Normal BMI - I did it.

Ups and downs, ups and downs. I've been using MFP on and off for a few years, bouncing up and down from my fattest to "only" 20 pounds overweight.

However, in January 2014, I was, once again at my fattest: 205 pounds at 5'7" (5'8" on a good day). Short and fat ain't a great look for a 39 year old bald man. I was tired, bloated, and my wardrobe was tight. Thank the lord for stretchy-waist pants. My collars wouldn't button. I had trouble rolling over in bed. It was exercise just to give the lovely wife a good night kiss (and bless her soul for putting up with me in that condition. She was training - and still is - to run her first marathon, and that lady never criticized my fat *kitten*). If I was downstairs in my office and I forgot something upstairs, then screw it, I was leaving it there. My favorite snack was a pint of Ben and Jerry's. Yeah, the whole pint. Walmart actually ran out of my favorite flavor, Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. I am NOT exaggerating. I like to think to that someone else was buying it too, but the reality of their Coffee Heath Bar Crunch shortage is probably a bit uglier. When the Xbox One showed me my own image over the Kinnect, I looked like a white Huell from Breaking Bad http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Huell_Babineaux?file=4x11_-_Huell.png Over Xmas break, I drank so much that I may have put a liquor store out of business. OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration.

But at my fattest in the beginning of January, something clicked (if I could bottle that "click," I'd sell it and make a billion dollars) and I became determined to get into a normal, healthy weight range. Maybe this is my mid-life crisis.

Now I'm fully aware that BMI is only a guide and has many flaws when used as a judge of health, but I wanted to see if I could get to the Normal scale for my height. It was a simple but somewhat lofty goal (at least for me). It was almost a personal dare.

To lose this weight, I used a revolutionary method for weight loss: Eat less and exercise more. Who would have thought that that would work, huh?

I made simple daily and weekly goals:

- Drink enough water (I pretty much already did this; it's one healthy habit I've kept from previous weight loss failures)
- Eat at least one serving of veggies a day. Yes, that was a big deal for me. Ugh - hated veggies. In fact, around March, my mother-in-law caught me eating broccoli and commented that she didn't think she ever saw me eat anything green.
- Less carbs. Less bread. Less pasta.
- More fruit. More simple foods.
- Plan my meals the night before. I make REALLY bad decisions when I'm hungry.
- Identify my hungriest times. My coworkers tease me about my 2:15 banana. That's not a sex joke. Too often, I'd come home starving, walk through the door, and pound massive amounts of food before I even had my tie off. The 2:15 banana helped stop that come-home binge.
- Track EVERYTHING - even those occasional nights of drinking with some friends... Breaking four thousand calories on a single day? Yup, tracked it. 6 Heinekens? Tracked em. 6 servings of ice cream? Tracked it. Seafood buffet on February vacation. Tracked it. Last night's 150 ml of Glenlivet whiskey? Tracked it.
- Weigh myself every day. I know that there exists two camps for weigh-in frequencies, but my philosophy about weigh-ins was captured by something I read back in 2013: "I'm an adult; I can handle it."
- Exercise at least 3 times a week. For Xmas, my son got an Xbox One and I noticed that it has a bunch of free workout videos. The Kinnect tracks your body movement and awards you points for doing the exercises correctly. It is almost like video gaming and working out. At first, it wasn't easy watching the Huell version of me work out, but I got hooked. I started with a simple ten minute workout, huffing, puffing, gasping, and sweating. Now I can finish a 40 minute Insanity session (Don't get me wrong - it ain't pretty, and I certainly don't look like Shaun T. but I finish the damn thing). Now my wife nags me to take a rest day to let my body recoup. She's probably right.
- Get to 159 pounds before 2015. (Check).

Here are some motivating moments that kept me going:
- I ordered size 34 waist pants from Banana Republic, but must have been drunk when I ordered them. They arrived as size 32 waist. I tried them on for the hell of it, and they fit! I hadn't worn a size 32 since high school. I'm still dumbfounded that my latest pair of jeans is a size 30 waist.
- My 90s leather jacket fits better now than it did in college. Long live heavy metal! Grunge ftw!
- Compliments galore. "Did you lose weight? How much have you lost? What are you doing to get so healthy?"
- My sister-in-law confessed to my wife that she never realized that I'm a handsome guy. (I'm not, but I'll take those compliments however I can get 'em!)
- A colleague was afraid to ask me if I was losing weight because she wasn't sure if I was sick - like AIDS/Cancer sick! I said to myself, wow, I'm losing that much weight?
- Reading /loseit, /motivation and /fitness on Reddit. Lots of great info there. For me, one of the most motivational quotes on Reddit was from a DragonBallZ cartoon: "And this isn't even my final form." I've never even watched a single episode of that show, but I love that quote. It's silly and hyperbolic, but it struck a chord. Also, looking at all the before and after pics helped: Often I said to myself, if THAT dude could do it, why can't I?

Now it hasn't been all peaches and cream. In fact, here are some things that I found a bit frustrating while losing weight:
- WTF? - I had to buy a new pair of jeans almost every month. Size 38 to 30.
- I had a really nice wardrobe; I'm a bit of a clothes-horse. My X-Large t-shirts, my 17 1/2 collar, 32/33 shirts, and my 38 waist pants - all gone. I've had to buy new everything, from boxers to belts to dress shirts. My funeral suit looks like a tent on me. (Side note: nobody I know better die soon. I have no suit to wear to your funeral).
- People told me to stop. "You're disappearing. Don't get too skinny. Fine, don't have a cookie, skinny boy." For the record, I really wanted that cookie. And how strange it is that people will freely tell that they are concerned about your health if you are becoming thin, but never say anything if you are becoming fat. Not once did anyone ever say to me, "Hey dude, you're getting really big. Maybe you should put down that pint of Ben and Jerry's and go for a walk."

So here I am. 159 pounds, normal BMI. Medium t-shirts and size 30-32 waist. Now what? I've failed so many times before, I'm really paranoid that come Decemeber 2015, my weight will climb again. I mean, what do you do when the compliments stop? What do I do when the lazies attack and I miss a workout. And another. And another. How do I stay motivated? I've hit my goal. Should I try for 155? I don't really know what my maintenance weight should be. I've mastered progression... but I'm pretty ignorant about maintenance. Do I just keep doing what I'm doing? Will things eventually even out, and I'll stop losing weight?

And, most importantly, do I reward myself with a pint of Coffee Heath Bar Crunch? (Hell no, that thing actually sounds really too sweet :P) .