Former baseball player Alex Rodríguez (48) has lost around 15 kilos. The trigger was a surprising diagnosis during a visit to the dentist, as he revealed in May. Now he described in detail in “Men’s Health” how he changed his lifestyle afterwards.
In an essay, Jennifer Lopez’s ex-fiancé (54) wrote: “Back in my Yankee days, our medical routine was to go to the dentist twice a year, and I’ve stuck with it ever since. During a visit to my dentist in Miami I was diagnosed with periodontitis.” The chronic bacterial gum infection made him “nervous” and he therefore began “proactive treatment”. “Since then, I have been going for treatment every three months and am pleased to have this disease under control.” At that time, however, he started “thinking about general health in general, whether it’s dental or something like getting stronger with my cardiovascular work.”
A-Rod continued: “The first step is always the hardest. For my overall health, I started by focusing on a very specific part of my day: from waking up in the morning until lunch. I invest this time particularly in my health and my well-being – especially in my training and stretching.” He does Pilates, yoga, meditation, goes to the steam bath and sauna. “Then I come to the office at lunchtime and stay there until 6 p.m., and then I come home and have dinner with my family. This routine is fairly new and has been working quite well so far.”
However, he no longer wants to do a number of exercises from his active professional sports career, especially high-impact exercises. “The biggest difference is that I don’t train as hard or heavy as I used to. These days it’s more about mobility, flexibility and maintaining health – not performance.”
He has lost a lot of weight due to his new lifestyle, as he likes to show on Instagram. “That wasn’t actually the intention, but simply the result of better habits: reducing meat consumption, night walking and consistent cardiovascular and strength training.” However, he now feels “much better”: “I feel healthier, I feel younger and I look forward to attacking every day. Since making these changes I feel full of energy. I feel clearer in my thoughts . I move better. One advantage is that my clothes fit better.”
Instead of eating a steak every five or even six days like he used to, he now only eats meat about every ten days. To do this, he increased his gym visits: “Instead of training two or three days a week, I try to go to the gym six or seven days a week – even if it’s not incredibly high intensity, just for consistency.” Contact with his friends is also important to him. “I have relationships that go back 30, 40 years. I’m lucky enough to work with a few people who have been my best friends since we were nine years old. I have my work family, I have my family, and they’re a good fit together because we spend so much time together.” He hopes his story will inspire others and help them achieve better health.
Alex Rodríguez is considered one of the most successful baseball players in the USA. In 2017 he gave up his active career. Since then he has been moderating and analyzing baseball games. He also invests in start-up companies. He made headlines with his love life. From 2002 to 2008 he was married to Cynthia Scurtis (51), with whom he has two daughters. He then dated a number of prominent women: actress Kate Hudson (44), Cameron Diaz (51) and Jennifer Lopez. He was with the singer from 2017 to 2021 and they got engaged in 2019. As is well known, a wedding never took place.