, consistency and patience. Not easy, I know.

There are other reasons weight loss slows down that have nothing to do with metabolism. They’re related to human nature and they’re within your control.

If you’re experiencing a slowdown, the following strategies can help you pick up the pace.

Don’t let lapses accumulate.

You’re bound to fall off plan occasionally. Losing weight is not an all-or-nothing endeavour.

If you slip, don’t tell yourself “I’ll start again on Monday.” Instead, get back on track, the sooner the better. One small lapse won’t make a difference to the scale.

Rein in portion sizes.

It happens gradually. Instead of one cup of rice, you’re serving yourself 1.5 cups and an extra 100 calories. The chicken breast that not long ago was a precise four ounces, now weighs in at six ounces.

A few extra calories here and there add up and can make the difference between losing and holding steady. If this sounds familiar, measure and weigh your foods again.

Be mindful of extras.

An extra dessert, a few tastes while making dinner, a bite or two off your kid’s plate. Those extra calories can – and will – stall weight loss.

Twenty pounds ago you could get away with eating something extra here and there and still lose weight each week. But not any more. Keep in mind that smaller bodies burn fewer calories, so you have less leeway than before.

Resume keeping a food diary to see if extra calories are sneaking into your diet.

Be consistent on the weekend.

Larger meals, alcoholic beverages, and a few extra snacks on the weekend can cause the needle on the scale to jump Monday morning. You play catch-up during the week to lose those few pounds. Then the following weekend, you put a couple more back on. The end result: no progress.

If weekends are your trouble spot, keep a food diary Friday through Sunday.

Leslie Beck, a Toronto-based dietitian at the Medcan Clinic, is on CTV’s Canada AM every Wednesday. Her website is lesliebeck.com.

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The new weight-loss math

The Irish Times - Tuesday, February 21, 2012

DICK AHLSTROM, Science Editor in Vancouver

THE OLD models of how much weight you can lose by reducing calories are seriously off the mark. It is a lot more difficult to lose weight than these models suggest, according to the authors of a mathematical approach to weight loss and obesity.

Dr Kevin Hall and Dr Carson Chow from the US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases improved on the old linear model that suggested a 250 kilocalorie (usually just referred to as calorie) cut in food intake would deliver a 25lb loss over a year.

This ignored the reality of human metabolism, however, they told a session at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Vancouver.

Weight loss when dieting comes quickly when you start but soon diminishes over time until finally hitting a plateau, as habitual dieters can attest. For this reason assumptions about energy intake and expenditure based on each pound of fat representing 3,500 calories was not useful for calculating energy balance, they said.

Dr Hall pointed to a US study that indicated 67 per cent of people there were overweight or obese. It suggested that if the government introduced a heavy tax on sugar-sweetened beverages this would quickly drop to 50 per cent on the basis of the older models. The researchers ran a “dynamic simulation model” on the data and found that in fact the tax would only reduce obesity to 62 per cent because of the plateau effect.

The two decided to build a new, more accurate model of energy balance and weight loss. It took into account metabolic factors including the weight to lean ratio, sex, physical activity and other factors. They also built a simpler online version so people could log on and set up a weight loss programme. ( bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov)

This was very different from the older calculators that suggested reducing calorie intake by 500 a day would deliver a 1lb loss per week. Their calculator allows you to set goals – how much weight you want to lose over what period of time – and then does the calculations for changes to calorie intake and exercise.

A person should reduce food intake by 10 calories a day for each pound of weight change required. At that rate about half the weight change would be reached in about a year and about 95 per cent of the loss reached in about three years, the researchers calculate.

They also used their model to look at the US adult obesity epidemic. They showed that reaching the average population-based weight gain only required seven extra calories a day.

The calculations were much more sophisticated, however, and also took into account the energy demands required by an individual to carry around the extra average weight. The average person needed to burn up an extra 215 calories a day to haul around the weight. Changing the energy balance will deliver weight loss, Dr Chow said. Eating one fewer biscuit a day could deliver a 15lb weight loss over a year.

“The surprise is such a little change can deliver such a large result,” he said.

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Researchers give less weight to established slimming tricks

BUFFALO, N.Y. After losing his shutout bid in the final minutes, Buffalo’s Ryan Miller quickly turned his attention to making sure the Sabres didn’t lose the game.

Miller made up for giving up what he considered a soft goal to Frans Nielsen by stopping Matt Moulson on the doorstep as part of a 30-save outing in a 2-1 win over the New York Islanders on Tuesday night.

