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Last week I did such a good job of taking morning walks. Every morning I ignored the siren call of my alarm clock’s snooze button and lugged my sagging butt out of bed to pound pavement for nearly a half-hour.

This week?

I haven’t done squat.

Part of the reason is my innate laziness: sweating to the sunrise doesn’t hold nearly the appeal for me that sleeping in does. Part of it, though, is also due to my problems with foot pain.

Oh, I’ve bought new walking shoes with awesome support. But by the time I’m midway through my walk, I can’t feel the outside edges of my left foot aside from my pinkie toe which has felt, frankly, like someone was twisting it off. Slowly. And since I’ve been overcompensating for that pain, by the end of my walk my right ankle has felt like I’ve been on ice skates for hours.

It hurt. And, naturally (since there’s nothing else to do while walking) I started obsessing over all the possible causes.

Could I have rheumatoid arthritis? Is it a sign of peripheral arterial disease (PAD)? Should I start taking aspirin therapy or look into chelation to clear out my arteries?

This morning, I decided that foot pain or no foot pain, one of the best things I could do for my feet would be to reduce some of the poundage they have to carry around every day. So I got up, shrugged on my sweats and shoved my feet into shoes.

Or, rather, I tried to. Right about the time I was shoving my sore left foot into its shoe a Lego tumbled out.

That’s right: I’ve been walking for a week with a Lego in my shoe. No, I have no idea why I didn’t find it before. Yes, I’m pretty certain how it got there but I love the boy so I’m letting him live.

I’ll be walking again tomorrow morning, that’s for certain. By that time I can only hope my elderly neighbor has finally found a pair of underwear, because my out-of-shape heart can only take so much.

Since deciding that I’d start walking occasionally to lose weight, I’ve actually been somewhat good about it.

I didn’t even let the overdressed women who walk scare me off, although I admit I now wash my face then brush my teeth and hair before leaving the house. And, yes, I’m now wearing my “good” sweat suit over one of my funny t-shirts on my morning jaunt.

Now that I’ve been out a few times, I’m on a nodding acquaintance with some of the neighborhood’s walking women. Most hurry past, elbows jutting and hips akimbo, as they speed through their morning power-walking routine. Some, like me, prefer a more leisurely pace which means that we’re in each others’ line of sight for quite some time. That can actually get surprisingly awkward.

This morning, for instance, as I turned the corner onto the main street I saw a senior citizen walking woman coming toward me. I was just getting started so I hadn’t picked up my pace and she, well, she was going faster than any 75+-year-old woman I’ve seen recently but still comparatively slow.

That meant I had plenty of time to wonder: Do I just nod? Wave? Smile and make some inane remark about the weather we’re having? What is the protocol for greeting people you’ve begun to recognize as part of your morning routine without ever having exchanged names? As she approached, I saw something that quickly chased all such thoughts out of my mind.

See, while we were approaching each other head-on, someone behind her called out and she turned halfway toward them. The sun, which was starting to come up behind her, turned her figure into a silhouette. A very strange silhouette which looked oddly fuzzy. At first I thought it was my eyes, so I rubbed them as I continued to walk toward her, and she toward me.

But right about the time we were within a dozen feet of each other, I saw the cause of the fuzz: she was going commando, and her pubes were poking through those tiny little ventilation holes. Gray pubes. Wiry ones. Quite a bit of them, too, from what I could tell before I hurried past.

I hope she mistook my blush for a mid-workout glow.

I also hope she’s not going commando next time I see her walking because, honestly, there are some things I just don’t want to see first thing in the morning, and an old lady’s pubic hair is most certainly one of them.

I’ve heard of diets making all sorts of ridiculous claims, but a diet that promises to bring easier, more frequent orgasms? Now, that’s a first.

Now, I like orgasms as much as the next person… provided the next person isn’t ex-governor Spitzer. Not that I’m a candidate for sex addiction treatment, mind you. But who wouldn’t want to get their rocks off more reliably and with less effort, right?

