SURPRISE, Ariz. _ Joe Palumbo is bound to lose weight this spring, as most players do, but he might lose more than anyone else on the Texas Rangers' roster.
The left-hander doesn't have Valley Fever or a stomach bug. He's probably strong than he has ever been, and still will be that way once the regular season starts.
Palumbo is doing to drop pounds because he has dropped daily 4,000-calorie shakes from his diet.
Four. Thousand. Calories.
"It was a grind, but I got it done," he said.
The purpose behind the shakes was to put weight on his slight frame to help him add strength to the endurance also required to log a high total of innings from game to game and over a season.
Palumbo, who made his MLB debut last season, said he added between 20 and 25 pounds. Most of it, if not all of it, is good weight as he combined the extra calories with an intense workout regimen.
His typical day went like this: Work out at 1:45 p.m., eat an early dinner between 4 and 5 p.m., and down the shake. Half went down with dinner. The other half eventually went down before bedtime.
It wasn't easy to drink, and not exactly a breeze to make.
The recipe he concocted started with protein power at 650 calories a scoop.
"So, two of those," Palumbo said.
And the rest?
"Cyto Carb, creatine, three cups of yogurt, spinach, one banana, like 10 strawberries, a scoop of ice cream, three tablespoons of peanut butter and two eggs, and a cup of chocolate almond milk," Palumbo said. "And a cup of ice."
He crammed all that into an eight-cup blender, and then crammed it into he body. Every day from Oct. 14 until he came to spring training Feb. 1.
"Sometimes I'd be there for like and hour and a half, just competing through it," Palumbo said.
Palumbo's shake is starting to get a reputation. He said that mothers of youth baseball players have slid into his DMs looking for the recipe for his "Cup of Joe."
As the infomercial says, it sounds too good to be true. Does it actually work?
The early results say yes. Palumbo, who is expected to start the season at Triple A Nashville, says he still feels athletic despite the extra pounds.
"It's been a goal of mine to gain weight," Palumbo said. "I worked out hard. I'm not fat. I feel really good. I think it will help me. I think something I was missing in my game was longevity. I think with this extra weight it will help out a lot."
