To look at me, you would not think this guy is too thin. You may think I look more than healthy. Most people probably do not think or care about my size.

To stay at a normal weight, all I have to do is: have a goal of being 20 lbs lighter than whatever weight I am currently, workout most days, think about food constantly, and enter everything that passes my lips into my fat-shaming app, Lose It! Easy.

This all sounds very disordered eating but I think I’m at a good place and this is how things will ride until I die carrying a laundry basket down my ridiculous basement stairs. So I plan and track all the fucking time? But I eat really delicious nutritionally dense foods that are a joy, I’m quite fortunate.

Real Disordered Eating

When I was 17 years old, I had my photo taken for my passport. I was shocked at how round I looked. I was 6 feet tall, still growing, and 220 lbs. I went down to 155 lbs in six months. I looked sick, waxen and I received so many compliments. Here’s my meal plan in case you want to take the next step in being unhappy:

• Breakfast – Two slices of toasted thin white bread with margarine and instant coffee with Sweet ‘N Low and skim milk
• Morning snack – Diet Coke
• Lunch – Two slices of turky and two slices of Swiss or Cheddar, rolled together with a Diet Coke
• Afternoon snack – Diet Coke
• Dinner – A variety of choices from Lean Cuisine and a Diet Coke
• Exercise – Jumping jacks and push ups in your room for 30 minutes a day

I cannot believe my parents didn’t say anything. And we ate dinner together every night. There they were digging into veal scallopini with buttery linguini and I’m scrapping my Lean Cuisine Szechwan Beef into a small bowl. That’s how they spelled in on the box. My father was legally blind and my mom admired my will power so that may explain the negligence.

I tried not to exceed 600 calories per day. Poor kid.

The Recent Wake Up Call

This year I did lose 20 lbs from my 6’2″ husky frame, from 225 to 205. Ideally I should be 185 because that’s the weight of the hot guys who are my height on Scruff.

For the first time, it was health and not vanity being the main diet motivator.

Six months ago, my doctor told me I have pre-diabetes (which I think is made up, like being almost pregnant), and I needed to start a statin for high cholesterol.

Fuck, I have life-style diseases. My dad died at 73 from lung cancer after a solid 50+ years of smoking cigars, pipes and cigarettes. The two bottles of wine a day did not help. Or testing nuclear bombs for the army. Mom died at 84 from her heart stopping after languishing in a nursing home for more than five years with diabetes-related dementia. And just a shit load of medication dependent situations for my entire like. That lady had her galbladder removed in her 30’s, high blood pressure, ulcers, all her toes amputated, stents, you name it. Most importantly though for my family, she was finally at a good weight, after her 84 year diet, on her deathbed.

That cannot be how the cookie crumbles for me. I am single without kids and I do not want to go into a nursing home, despite how great I said nursing homes are, to my mom while putting her in a nursing home.

A few months before being diagnosed as dying by my doctor, I decided to stop drinking alcohol. I was never alcohol dependent but I definitely drank too much. I was what they call a grey area drinker in the sober circles. Like when I quit smoking cigarettes nearly 20 years ago, abstinence is the easier path for me. I cannot enjoy just one or two of anything.

I thought not drinking would make me thin because my favorite cocktail was seven beers. Problem was, when I quit I felt like a deserved freaky big ice cream cones and the obscene pieces of  cake found in diner display cases.

How I Very Slowly Regulate My Body Composition and Improve My Health

After the diagnosis of being obese and prediabetic with hypercholesterolemia, I was going to starve myself. But then I thought, that might not be healthy or sustainable. I simply went to mostly minamally processed foods and stopped eating so much God damned candy, cookies, cake, and big blocks of cheese as a hand snack. Now, I pack in as much fiber, fruit, veggies, whole grains and lean protein as Lose It! says I may eat. Most of the time. Sometimes I eat whatevs.

I do walk all the time because I love it and participate in activities that interest me, like tennis, hiking and working out at the gym while creeping on dudes.

There are a lot of reasonable people on social media with good advice. More quaks and charletans though so be careful. The trick is to find people with real nutrition and medical credentials who use peer reviewed clinical studies. Science.

I also have a digital scale that I whip out once a week or so. It tracks lean mass, fat mass, water percentage and oddly the current temperature and the predicted high temperature. It’s not perfect and I’m sure it’s off but I look for the trends. As long as it’s always off in the same way, I look for more muscle and less fat. The weight number matters less if I can have a better muscle to fat ratio.

I do add tons of protein powder to drink and food because I could never eat enough protein otherwise. It’s shocking how much protein we are supposed to eat while eating a shockingly small amount of food.

Why I’m Writing This

I enjoy writing so this is for my mental health as much as anything else. And in the past six months, I’ve gotten a lot out of other people’s stories, from bloggers who struggle with their relationship with food to all those podcasters in black t-shirts like Rich Roll and Steven Bartlett, who discuss maximizing your health and potential.

Look out for more.