That’s exactly what The Orgasmic Diet promises you’ll enjoy while eating some pretty yummy-sounding foods.

Of course, there are few catches:

• You’ll be eating low carbs because they’re ‘orgasm killers’.
• Expect to take nasty-smelling fish oil capsules in large quantities, too.
• Plan to perform regular Kegel exercises.
• You’ll also need to work on your “feel good” chemicals, serotonin and dopamine, which are also associated with blood flow to the genitals. (No, the author’s not suggesting illegal substances to spike those babies up, either.)
• Coffee or other forms of caffeine are prohibited.

It’s that last bit that got me. There’s no way I’m giving up my morning coffee or afternoon tea. That just puts the die into dieting, at which point better orgasms are pretty much irrelevant, aren’t they?

I’m really not sure what I did right over the past seven days, but I’ve managed to lose five — yes, five! — pounds. Oh, I know most of it’s probably water weight, but if I was carrying around that much excess water I can’t say I’ll shed a tear to see it go.

A couple of things I know I’ve been doing differently (and, apparently, right):

1. Eating breakfast every morning. Specifically, I’ve been eating All-Bran cereal. Yes it feels like chewing on bull bars and sticks until that split-second when the stuff turns to mush. But it’s most definitely filling and seems to keep things going smoothly, if you know what I mean.

2. Eating 5 servings of fruits/veggies daily without fail. Having a cup of sliced strawberries and banana on my All-Bran makes it go down easier and gets a fruit serving out of the way first-thing. I love celery sticks stuffed with Laughing Cow cheese, so my mid-morning snack knocks out a veggie serving. A salad at lunch, some chunks of cantaloupe around mid-afternoon, and whatever veg I’m serving at dinner takes care of the rest. Meanwhile, I’m too stuffed to think of snacking.

3. Safely satisfying my desire to chew. Sometimes I think I eat simply because I feel like chewing. I bought some Haribo gummy bears, which are fat free and high on the chewosity list. Ten of those suckers can keep my mouth busy for a good 20 minutes, after which my jaws are too worn out to think about eating again for a while.

4. Eating dinner earlier. I’ve lately wanted to get dinner and dishes out of the way so I can have some uninterrupted evening time to myself. As a result, we’re eating two hours earlier than we used to, which has cut out my pre-dinner snacks.

5. Early to bed, early to rise. I’m very bad about nighttime snacking, but going to bed earlier completely cuts out those snacks. It makes it easier to get up early in the morning, a time when I rarely feel hungry and find that All-Bran and fruit to be more than ample. Meanwhile, I’m getting my recommended hours of sleep, and since sleep may be more important to weight loss than diet, that’s got to be helping, too.

Who’d have thought that five simple steps would’ve made five pounds difference in such a short time?

I’d said before that I plan to get more exercise and hopefully lose weight by taking up walking this Spring. So this morning I did just that: I went for a walk. Oh, it hardly feels like spring around here yet — in fact, it was so foggy outside that I couldn’t see the end of my driveway when I stepped out my front door.

But I’ve been a bundle of nerves lately for reasons I’m not going to go into. I’ve tried long, hot baths and relaxing with a good book. I even gave myself a facial yesterday in the hope that it would mellow me out. Nothing has worked.

So I thought I’d try burning up some of my nervous energy by waking up early and going for a walk before my husband left for work. I rolled out of bed, jumped into the sweat suit and sneakers I’d left on the floor to make things easier on myself this morning, grabbed my iPod and was out the door within five minutes.

About five minutes into it, I heard distant voices in the fog. Women’s voices, all of them sounding far more perky than I felt at that point, having not even paused to for a cup of coffee before heading outside. I tried to take comfort in the fact that the fog would most likely prevent these women from discovering I also hadn’t brushed my hair or teeth yet, and that I’d apparently grabbed a mismatched pair of socks.

They sounded quite a ways behind me, so I hoped to reach the end of the route I’d set out for myself and be on my way home without having to encounter them. But in my hope I’d naively overlooked one thing: I’m out of shape, which means I walk a bit more slowly than those accustomed to moving their butts every morning.

