For instance, five minutes ago I weighed myself with sweatpants on. I was 274.4. Not bad, I figure, for 1:30 a.m. nearly fully clothed. And another thing: After I wrote the last sentence, I stripped down to my socks and weighed myself again. 273.4. So I guess I lost a pound in five minutes, or I eliminated the variable of the sweatpants.

One other weigh-in note. After getting a quick and very light breakfast at 9 a.m. Saturday morning after weighing 272, I had to cover a basketball game for work. I came back around 2 p.m. and decided to weigh myself just for fun. I was 271.6.

Actually, I’ve probably weighed myself 10 times in the last two days, varying from 276 to 271.6.

I guess my point in this inane rambling is that the frequency of weighing in only matters if you aren’t mentally ready for the numbers you might see. You can’t freak out if you gain a pound or two, just like you can’t let up if you lose a pound or two. Instead, you have to understand what is happening to your body, and realize that the numbers on the scale are just a measurement of your actions.

So my whole bullshit of “official” and “unofficial” weigh-ins was just a copout in order to ease the pain of a few bad days.

I’ll continue to weigh-in as I see fit, most likely the twice a week schedule I’ve become comfortable with. But I understand now that my actions are what count the most, not what the numbers on the scale tell me.