07 Sep Lose Weight Eating All the Butter You Want

I figure I’m walking on average of 10 miles per day – at least. Several days I’ve pushed 12 or 13.

Accordingly to sources online, Paris is about 9 miles east to west and 6 north to south at its widest points. Paris proper is bound by an oval-shaped perimeter, the Peripherique, which measures 22 miles long. It girds 33-1/2 square miles of one of the most walkable cities in the world.

Paris’ beltway is roughly a third the length of Atlanta’s perimeter which measures 69 miles, or DC’s Capital Beltway at 64-miles. If my calculations are correct, I’ve walked enough this week to circle this entire city almost 4 times.

The city’s subway stations rarely have elevators or escalators available to bipedal commoners like me. Yesterday I found the city’s most treacherous, the ‘Abbesses Station’ near Montmartre. Surely its name comes from the same Latin root as our word ‘abyss.’ At 118 feet below street level, it’s the deepest in all of Paris. If you can climb its 200 steps plus another 225 to reach Sacré-Cœur, you should receive an Olympic medal. I opted out. Only thing I would have received would’ve been a free ambulance ride.

Wait. I’m not finished.

{ click to enlarge }

Our little abode was advertised as a ‘7th floor apartment with elevator.’ Yes, that charming little filigreed elevator worked just fine for the first 4 or 5 days. But we’re now into Day 8 and it’s still not fixed. To add to the pain, the French count the first floor as the ground floor. So, EIGHT stories is what we’ve actually climbed – several times daily. (A hint: when you’re fixing dinner and realize you’re short on wine . . . think about those steps and the grape becomes a less important food group.)

Graffiti in La Butte aux Cailles

A long way of saying . . . I feel great after a week of all this exercise. My heart’s pumping away, flushing out the almost 1-stick-per-day of butter I’m consuming. I’ve lost 86 pounds and my cheeks are rosy.

Life couldn’t be better.