1.2 pounds shaved off weight-loss quest

The "London Underground" badge announcement from Fitbit was unexpected. Fitbit tells me I have walked 250 miles, and that is the same length as the world's first underground highway. "This triumph really lays the tracks for some big things in the future," the e-mail message reads.

That badge partly explains why I was able to lose 1.2 pounds of weight in the past week. As my husband can attest, I worked out like a maniac, getting some 18,000 steps yesterday, the hardest workout day, and lifting weights for 25 minutes on three occasions ... (I could not wait to be done and now am enjoying two days of rest.)

A question on my Facebook stream wondered on why I set a goal of losing just 5 pounds. Well, it's actually a quest to get back to the 130's. For 11 years, I explained, I've been as low as 133 pounds, and as much as 139 pounds. It wasn't until I turned 60 years old in December, and took a long, fun vacation, that the weight creeped, and creeped, up over 140, to 143.6 pounds last week.

I don't want to back-track after more than a decade of regular exercise, and I thought writing a blog would help. It has!

According to Fitbit, I walked at least 10,000 steps, or five miles, each day. I also lifted weights. The U.S. Government guidelines are for those, 18-64 years old, to spend two days a week on strength exercises.

What also happened:

* On Tuesday, I walked about 55 minutes, at 3.5 miles-per-hour, and ran during commercials on HG-TV. As I entered the sixth mile of all this, I started coughing. And coughing. I hacked away, until my husband, in another part of the house, asked what was going on.

I actually think it was my body saying "enough already." I took some over-the-counter medicine and got nine hours of sleep to rebound on Wednesday.

* On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, we went out to eat with friends and family members. This included me having beers with burgers & fries, which were luscious.

* I avoided sweets all week, Sunday-Thursday, and put a sharp limit on salty treats. (But I just had a mini-Mounds bar, today ... Yum!)

* For the most part, I ate most of the day's food before 6 p.m. One way to help to lose weight, especially for women, is to finish eating in early evening and not to snack before bedtime.

As for next week, I'm hoping to calm down a bit, but to continue the heathy habits that hopefully help get me "back to normal" in the next month or so.

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