About

Greetings from the wellness path!

My name is Lon Fuentes and I’m here to help you on your weight loss journey.

My objective for this blog is to share what I’ve learned  about losing weight, getting fit, and practicing a healthy lifestyle. While eating a nutritionally excellent diet combined with a proper exercise programs sounds  deceptively simple in theory, in practical terms it’s not that easy to achieve. This is because there is so much (mis)information in the field that it’s quite difficult to separate credible, scientifically valid strategies for weight  control,  and the hype and noise surrounding the chaos of the “diet and weight loss” marketplace. Part of my mission is to sort through some of the most relevant findings in the field of mind-body interaction, fitness, and nutrition that can be of immediate practical use in managing your weight – and more importantly – your health and wellness.

Personal background and experience.

I have been a serious student of wellness, health, fitness and exercise, nutrition, and mind-body interaction for the last thirty years. More recently (as I’ve gotten older), I have been really focusing on learning the effects of nutrition/diet/caloric restriction and exercise on longevity and the aging process.

Though I am now able to “practice what I preach,” twelve years ago I was a totally different person. I was fifty pounds overweight and a borderline diabetic. I was a sugar addict. I had an ulcer. I had high blood pressure. I had sciatica. With a total cholesterol count of 350 and dangerously high lipid levels, I was a walking heart attack waiting to happen. (My father died of coronary thrombosis when he was thirty seven, so my genetics didn’t leave much of a safety margin.)

Incredibly, these health issues snuck up on me despite all the “knowledge” I had accumulated about health and fitness. Lesson learned: correct information does not necessarily translate to correct behavior. I was living the wrong lifestyle for all the wrong reasons. The corporate rat race I inadvertently joined had turned me into a prematurely aged (and ailing) fat rat.

I wish I could say that my journey back to health was an easy one. After all I knew a bit about fitness and conditioning, as a long-time martial arts practitioner and teacher. In retrospect, it was probably just my survival instinct that kicked in. Refusing my doctor’s suggestion of taking statins and other medications, I took the hard route. I slowly “re-engineered” my diet, and started a serious practice of yoga and exercise.

My current personal fitness practice combines yoga, weight training (kettlebells and Olympic-style lifting) and cardio training (rowing on the Concept2 and skipping rope). I have also managed to maintain a healthy weight the last ten years by consciously applying what I’ve learned about the art and science of weight loss.

For me, wellness and fitness is goal, as well as a lifestyle choice. Maintaining my weight and fitness is still a lot of work. But like any work that is worth doing, it becomes easier to do if you have the right knowledge and tools to do it. My real obsession nowadays is how to help people empower and transform their lives by being lean, fit and strong.

I received my ICF-approved coach training from the MentorCoach  organization, one of the leading coaching schools in the world. I have a very strong background and extensive practical experience in applying the science of Positive Psychology and strengths-based coaching methods to the process of personal change. I am a Certified Strengths Coach from the Gallup Organization.

I am a graduate of the three-year Iyengar Teacher Training Program in Southern California. I have personally studied Buddhist mind training techniques for the last thirteen years under a Tibetan master teacher and meditator. Prior to that I studied tai-chi and Taoist meditation for ten years. Over the last decade I have taught yoga, physical conditioning, martial arts, and stress management techniques.

As an executive coach, organizational consultant, and trainer, I have always been interested in the practical applications of mindfulness and work-life balance on performance and personal productivity.

The older I get the more I realize the confluence of my two interests: fitness and strategic planning. Now, as a wellness advocate and weight loss coach I can finally combine these two passions to make a difference in people’s lives.

My Approach (and Why Most Weight Loss Solutions Fail)

There are many paths to weight loss success. The body of knowledge accumulating in the biology and psychology of weight control is staggeringly vast. Research from various fields like nutritional science, biochemistry of mind-body interaction, and the neuroscience of appetite regulation continue to pour in. The ‘latest and greatest” diets come and go. Yet successful weight loss continues to elude us.

One reason is that weight loss programs do not view weight gain and obesity as a multi-dimensional problem. Each so-called “expert” views the problem of being overweight or obese through their own specific lens or “intervention.” However, losing weight is not an exclusively nutritional, behavioral, or even socio-economic issue.

Successful weight loss happens when we treat Food, Body, and Mind as a dynamic system. The effectiveness of any complex process, like losing weight, is defined by its weakest link. For example, the most sophisticated cognitive-behavioral intervention will fail due to the inherent weakness of a diet’s nutritional quality (and vice versa).

Second, most solutions do not address the unique personality, lifestyle, and most importantly, the unique “stage of change” an individual is on the path of wellness. Each stage in the path to optimal health requires different combinations of strategies and actions. This is critical because being able to go on a diet and lose weight is only half of the solution. We need to develop the enduring skills, behavior, and mindset to maintain  healthy body weight in the long run. As a “change management” problem, losing weight requires a careful understanding of how the various factors (e.g. genetics, eating and exercise behaviors, social environment, taste preferences) interact to derail or support our goals.

People fail because they don’t have enough knowledge to assess whether the strategies they are using are actually sustainable for their situation. How does one predict if the “diet” will work this time? Weight loss will be permanent if and only if the techniques, dietary style, and behaviors that one adopts make sense nutritionally and fit into one’s unique lifestyle. So it’s a lot more than creating a calorie deficit by “eating less and exercising more.” Neither is it about the exercise of sheer willpower. It’s really about the intelligence of putting it all together.

How I can help you.

I like to discover and share not only the what and how of weight loss, but most importantly, the why. Successful weight loss is “an experiment of one” — the result of merging theory and practice over a period of time. As our skills and methods improve, so do our chances of “getting it right this time.” (Weight loss success aside, I think everyone should know that there is good weight loss, and there is bad weight loss. I don’t subscribe to weight loss techniques that compromise health and longevity).

To lose weight effectively and permanently there are three distinct but interrelated components that need to be managed strategically:

Mindset. This includes the emotional, behavioral, and cognitive aspects that affect eating style.

Physical activity. This affects your caloric as well as your mental/emotional balance.

Food. This is mainly about balancing palatability and nutritional quality of your “diet.”

As a weight loss coach, I can help you create a cohesive and intelligent strategy that weaves the “best practices” from each of these disciplines. I do this by helping you design a wellness-based “lean lifestyle” that is both sustainable and unique to your individual situation.

I can teach you how to plan and implement effective and lasting weight loss success. We do this by getting a clearer and deeper understanding of how to manage hunger using proven “evidence-based” nutritional, psychological, and energetic (i.e., mind-body) principles.

Think of losing weight as a process of tweaking the food-body-mind equation on two levels: (1) selecting the relative  importance (or mix) of  each of these variables in your weight loss plan, and (2) the choice of specific techniques within each variable.

Given you current lifestyle and unique situation, what is the best “food” strategy to employ? To get to your end point, you might have to employ multiple stages, rather than just picking one diet approach from beginning to end. (”Everyone’s different”). What is the most efficient and effective exercise program (e.g., Eastern vs Western modalities, strength vs cardio, etc.) given your time committments and lifestyle?

Most importantly, what mental “scaffolding” do you  need to construct in order to support these healthy eating and exercise habits? What factors are likely to affect your motivation to apply weight management techniques consistently over time? How do you ensure the sustainability of these healthy behaviors? These are just some of the issues you need to wrestle with when thinking about a successful weight loss strategy.

I can help your sort these things out. Whether you do it yourself, or join an organized group, I can help you figure out what overall strategy you need to maximize your success. I can help you save time and avoid the paths that lead to nowhere. More importantly, I can be the resource and support you need when the going gets tough.