Matthew McConaughey Is Nearly Back to His Original Weight

Ladies, you can all breathe a sigh of relief: Matthew McConaughey is almost as good as new.

Over a period of several months, the 43-year-old actor endured a grueling diet and exercise regime to lose over 40 pounds for his role as man suffering from AIDS in the indie film "The Dallas Buyers Club,” weighing in at a shocking 135 pounds when he reported to his first day on the set in November. Well, the movie has wrapped and in a matter of week, the actor has gained back most of the weight he’s lost.

“I was 135 pounds, and now I'm up to 160 pounds, so I'm done with that and on my way back," the proud Texan tells People. He revealed that his target weight is 165 pounds – slightly less than what he clocked in at before the movie.

When he was at his lowest point, McConaughey, who is nearly 6 feet tall, told HitFix.com that he dreamed about eating a cheeseburger when he was done filming and detailed how it would be prepared – down to a lob of Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise on the bun. Well, his dream came true. “I got the cheeseburger,” he tells People, “and then I sat there for 25 minutes and doozied it up."

McConaughey’s scary skinny frame had many of his fans worried, but he viewed his extreme weight loss as personal challenge."I just kinda dared myself,” he told Larry King. “I haven't been this light since I was in the ninth grade. I'm kind of looking at it as sort of a cleanse, it's a bit of a spiritual cleanse, mental cleanse."

And in his interview with HitFix, he said that through the process he discovered that his diet had more of an impact on his weight loss than his exercise regime did. "I'm doing cardio but I'll tell you what, the more I've learned is – and I think it comes with age, too – is it's 90 percent diet," he explained. "It's 90 percent amount and then what you're eating because right now I'm not losing any more weight if I burn 1,500 calories – two hours of cardio in an afternoon – or if I don't. It doesn't matter. It's a matter of how much I eat or how little I eat."

Speaking of eating, the movie star – who was honored for his work in “Magic Mike” (for which he buffed up to the extreme) and “Bernie” at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards this week – has one more mouth to feed at home. On December 28, his wife, Camila, gave birth to their third child – a son named Livingston … who’s still a couple of years away from his first cheeseburger.

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