“After that goal, I needed to shut the door there,” Miller said, referring to how he got across and got his pad out to stop Moulson’s one-timer with 4:04 left. “I was happy to be there.”

The save came 64 seconds after Nielsen cut the lead to 2-1 by beating Miller on the short side with a slapper from the left circle.

Sabres coach Lindy Ruff wasn’t complaining, crediting Miller for making several clutch saves, particularly a pair 6 ½ minutes into the second period. That is when Miller stopped Brian Rolston on a breakaway and then recovered in time to get his chest out to foil Josh Bailey on the rebound.

“You’re going to need big saves inside of every game,” Ruff said. “That was back-to-back great saves. The great saves like that usually lead to victories for you.”

Tyler Myers and Thomas Vanek scored, and Jason Pominville and Derek Roy added two assists in helping Buffalo improve to 2-0-1 since a three-game skid. The Sabres (26-27-7) jumped into 12th place in the Eastern Conference, a point ahead of both the Islanders and Montreal Canadiens.

The inconsistent Islanders are 4-5-1 in their past 10 games. They at least scored, as Nielsen’s goal snapped New York’s drought at 106 minutes, 51 seconds, a day after a 6-0 home loss to Ottawa.

This is no time to panic, said interim coach Doug Weight, who filled in behind the bench because head coach Jack Capuano was sick with the flu at the team hotel.

“If you sit on the plane, you look at it as catastrophic,” Weight said. “But as tough as it is, when teams are struggling, it can change in a hurry. So we have to get our swagger somehow offensively back. And it’s there to be had.”

Moulson, who leads the Islanders with 25 goals, was well aware of the opportunity he had in the third period.

“We’ve got to learn from the mistakes we made and some of the chances we gave up, and move on,” said Moulson, who said the puck bounced and prevented him from lifting a shot over Miller. “There’s no time to feel sorry for ourselves.”

Islanders goalie Kevin Poulin rebounded and stopped 35 shots, a day after he was yanked after allowing two goals on five shots against Ottawa in 1:35 of action.

Myers opened the scoring 1:21 in during a scramble in front. After Poulin stopped Roy and then Pominville, he had no chance when Myers streaked in from the point and flipped the loose puck over him.

Poulin also had no chance on Vanek’s goal, scored 3:41 into the second period after a bad line change by the Islanders.

Rather than going immediately to the bench, Rolston chased down the stick he dropped in the Sabres’ corner. He didn’t realize that teammate Matt Martin was still behind him, limping off.

Enjoying what essentially became a 5-on-3 advantage in the New York end, Roy parked himself behind the net and fed a pass into the slot, where Vanek snapped a shot in the open side.

Roy has suddenly rediscovered his offence. After managing four goals and two assists in 23 games, he has two goals and five assists in his past four.

“We’re happy, but at the same time, we’ve got to get some more points,” Roy said. “We’ve got to keep winning hockey games. We can’t win one, lose one anymore. We’ve got to put a streak together. We’ve got to gain some ground right now.”

NOTES: Ruff listed Sabres D Robyn Regehr as day to day after he left with an undisclosed upper-body injury in the first period. ... Bailey didn’t return for the third period because of back spasms. ... Capuano travelled with the team to Buffalo on Monday, but was unable to attend the team’s morning skate on Tuesday. ... The Sabres went 0-for-1 on the power play, and have converted just one of 33 chances in 12 games.

The Associated Press

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Miller stops 30 in leading Sabres to 2-1 win over Islanders

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP)—After losing his shutout bid in the final minutes, Buffalo’s Ryan Miller quickly turned his attention to making sure the Sabres didn’t lose the game.

Miller made up for giving up what he considered a soft goal to Frans Nielsen by stopping Matt Moulson on the doorstep as part of a 30-save outing in a 2-1 win over the New York Islanders on Tuesday night.

“After that goal, I needed to shut the door there,” Miller said, referring to how he got across and got his pad out to stop Moulson’s one-timer with 4:04 left. “I was happy to be there.”

The save came 64 seconds after Nielsen cut the lead to 2-1 by beating Miller on the short side with a slapper from the left circle.

Sabres coach Lindy Ruff wasn’t complaining, crediting Miller for making several clutch saves, particularly a pair 6 1/2 minutes into the second period. That is when Miller stopped Brian Rolston on a breakaway and then recovered in time to get his chest out to foil Josh Bailey on the rebound.

“You’re going to need big saves inside of every game,” Ruff said. “That was back-to-back great saves. The great saves like that usually lead to victories for you.”

