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Newsflash: I am a HUGE nerd. Like, staggering. Wait, let’s back up.

A few weeks ago, Brian revealed to me that he had ordered a new diet book, the TNT Diet, off of eBay for like $4. I found it on Amazon for like $6 (the price appears to have gone up), and since I have free Prime 2-day shipping, I had it in, well, two days; Brian’s took longer, eBay being what it is.

The book is basically a low-carb diet (specifically high fat, and we all love fat, right?), along with a detailed program of weight-lifting to build muscle. I’ve had good luck with low-carb diets in the past, so I figured this would be a fantastic way to get back under 18 stone and maybe develop those wicked arms and shoulders that drive the ladies crazy.

This is where the nerdiness comes in. While reading up on TNT, I discovered that Men’s Health (the publisher of the diet book) maintains a kickass forum for asking questions and chatting with other dieters, sharing your knowledge and goals and successes. From this, I learned all kinds of completely awesome things, like how ideally when trying to build muscle you should take in 1 gram of protein for each pound of “lean muscle mass” (which technically includes bone and water, anything in your body that’s not fat), and on the diet you want to try and stick to a 60/30/10 ratio of fat to protein to carbohydrates.

So during the roughly 30 minutes a day when I’m not at work or being bossed around by my family, I’ve been making nifty little spreadsheets to show me how many calories I need to take in, how much protein powder I should eat every day, fantastic stuff. I’ve even ordered a set of calipers and tape measure to reasonably-accurately calculate my actual fat percentage, which led me to some interesting data.

I currently weigh 254 pounds, and am roughly 6’3″, depending on time of day. My best guess, based on a number of online fat percentage calculators, is that I’m probably about 30% fat, and no more than 32%. (I’ll know more Friday night after my kit arrives.) If I’m 32% fat, that means I’m 68% muscle/bone/water, or about 172 pounds. Now, according to Wikipedia, if I get myself down to 14% fat, I would be very, very fit, almost “professional athlete” fit. Assuming that I gain no muscle (and I intend to, if possible), 14% fat on top of 172 pounds of muscle is 200 pounds. Someone who is 6’3″ and 200 pounds has a Body Mass Index of exactly 25, which is still technically in the “overweight” category. How crazy is that? Even if I was as fit as I had ever been in my entire life, a doctor might look at my BMI and tell me to lose a few pounds.

Sorry, are you asleep? My bad. I enjoy this stuff. See also: Nerd, Matt Hearn is a.

I started the diet at 257, so in about 10 days I’ve lost 3 pounds. Here’s hoping I can keep it up. I haven’t seen my wang in months.