NIAGARA FALLS — I owe my trainer Chris Tybor an apology.  Apparently, I don’t know everything. In fact, after ten months at ChrisFit Personal Training, I still have a lot to learn.

The latest, and possibly the most brutal, example of this was a disagreement Chris and I had on why I have gone on a roller coaster ride recently when it comes to results on the scale.

Up 4, down 6, up 6, down 8.

That all adds up to a four pound loss during the month of January. Don’t get me wrong, I welcome any loss. The problem is I am not satisfied and know it could have been at least a few pounds more.

Chris explains the fluctuation is a result of me not tracking my foods properly and either overeating or undereating.

I countered with the argument that there’s some extraordinary circumstance that, no matter what I do, magically adds weight to my body on a Saturday morning when just two days earlier it was much less.

Guess who won that argument?

The truth is I don’t intentionally lie to Chris. When he asks me almost on a daily basis if I am hitting my food goals, I don’t hesitate to answer back “of course,” “yes,” or “no problem.”

But the more appropriate responses would be, “I am pretty sure,” “I think,” or “hopefully.”

That’s because I am not as consistent with my food tracking seven days a week. I use an online program at www.fitday.com which allows you to input goals, add and save custom foods or search its database for the nutrition rundown. It’s pretty simple to use — but there are still times when I am rushing and don’t have time to log onto my computer and enter what I plan on eating for the entire day to make sure I am hitting the calories, fat and carbohydrate benchmarks Chris has set for me.

So I guestimate.

I have been able to memorize the things I eat every day, such as chicken, protein power, low-fat cheese sticks, nuts, thin bagels, my favorite flavors of Yoplait Light Yogurt and the mini cups of tropical fruit or pineapple chunks.

But then I will forget to actually pack the pineapple chunks so I will go to the store and buy a different fruit cup that doesn’t include the nutritional content. It may be only a few carbs plus or minus difference but it adds up (or down) fast.

Which is why I was completely in the wrong at the end of a recent heated exchange with Chris, during which I got angry that he didn’t trust me when I said “I AM HITTING MY NUMBERS!”

His response was “How do you know for sure if you are not tracking every day.”

Game, Set, Match. Tybor.

It really made me come to grips with how much — or how little — I am tracking. Specifically on the weekends when the normal eating routine is thrown out the window and I am usually bouncing from one obligation to the next that I convince myself it is impossible to keep track of everything or hit my numbers exactly.

So I guestimate more.

The end result is I go over my allotted numbers on Saturday and Sundays — sometimes by a lot. Then I make it worse by trying to compensate for the overeating by cutting my food intake on Monday. It seems logical, but judging by my recent weight swings, it has a lot of flaws.

As Chris put it, Saturday through Monday represents almost half of the week I am not tracking. Basically, I am sabotaging my efforts over the other four days. He ended the dispute by saying I am working too hard at the gym to ruin it by overeating or undereating. It’s a message he’s delivered a few times before — typically when I hit similar roller coaster rides — but I think it has finally sunk in.

So I repeat, I am sorry and I know that I am not smarter than my trainer.

Moving forward, I vow to TRACK EVERYTHING. I even downloaded the FitDay App on my new iPhone, so I have no excuse not to log everything in and hit my points exactly — even on the weekends.

It’s time to get off of this roller coaster ride.

Rick Forgione is a former city editor at the Niagara Gazette, now working for the Niagara Falls public school district. He can be reached at features@niagara-gazette.com.