Tyler Myers and Tomas Vanek scored, and Jason Pominville and Derek Roy added two assists in helping Buffalo improve to 2-0-1 since a three-game skid. The Sabres (26-27-7) jumped into 12th place in the Eastern Conference, a point ahead of both the Islanders and Montreal Canadiens.

The inconsistent Islanders are 4-5-1 in their past 10 games. They at least scored, as Nielsen’s goal snapped New York’s drought at 106 minutes, 51 seconds, a day after a 6-0 home loss to Ottawa.

This is no time to panic, said interim coach Doug Weight, who filled in behind the bench because head coach Jack Capuano was sick with the flu at the team hotel.

“If you sit on the plane, you look at it as catastrophic,” Weight said. “But as tough as it is, when teams are struggling, it can change in a hurry. So we have to get our swagger somehow offensively back. And it’s there to be had.”

Moulson, who leads the Islanders with 25 goals, was well aware of the opportunity he had in the third period.

“We’ve got to learn from the mistakes we made and some of the chances we gave up, and move on,” said Moulson, who said the puck bounced and prevented him from lifting a shot over Miller. “There’s no time to feel sorry for ourselves.”

Islanders goalie Kevin Poulin rebounded and stopped 35 shots, a day after he was yanked after allowing two goals on five shots against Ottawa in 1:35 of action.

Myers opened the scoring 1:21 in during a scramble in front. After Poulin stopped Roy and then Pominville, he had no chance when Myers streaked in from the point and flipped the loose puck over him.

Poulin also had no chance on Vanek’s goal, scored 3:41 into the second period after a bad line change by the Islanders.

Rather than going immediately to the bench, Rolston chased down the stick he dropped in the Sabres’ corner. He didn’t realize that teammate Matt Martin was still behind him, limping off.

Enjoying what essentially became a 5-on-3 advantage in the New York end, Roy parked himself behind the net and fed a pass into the slot, where Vanek snapped a shot in the open side.

Roy has suddenly rediscovered his offense. After managing four goals and two assists in 23 games, he has two goals and five assists in his past four.

“We’re happy, but at the same time, we’ve got to get some more points,” Roy said. “We’ve got to keep winning hockey games. We can’t win one, lose one anymore. We’ve got to put a streak together. We’ve got to gain some ground right now.”

NOTES: Ruff listed Sabres D Robyn Regehr as day to day after he left with an undisclosed upper body injury in the first period. … Bailey didn’t return for the third period because of back spasms. … Capuano traveled with the team to Buffalo on Monday, but was unable to attend the team’s morning skate on Tuesday. … The Sabres went 0-for-1 on the power play, and have converted just one of 33 chances in 12 games.

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Miller stops 30 in Sabres' 2-1 win over Isles

Guardian News and Media/London

UK national guidelines that advise people how to lose weight are seriously flawed and grossly overstate how quickly they will reach their targets, scientists say.
Researchers found people lost only half as much weight as expected in a year if they followed the advice given by the NHS and US health organisations.
The problem came to light when government scientists at the US National Institutes of Health in Maryland realised standard weight loss advice - including its own - failed to account for changes in metabolism as people lost weight.
The rule of thumb used by the NHS and other health services assumes that if a person cuts 500 calories from their daily diet, they will lose about 450g (1lb) each week, regardless of how long they adhered to the regime.
But as people lose weight, their metabolism slows until they reach a new stable bodyweight. Their weight loss is further complicated by how much body fat and muscle they have when they start dieting.
“Dietitians and physicians have used this rule of thumb for a long time, but it turns out to be completely wrong. It doesn’t account for metabolic changes that happen when people change diet,” said Kevin Hall, who led the research.
“If you change calories, your metabolism slows down and eventually you reach a plateau.”
He told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science: “If you want to lose 10lb of weight eventually, you need to cut 100 calories a day from your diet. You will get halfway there in a year, but then plateau after three years. The old rule of thumb predicts twice as much weight loss after a year and gets worse after that.”
The glitch has consequences that go far beyond the frustration of obese and overweight people who are trying to shed weight.
Public policies drawn up to tackle the rising obesity epidemic have to be reassessed, Hall said, and in cases where this has been done, their effectiveness looked much less impressive than before.
Hall re-examined a proposal for a “fat tax” that added 20% to the cost of sweet and unhealthy foods. Using the flawed weight loss guidelines, obesity rates in the US could be slashed from 67% to 50% in five years.
But when he did the calculation again, taking metabolism into account, the figures were less rosy. After five years of the tax, obesity might drop to 62%, but crucially fall no further.
Last year, researchers writing in the Lancet called on governments to bring in measures to reverse the rise of obesity, which could affect an extra 11mn people in the UK in the next 20 years.
Almost 50% of British men could be obese by 2030, they wrote.
Based on the work, Hall and his colleagues have created an online tool that people from adolescence to late middle age can use to get more accurate advice on how to lose weight.
The tool, which can be used by GPs and patients, then works out how many calories they need to cut, either through dieting or more exercise, and how they can then maintain the healthier weight.
Rather than demoralising people, Hall hopes more accurate advice would help overweight and obese people have realistic expectations.

