Without the aid of Weight Watchers or the assistance of Alli, New York Mets manager Jerry Manuel is losing weight.

Manuel has shed the inflated expectations of Gary Matthews Jr., the bloated ego of Oliver Perez, the empty calories of John Maine and, ultimately, the monkey that has been clinging to his back recent days and months.

Since Opening Day, the Mets have been making small, incremental changes, some due to injury others for production. Frank Catalanotto, Daniel Murphy, Sean Green, Carlos Beltran, Mike Jacobs and Omir Santos have been replaced with healthy diet of Ike Davis, Ruben Tejada, Angel Pagan, Chris Carter, Hisanori Takahashi, R.A. Dickey, Jenrry Mejia, Elmer Dessens and Ryota Igarashi.

The combination of youth and experience have helped the Mets win eight of nine and boast a 9-2 record in June, including a weekend sweep on the road against the Baltimore Orioles.

“We need to build momentum,” Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez stated simply and succinctly after sweeping the team with the worst record in Major League Baseball.

The Mets have been cultivating all season including a nine-game winning streak in late April and a series sweeps against National League East rivals the Philadelphia Phillies in May and Florida Marlins (June 4-6).

While the sweep of baseball’s worst team may be brushed off, do not discount the psychological impact of the recent success. Winning – against Baltimore, Cleveland or Philadelphia — has a placebo effect.

“Sometimes motivation is more important than math … I don’t care if you have a masters degree in psychology; you need to get quick wins to get fired up,” said Dave Ramsey. “And getting fired up is super-important.”

Ramsey is not an athlete, he’s a financial guru. Then again, winning is not limited to the baseball diamond. Whether you’re opponent is credit card debt or the Philadelphia Phillies, winning starts in the mind.

Dan and Chip Heath, authors of the best-selling book Switch: How to Change Things When Things are Hard wrote: You can’t combat powerlessness with math. You combat it by proving to people they can win.

“Small successes can be extremely powerful in helping people believe in themselves,” Bill Parcells told the Harvard Business Review. Parcells said his two Super Bowl championships started with “setting goals that are within immediate reach. When you set small, visible goals, and people achieve them, they start to get into their heads that they can succeed. They break the habit of losing and begin to get into the habit of winning.”

Winning changes everything … and sometimes makes people ask, “Have you lost weight?”