Within moments they’d caught up with me, their skinny hips jutting out at odd angles as their elbows pumped in that odd power-walking stride. Oh, they were slender and fit all right: their spandex walking pants left no doubt about that. Apparently, they’re also incapable of sweating profusely like I was doing. Their hair and makeup remained so perfect that the only thing glistening on their bodies was their designer jewelry and immaculate manicures.

Fortunately, they disappeared into the fog before I had time to feign a cough as an excuse to hide my makeup-free face and cover up my nasty morning breath. I hurried along to my turn-around spot and practically raced to get back to my house, my coffee pot and my toothbrush.

Unfortunately, tomorrow’s forecast doesn’t call for fog in the morning, which means I’d have to wake up even earlier to go on my morning walk, what with all that tooth-brushing, hair-combing and makeup application that seems to be required.

I’ve had bad foot pain for the past two years. So bad, in fact, that my foot problems were part of what led to my diagnosis of fibromyalgia, although apparently the two things aren’t actually related. Instead, I have Morton’s toe, which basically means that my first two toes move upwards as I walk. The result is that my foot wobbles when I walk, much as if I were walking on ice skates all day.

By the end of most days, my feet and ankles feel like someone’s been beating on them with a baseball bat. Which makes sense, if you think about it: with every step my body weight rests on the outer edge of my foot, rather than being spread evenly, so my ankles and outside edge of my feet are getting quite the workout.

Not long ago, a friend suggested that I try foot exercises to strengthen my feet and ankle muscles, including one in which I basically walk around picking up things with my toes. Yes, it’s all a little odd-looking, but they’re definitely helping. My feet ache less at night, and most mornings I can actually set foot on the floor without breaking into tears.

So today while I was doing my little foot workout routine, a friend called to talk about her latest diet and exercise woes. As someone notoriously bad at calorie-counting, I wholly sympathize with her frustrations. At one point during our conversation I must have grunted or something, because she asked what I was doing.

“Uh, I’m working out,” I told her, not wanting to actually go into the details of how I was trying to wrap my toes around Bic pens and lift them from the floor. “Lifting stuff, you know, nothing strenuous.”

“OMG!” she blurted out. “Don’t you worry about bulking up and getting even bigger? I’d never, ever lift weights until I first shed some fat or else I might not be able to fit in my jeans.”

Suddenly, I imagined myself having big, beef toes rippling with muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s biceps, toes so mighty and strong that I could wrestle or hoist dumb bells with them. Toes so skilled at lifting things that I could operate the remote control or use them to pour coffee while I type. Toes so prehensile that I’d no longer need to wish I had a spare set of hands, so long as I wasn’t encumbered by footwear.

Which is why I’m now looking into bladder exercises. Because chubby women with weak abdominal muscles should never, ever laugh that hard.

Dr. Sarah Heller reported on this morning’s Today Show that B-vitamins and magnesium are play a role in weight-loss, and that too little of either or both can dramatically slow metabolism. And, of course, she insisted that everyone interested in losing weight absolutely must eat breakfast.

Problem is, I’m not a breakfast person. Or, more accurately, I’m not a cereal person. I also don’t like cooking first-thing in the morning, but if someone else does the cooking I’m happy to scarf down Eggs Benedict or an old-fashioned British fry-up. Those, unfortunately, don’t help the battle of the bulge at all and, besides, hiring someone to whip them up for me is a bit cost-prohibitive.

So mostly I skip breakfast and try to drown out the nagging little voice (which sounds much like my mother’s) that tells me it’s “the most important meal of the day”. See, I already know that voice is lying: the most important is the one I’m eating next.

But I do get the point: breakfast is a good way to get the metabolism going, and making it high in whole grains may reduce belly fat, my biggest body bugaboo.

Still, is it asking too much for a study finding that martinis are good at reducing an ass that’s soon going to need led tail lights?

