I just got back from Italy and visiting Rome and the Amalfi Coast it was a beautiful place and the history of the sites are amazing. After realizing that the diet consistent of Bread, Pasta, Cheese, and Salami. Being it’s on a Pizza, some pasta, or some type of giant bread sandwich with lil bits of meat on it. They also drink wine and slam espresso of some type. This diet got me thinking how fat and un healthy I would get if I ate this all the time and what a bad diet it really is. Well after a 2 weeks of eating like this I came to find out that I lost weight during the trip. Why is this, well I will tell you why Europeans can eat carbs and refined sugars and not be super fat like Americans. Here are the reasons why Italians are not fat like Americans:
1. They Walk Everywhere: We we’re so active seeing all the sites we probably walked 5 miles per day, I’m sure most Italians rack up 1 mile per day on average which is far more active than most Americans. More activity keeps the fat off and the body healthy. (1 mile of walking is about 1 hour of walking per day, imagine if you walked for an hour per day.)
2. They Eat Much Smaller Portions: Eating less food and less calories make people not get so fat because they consume less calories. You only see the gluttonous Americans go back for seconds and slam their food down. They spend much more time enjoying food and taking their time to chew and relax and not over eat.
3. Much lower stress lives: Being that they don’t rush from place to place and most business shut down for a few hours per day and don’t open until like 9 allows much more free time rest and recover and not be stressed with life. The night life is much more frequent and people tend to talk and chat more with each other compared to most Americans.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t think there in amazing shape, Americans that do workout and eat good have much better bodies as a whole, though overall they are less obese as a whole as we are. It’s really simple why they are much more smaller people because of these few things. If we walked more and ate less you wouldn’t see as much obese Americans as well. Their diet by no means is healthy for anyone, but their lifestyle compensates for their bad diet which makes a huge difference in why their considered more healthier than Americans.
i love italy and italians! you have some interesting perspective within your blog, thank you so much…