Let’s use my numbers to demonstrate that point: I am a 28-year-old male who is 6-foot-3 and weights 261 pounds. My activity level is somewhere between moderately active and very active (hey, exercising five days a week is pretty damn active in my book). According to the calorie per day calculator, I burn 4,171 calories per day without exercising.

It takes 3,500 unburned calories to gain a pound, and 3,500 burned calories to lose a pound. Now, if I take in an average of 1,350 calories per day (which is about right for my plan right now), I will lose .806 pounds per day without exercising. Over a solid six days of eating well, I lose 3.2 pounds.

Now, to gain .806 pounds in a day, I would have to eat just about 7,000 calories. Here are several ways I could do that at McDonalds:

• 16 Double Cheeseburgers (440 calories each)
• 14 Quarter Pounders with Cheese (510)
• 14 McRibs (500)
• 13 Big Macs (540)
• 12 large orders of Fries. (570)
• 11 Premium Crispy Chicken Clubs (660)
• 9 Double Quarter Pounders with Cheese (740)

Now, I should note that I probably jacked that math up beyond belief, and those numbers don’t really make a lick of sense. Also, I should say that there are a TON of things I don’t know about the human body and weight gain. Nor am I advocating ordering one of all of those from McDonalds and eating it all in one sitting (but I bet I could do it), or ordering 16 double cheeseburgers and eating them in one sitting (I know I can’t do that).

But my point is that it takes a long time to really gain meaningful weight, just as it takes a long time to lose meaningful weight.

By the way, by my numbers, which we already know are probably wrong, if you are a 40-year-old, 5-foot-7 inch, 250 pound lightly active woman, you burn 2,402 calories per day. If you are on a 1,350 calorie per day diet, you will lose .3 pounds per day, and 1.8 per six days. In order to gain .3 pounds in a day, you have to eat 3,454 calories, or nearly eight double cheeseburgers.

So my point today is that fucking up isn’t the end of the world.

I know, I said that earlier, sorry I wasted your time with all this math.