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Weight-loss guidelines flawed, say researchers

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TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - CC Sabathia's weight is down, and the New York Yankees are hoping a few lost pounds might turn into a few more victories.

The five-time All-Star said Sunday he's shed 10 to 15 pounds and reported to spring training weighing about 290 — the same as a year ago when he pitched brilliantly early in the season but not nearly as effective down the stretch, when he appeared to be much heavier.

After winning 13 of his first 17 decisions, Sabathia finished 19-8 overall with a 3.00 ERA. The Yankees rewarded him with a contract extension that added $30 million and one season to an existing contract that now will pay him $122 million over the next five years.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman later arranged a meeting with Sabathia to discuss the importance of the 31-year-old lefty watching his weight as he gets older.

"When I was dealing with his contract, the weight stuff didn't come up. We wanted CC. We needed CC. We love CC," said Cashman, who bolstered the Yankees starting rotation this winter by trading for young right-hander Michael Pineda and signing former Los Angeles Dodgers righty Hiroki Kuroda to a $10 million, one-year free agent contract.

The GM said Sabathia is one of the hardest workers on the team and that the conversation about the pitcher's weight was not initiated because of any concerns about how he takes care of himself.

"CC's never let us down. He's the type of person that's fully committed," Cashman said. "So the only hard part really is to have these conversations. The easy part is watching him follow through."

The general manager stressed the discussion was more about trying to maintain what's helped Sabathia perform at a high level in the past than trying to force Sabathia to lose weight.

"He's obviously a big man. He's pitched with weight his whole career," Cashman said, adding he doesn't believe in placing weight clauses in contracts because they can be counterproductive.

Standing in his front of his locker at the Yankees spring training complex, where pitchers and catchers hold their first workout on Monday, Sabathia acknowledged he didn't pitch well late in the season but that his weight wasn't a factor.

"It's just one of those things," he said. "I wish I could pitch lights out every single time."

Pineda and Kuroda are joining a rotation that includes Ivan Nova, Phil Hughes and Freddy Garcia, in addition to Sabathia, who is excited about what — at least for now — appears to be a surplus of starting pitchers.

Pineda, who turned 23 last month, was 9-10 with a 3.74 ERA in 28 starts with the Seattle Mariners last year. Kuroda was 13-16 with a 3.07 ERA in 32 starts for the Dodgers.

"It's a good problem to have. Any time you can add guys like Michael and Kuroda it definitely helps. It should be a good battle," Sabathia said. "It's a win-win situation for us either way."

Cashman, who is still in the market to sign a left-handed designated hitter, said a team can never have enough starting pitching.

"I don't necessarily look at it as a competition for the fifth spot. I've been around long enough to realize that what appears to be a surplus ... can turn into a deficit rather quickly based on health and freak stuff," the general manager said.

"I'm not trying to jinx us by talking about it. But I've lived through it enough to know. Exhibit A is the Boston Red Sox last year. We go into spring training last year with not enough. They go into spring training armed and dangerous with more than enough. But with the spring training schedule, plus 162 regular season games, that can radically change things over time."

Cashman isn't speculating about how the rotation might look on opening day.

One thing he's not counting on is Pineda emerging from this camp as the No. 2 or 3 starter behind Sabathia.

"We don't have those illusions. ... Obviously he's got a lot of potential, but we can't forget he's still young," Cashman said, adding that it wouldn't be fair to place such high expectations on Pineda.

"We have some veterans clearly who have been there and done that, that have a history and track record. We have some young guys that are certainly high end and capable. And then we've got some kids who are knocking on the door that still in theory need more development time."