Being 40-something sucks. There’s just something about that age that’s neither here nor there: I’m no spring chicken, but anyone out of their ‘teens protests when I say I feel old. In the grand scheme of things, I’m not… and yet my brain can’t help recognizing that I’m no spring chicken anymore, either.

Not that my brain’s willing to accept that fact, mind you. It’s does a nice job of blanking out this fact: whenever I’m asked my age I start to answer, “Oh, I’m thirty-tw… uh… forty? Yeah, forty.” My brain doesn’t even acknowledge what my eyes attempt to make it recognize, either. When I look into the mirror I don’t see my face being any different from when I was in my early 30s. Then again, I don’t see much difference in my body from then, either… even though the scale and my clothing sizes tell a much, much different story.

But the truly annoying part of being 40-something: dealing simultaneously with both gray hair and pimples, oily skin and wrinkles, taking Midol for menstrual cramps and progesterone for hot flashes, while squirming into hip huggers and support hose. It’s a not-quite-here-nor-there age when adding Metamucil to Red Bull makes perfect sense.

My doctor tells me that I should enjoy this age, since “forty is the new thirty” and, besides, menopause is right around the corner. He says that latter part like it’s a bad thing, but to me it means an end to monthly cramps, breakouts and bloating and an eventual end to the annoying hot flashes that have me changing clothes more often than a teenage girl.

Besides, as soon as The Change hits I’ll be able to get away with wearing Mom Jeans again, which means no longer having to spend hours shopping for a blouse that hides my muffin top without making me look pregnant. It also means no one would ever glance at my stomach and ask “When are you due?” They’d know what they’re looking at is fat, just as I’ve known it for a couple of years now, too.

My husband and I were invited to attend one of those murder mystery dinners this weekend. We’ve gone to these things a few times in the past, and both of us have been struck with how much they feel like play-dates for adults: there’s always a hostess trying to marshal everyone into their places and get the activities started, along with a dozen or so attendees who want to know when they’re going to be fed.

This particular party is at the home of a friend who’s a die-hard vegan. That means two things to us. First, we’ll have to eat before we go have dinner at her place, because my husband thinks a meal without meat is, basically, crap. Second, she’s almost certain to be wearing one of those sexy costumes designed to show us meat-eaters how much better her life is for subsisting on lettuce leaves and sprouts.

Which is fine, really. See, she’s had a long-time crush on my husband, so in the past three murder mystery dinners she’s thrown she’s cast herself as the victim and me as the villain. And, frankly, if she tries passing off wilted romaine and mealy tomatoes as dinner again, there might not be much of a “mystery” to solve.

Today is one of those “false Spring” days when the sun is just a tad brighter, the air just a bit warmer than it’s been in weeks. Not that the temperatures actually qualify as warm, mind you: it’s still just 34°F outside, but that’s a good 20 degrees higher than it was a week ago.

On days like this I tend to start thinking about gardening: planting spinach, lettuce, sweet peas and other cool-weather crops. It looks like it would be a good day to do just that, but I know better. I’ve dug in a bit too early for three years in a row now, only to lose my tender plants to a late snowstorm that no one saw coming.

This year, instead of getting ready for Spring by meddling in the garden, I decided I’d do something a little less labor-intensive… like shopping. I’m in dire need of something to wear besides sweatshirts and sweatpants, and the Big-Eyed Boy has grown so much over the winter that his jeans now look like he’s wearing capris.

Unfortunately, despite nearly two hours at the local mall, I still haven’t found anything suitable. It seems that clothing manufacturers figure that all women with bulging bellies are either in the market for maternity clothes or unnaturally drawn to cute cartoon characters.

Oh, there are plenty of roomy muffin-top disguising swing blouses available… in pastels normally suited to a newborn’s nursery. And there are oodles of sweatshirts featuring bunnies and duckies, some even with sequins. I’d rather be shot before wearing something that cutesy.

Which is why I suppose I’m glad this is a false Spring; I have that much more time to shed a bit of belly weight before trying to squeeze into a blouse that doesn’t make me look like I’m ready to give birth any moment.