It’s not that I didn’t know that before. It’s just that there were (are) times I chose not to acknowledge that. Over the last two months, I have had days where I didn’t think I needed to exercise, basically because I was lazy.

I wrote about this a few weeks ago, and it was something of an obvious epiphany. But one day I left the gym after a workout, and suddenly thought to myself, “Every time I come here, I am one small step closer to reaching my goal.” Though I can say that after every 1,600 calorie day, it doesn’t have the same impact. After all, I have to eat, so it only makes sense to make better choices in that regard. But I don’t have to ellipticise at all. Not doing it won’t kill me or cause severe physical distress. So that is an extra, though vitally important, step that I have involved in this process.

2. Weigh-ins. They’ve been a controversial topic for the first two months of The Fortress, mostly because of my inconsistent actions toward them.

However, something else dawned on me Sunday morning. I woke up 24 hours after weighing in at 272 and I decided to get on the scale. Know what it said? 273. Did I somehow gain a pound while eating only 1,600 calories the day before? Not possible, as far as I know. Did not exercising on Saturday somehow add 3,500 calories to my body? No it didn’t. So I thought for a second, calmly and without frustration I might add, and realized two things: A) I drank two cups of tea after midnight on Saturday, and B) I didn’t take a shit at all on Saturday (sorry to bring that up, but everybody poops).

Ah, the variables. I’ve always known they were there, and I was ready for them this time. At the start of this, gaining a pound after a good day would have sent me into a deep depression. But Sunday I shrugged it off, said to myself, “Yep, that’s why I don’t weigh in every day,” and went on with my day. Why?

Well, I understand it all now. It’s not a question of whether daily weigh-ins work better than weekly or twice-weekly weigh-ins, it’s just a matter of what information you can handle and how you understand your body. So if I weigh in once a week, twice a week, or three times a day, it doesn’t really matter as long as I can account for the numbers on the screen.