Notes: Manager Joe Girardi's flight to from Newark, N.J., to Tampa was delayed Sunday, and the Yankees pushed his annual pre-camp news conference back to Monday. ... Kuroda thinks being reunited with catcher Russell Martin, a former teammate in Los Angeles, will help his transition to the Yankees. "I played with him for three years. He knows me. Not just my pitches, he knows my personality, so it's going to be a real big help," Kuroda said through a translator. ... Reliever Mariano Riviera did not report with the rest of the pitchers, however Cashman was not concerned. "He knows what he needs to do," to get ready for the season, the GM said. "It's not a problem."

Link:
Sabathia Reports 10 To 15 Lbs Lighter

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- CC Sabathia's weight is down, and the New York Yankees are hoping a few lost pounds might turn into a few more victories.

The five-time All-Star said Sunday he's shed 10 to 15 pounds and reported to spring training weighing about 290 - the same as a year ago when he pitched brilliantly early in the season but not nearly as effective down the stretch, when he appeared to be much heavier.

After winning 13 of his first 17 decisions, Sabathia finished 19-8 overall with a 3.00 ERA. The Yankees rewarded him with a contract extension that added $30 million and one season to an existing contract that now will pay him $122 million over the next five years.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman later arranged a meeting with Sabathia to discuss the importance of the 31-year-old lefty watching his weight as he gets older.

"When I was dealing with his contract, the weight stuff didn't come up. We wanted CC. We needed CC. We love CC," said Cashman, who bolstered the Yankees starting rotation this winter by trading for young right-hander Michael Pineda and signing former Los Angeles Dodgers righty Hiroki Kuroda to a $10 million, one-year free agent contract.

The GM said Sabathia is one of the hardest workers on the team and that the conversation about the pitcher's weight was not initiated because of any concerns about how he takes care of himself.

"CC's never let us down. He's the type of person that's fully committed," Cashman said. "So the only hard part really is to have these conversations. The easy part is watching him follow through."

The general manager stressed the discussion was more about trying to maintain what's helped Sabathia perform at a high level in the past than trying to force Sabathia to lose weight.

"He's obviously a big man. He's pitched with weight his whole career," Cashman said, adding he doesn't believe in placing weight clauses in contracts because they can be counterproductive.

Standing in his front of his locker at the Yankees spring training complex, where pitchers and catchers hold their first workout on Monday, Sabathia acknowledged he didn't pitch well late in the season but that his weight wasn't a factor.

"It's just one of those things," he said. "I wish I could pitch lights out every single time."

Pineda and Kuroda are joining a rotation that includes Ivan Nova, Phil Hughes and Freddy Garcia, in addition to Sabathia, who is excited about what - at least for now - appears to be a surplus of starting pitchers.

Pineda, who turned 23 last month, was 9-10 with a 3.74 ERA in 28 starts with the Seattle Mariners last year. Kuroda was 13-16 with a 3.07 ERA in 32 starts for the Dodgers.

"It's a good problem to have. Any time you can add guys like Michael and Kuroda it definitely helps. It should be a good battle," Sabathia said. "It's a win-win situation for us either way."

Cashman, who is still in the market to sign a left-handed designated hitter, said a team can never have enough starting pitching.

"I don't necessarily look at it as a competition for the fifth spot. I've been around long enough to realize that what appears to be a surplus ... can turn into a deficit rather quickly based on health and freak stuff," the general manager said.

"I'm not trying to jinx us by talking about it. But I've lived through it enough to know. Exhibit A is the Boston Red Sox last year. We go into spring training last year with not enough. They go into spring training armed and dangerous with more than enough. But with the spring training schedule, plus 162 regular season games, that can radically change things over time."

Cashman isn't speculating about how the rotation might look on opening day.

One thing he's not counting on is Pineda emerging from this camp as the No. 2 or 3 starter behind Sabathia.

"We don't have those illusions. ... Obviously he's got a lot of potential, but we can't forget he's still young," Cashman said, adding that it wouldn't be fair to place such high expectations on Pineda.

"We have some veterans clearly who have been there and done that, that have a history and track record. We have some young guys that are certainly high end and capable. And then we've got some kids who are knocking on the door that still in theory need more development time."

Notes: Manager Joe Girardi's flight to from Newark, N.J., to Tampa was delayed Sunday, and the Yankees pushed his annual pre-camp news conference back to Monday. ... Kuroda thinks being reunited with catcher Russell Martin, a former teammate in Los Angeles, will help his transition to the Yankees. "I played with him for three years. He knows me. Not just my pitches, he knows my personality, so it's going to be a real big help," Kuroda said through a translator. ... Reliever Mariano Riviera did not report with the rest of the pitchers, however Cashman was not concerned. "He knows what he needs to do," to get ready for the season, the GM said. "It's not a problem."

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